The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965

by Michael Phayer

Book Overview

"Phayer offers exactly what was needed. . . . A fair and even-tempered account of a volatile subject." --Kirkus Reviews

"An important addition to the literature of the Holocaust." --Publishers Weekly

"Very valuable . . . a fine and judicious book." --Istv n De k, The New York Review of Books

"Phayer has written a singularly important book on the role of the Catholic Church in both the Holocaust and its aftermath, up to and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253214718
• ISBN13: 9780253214713
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (Ips)
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.1"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Get Your Facts Straight First

Before I form an opinion or rush to judgement on any subject, I like to get my facts straight first. I will do research to get differing viewpoints. This book is a step in that direction. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The definitive story

This book removed itself from all of the hype, defensiveness and trash talking that seems to surround this topic. Michael Phayer approached the topic systematically and objectively and in so doing has produced a book that for me seems to be the definitive work on this subject. A must read for anyone interested in the history of Pius XII and the Holocaust.

Fair and thorough

This book explains the response of the Catholic Church to the Nazi Government and the Holocaust. Coverage is given to time periods before, during, and after the Holocaust. Ample coverage is given to actions of the Church and individual Catholics that were praiseworthy and to actions or nonactions that were shameful. There was much of both.Unlike many other books and customer reviewers on this subject, the author appears not to have a particular bias that colors his analysis and assessment of every topic covered. The book is neither a blanket condemnation nor a blind hagiography. As such,I recommend it highly.

The truth will set you free

Michael Phayer has a long and proven academic record in Holocaust studies. This work is no exception, indeed it may well be one of the most significant works on the Holocaust to be written in the last 25 years. Setting parameters for examining the role of the Catholic Church that extends beyond the customary years 1933 to 1945, Phayer creates a context that helps the reader understand the complex issued surrounding the papacies of Pius XI and Pius XII. At the end of the day, Pius XII was faced with a situation that he had seen developing for many years. Intelligent, articulate and devouted to serving the Church, Pacelli was also autocratic and filled with a sense of the importance of his office that failed to recognise the changing political realities of the 1930s through to the 1950s. Bolshevism, rampant nationalism, pseudo-scientific racism and the rule of the Dictators faced the Popes during the inter-war years. Fearing Bolshevism as the greater evil than Fascism, both Pius XI and XII did the proverbial "deal with the devil", unwittingly allied themselves to Fascism, and reaped the whirlwind. Compromise after compromise eroded the Church's ability at the top to act decisively. Quibbles over canon law and mixed Catholic-Jewish marriages as people were arrested and beaten point to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Nazism and Fascism in general. When the trains began to roll east, Pius appears to have stuck his head in the sand and wished the whole thing would go away.Phayer demonstrates convincingly Pius's longing to be seen as the great peacemaker in Europe. Nothing could stand in the way of achieving this dream, not even a public condemnation of a killing and bloodletting unparalleled in human history. Papal apologists have spent so much time explainging away the "silence" of Pius XII they have forgotten the essence of the office the all too human Pacelli held: to feed the sheep.Pius XII and the Church structure of the 1930s through to Vatican II proved itself unable and often unwilling to recognise the need for dialogue with the world. It took the peasant simplicity and infectious humanity of Angelo Roncalli to cut through the moribund Vatican systems and the equally moribund and death-giving antisemitic theology of the Church to create an opportunity for confronting the past truthfully. It would not spell the end of the church to admit that Pius XII made some serious errors of judgement during his papacy. To continue to deny the pope's moral culpability is to deny the increasing body of archival material that tells a different story to that posed by Pacelli's defenders. Phayer's book makes a serious judgement about the reigns of Pius XI and Pius XII but does so without malice, and avoids the sweeping generaliztions that characterised much of John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope.Phayer's book is a product of meticulous research and patient piecing together of historical evidence from a variety of sources, including the V

An Exceptional Study

This recent work on the Holocaust is an important addition to the ongoing debate about the role of the Catholic Church and the papacy under Pope Pius XII during World War II. Unlike other recent works, there is an objectivity and balance to Phayer's attempt to understand and explain the role of the Church during the Holocaust. Rooted in archival and secondary research, Phayer serves as an historical corrective at times to Cornwell's HITLER'S POPE. This work is comprehensive in scope as it deals with the nature of genocide in Europe and the failure of the papacy at times to confront this evil. Not only does the author concern himself here with the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but also with incidents of genocide in Croatia by a pro-Catholic government against the Serbs. More importantly, the scope of the work extends beyond the Vatican to examine the positions of European Catholic clergy confronting the Holocaust. The reader is faced with the stories of heroic rescuers of Jews as well as the anti-Semtism and/or indifference of others. Phayer's examination of the roles of several Catholic women is also significant, as the results of their courageous work would positively influence a later generation of German Catholc clergy after the war. This work is to be commended also for concluding its study with the development of the Catholic document NOSTRA AETATE toward the Jewish community in the era of Vatican Council II. In sum, this is a work that is noteworthy for its research and disturbing for its frank criticism of Catholic Church leadership during the Holocaust. It should be required reading for classes on the Holocaust.