The Pope at War

Magnificent... Kertzer is a gifted writer ... He is also to be congratulated on avoiding polemic. It would have been easy, given the evidence, to have suffused the pages with moral outrage. But because he lays the facts bare and presents all sides of the argument, he lets readers come to their own conclusion. And that conclusion ought to be a devastating one ... What a tragedy, the reader might think after finishing this groundbreaking book, that the Pope did not "love" the Jews as much as he "loved" Germany. * Laurence Rees, Daily Telegraph *
The Pope at War is the idea that it does not matter whether we are popes, prime ministers, or chancellors. Rather, our failings and shortcomings as individuals (of any station) can result in crimes whose magnitude boggles the mind; thus, even as we castigate the pontiff, we look inwards in ways at once discomfiting and necessary. * Giuliana Chamedes, Times Literary Supplement *
An engrossing, often exciting and sometimes moving book. * Richard J. Evans, London Review of Books *
The Pope at War shares with its two predecessors a dramatic sense of history. * Hilmar M. Pabel, The Tablet *
Compelling * Elisabeth Braw, Engelsberg Ideas *
...One of the best accounts of [Pius, the] wartime pontificate. Kertzer had already acquired a reputation as an elegant stylist with a commanding gift for explanation. That reputation will be further burnished by this tome. * Miles Pattenden, Australian Book Review *
A book, which, to all intents and unequivocal purposes, is even more rightly pugilist in its undertaking, than those for whom power and the ducking and diving of the truth has become an elongated second nature of distorted discourse. * David Marx, David Marx Book Reviews *
A thorough exploration of the Vatican archives for the pontificate of Pope Pius XII has long been awaited. David I. Kertzer's splendid book now provides it, presenting a plethora of highly unflattering evidence of the pope's role during the Second World War and his silence regarding the Holocaust. The book ends much of the debate about the pope and surely makes any lingering apologia for his stance implausible. * Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler: A Biography *
A magisterial new study of how the Vatican navigated World War II and why Pope Pius XII stayed silent in the face of the mass murder of Jews. * Ruth Ben-Ghirt, Professor of History and Italian Studies, New York University *
Disputes over the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II have been hopelessly mired either in sanctimony or hostility because of gaps in the historical record. David Kertzer's supremely well-informed analysis of the newly opened Vatican archives now establishes once and for all the massive scale of the pope's moral failure in the face of Europe's conflagration and Hitler's murder of six million Jews. If the faint-hearted pope was no war criminal, he was surely no saint. With Kertzer's magnum opus, the book on Pius XII is written, the dispute resolved, case closed. * James Carroll, author of Constantine's Sword *
Not many expected the memory of Pope Pius XII's dealing with Jews during World War II to be sweetened by the recent opening of Vatican archives from that period. But who could have guessed how sordid the revelations would be? David I. Kertzer has the learning and courage to read the new documents and show what deep slime the Vatican was wading in during Pius XII's papacy. Brace yourself for a story full of horrors. * Garry Willis, author of Why I Am a Catholic *
David I. Kertzer has outdone himself and crowned his extraordinary career with this volume on Pope Pius XII. He writes a simply riveting account with a worldwide cast of characters that includes Mussolini, Hitler, FDR, Churchill, and Eisenhower. This remarkably researched book is replete with revelations that deserve the adjective 'explosive' and with so much more. The book is a masterpiece. * Kevin Madigan, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Harvard University *
Kertzerâ restricts himself for the most part to a sober, factual narrative, avoiding facile expressions of moral outrage. * Richard J. Evans, London Review of Books *