Michael: Alright Kevin, quick question. If you had to describe Pope Pius XII's WWII strategy in a single, brutal, roasting one-liner, what would it be? Kevin: Ooh, that's tough. I'd probably go with: 'Hoping the crocodile eats you last.' A bit dark, but it sets the stage, right? Michael: Perfectly dark, and it cuts right to the heart of the book we're tackling today: The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David I. Kertzer. Kevin: And this isn't Kertzer's first rodeo with the Vatican, right? He won a Pulitzer for his book on the previous Pope, Pius XI. Michael: Exactly. And for this one, he got access to Vatican archives that were sealed for decades and only opened in 2020. So this isn't just another history book; it's built on explosive new evidence. Kevin: That’s incredible. So we’re getting a look behind a curtain that’s been closed for almost a century. Michael: We are. And that new evidence paints an incredible picture of a Vatican completely divided against itself, right on the eve of war. It’s a story of high-stakes political chess where the players are wearing cassocks and the board is all of Europe.

Kevin: A divided Vatican? I think most people, myself included, imagine the Pope as this single, absolute authority. The idea of an internal power struggle right as Hitler is rising sounds like the plot of a thriller. Michael: It absolutely reads like one. To understand it, we have to go back to May 1938. Mussolini is desperate to show off his new best friend, Adolf Hitler, who is making his first and only state visit to Rome. The city is completely transformed. Swastika flags are flying everywhere, even around the Colosseum. It's a massive propaganda spectacle. Kevin: I can just picture it. The sheer visual of that must have been jarring for Romans. The heart of Catholicism draped in Nazi symbols. Michael: Jarring is an understatement. And Hitler, for his part, is not even that impressed. The book has this amazing detail where, according to protocol, Hitler has to be hosted by the Italian King, Victor Emmanuel III. They're riding in this old-fashioned, horse-drawn carriage, and Hitler, the man obsessed with tanks and modern power, leans over and mutters, "Have they not heard of the invention of the motor car?" Kevin: Wow. So even within this grand alliance, there's this undercurrent of disdain. Hitler thinks the Italians are stuck in the past. Michael: Precisely. But the real drama is happening a few blocks away, inside the Vatican. Pope Pius XI is watching this unfold, and he is absolutely furious. This is a man who, despite initially having a working relationship with Mussolini, has come to see Hitler as a pure evil, a "pagan" force trying to destroy the Church. Kevin: So what does he do? Does he just issue a strongly worded letter? Michael: He does something far more dramatic. He makes a huge public statement without saying a word. First, he announces he's leaving Rome for his summer palace at Castel Gandolfo, signaling he wants no part of this. Then, he orders the Vatican museums closed for the duration of Hitler's visit. And the final touch, the most powerful one, is he orders the lights that normally illuminate the magnificent dome of St. Peter's Basilica to be turned off. Kevin: That gives me chills. The entire city is lit up for the Führer, and the one beacon of the Catholic world goes dark in protest. That’s a powerful symbolic gesture. Michael: It's a cinematic moment. And he doesn't stop there. He publicly laments the spectacle, calling the swastika "the sign of another cross that is not the Cross of Christ." It's a direct, unambiguous condemnation. He is drawing a moral line in the sand. Kevin: That’s incredibly brave. You’d think everyone in the Vatican would be behind that kind of moral clarity. Michael: You would think. But this is where the division becomes so stark. His number two, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, sees this very differently. Pacelli is the man who will, in less than a year, become Pope Pius XII. Kevin: Okay, so this is the man at the center of the whole controversy. What was his take on the Pope’s protest? Michael: Pacelli was a master diplomat. He had spent years as the papal nuncio, the Vatican's ambassador, in Germany. He was aristocratic, cautious, and deeply pragmatic. And he looked at the Pope's grand, defiant gesture and thought it was dangerously reckless. He believed that publicly antagonizing Hitler would only make things worse for the millions of Catholics living under Nazi rule. Kevin: Hold on. So the Pope is making this huge moral stand, and his second-in-command is basically in the corner, wringing his hands and telling him to cool it? Why? What was Pacelli's logic? Michael: His logic was that open confrontation was a losing game. He believed the Church’s power lay in diplomacy, in quiet negotiation, in making deals behind the scenes. He saw the Pope’s actions as emotional and counterproductive, something that would provoke the bear rather than tame it. Kevin: It’s a classic head versus heart dilemma, isn't it? The Pope is operating from a place of moral outrage, while his Secretary of State is playing a cold, political chess game. Michael: Exactly. And Kertzer lays out this contrast so brilliantly. You have Pius XI, old and ailing but full of fire, who sees a fundamental battle between good and evil. And you have Pacelli, the consummate insider, who sees a complex geopolitical problem that needs to be managed, not fought. This isn't just a policy disagreement; it's a fundamental clash of worldviews happening inside the most powerful religious institution on Earth, just as the world is about to catch fire.

Kevin: That question I asked—'why?'—it feels like the central question of the whole book. Why would Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, favor this quiet, cautious approach when faced with the sheer evil of Nazism? Michael: Because Pacelli had a completely different threat assessment. For him, the number one existential enemy, the ultimate evil in the world, wasn't Nazism. It was Communism. Kevin: Really? More than the regime building concentration camps and preaching racial hatred? Michael: From his perspective, yes. The Soviet Union was officially atheist. It had brutally persecuted the Church. Nazism, on the other hand, was something he thought he could negotiate with. He saw Germany, even Nazi Germany, as a necessary "bulwark against Communism." He believed that if Germany fell, Communism would sweep across Europe, and that would be the end of the Church. Kevin: That feels like a massive, catastrophic miscalculation. It's like worrying about a leaky faucet when the entire house is on fire. Did he not see what was happening to the Jews, the racial laws, the escalating violence? Michael: He saw it, but he filtered it through this lens of diplomatic pragmatism. His signature achievement, before becoming Pope, was negotiating a "Concordat" with Hitler's Germany in 1933. This was a formal treaty meant to protect the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. Kevin: And how did that work out? Let me guess: Hitler completely ignored it. Michael: Of course. He violated it almost immediately. But for Pacelli, the treaty itself was the point. It gave the Vatican a legal basis to protest, a channel for communication. He believed in the power of these diplomatic instruments. He thought the alternative—public denunciation—would lead to what he called a "war of religion" and would result in even more suffering for German Catholics. He was trying to protect the institution. Kevin: So it’s a strategy of institutional self-preservation, almost at any cost. The argument is, 'If we speak out too loudly, the Church itself might be destroyed, and then we can't help anyone.' Michael: That's the most charitable interpretation, and it's the one his defenders have held for decades. They argue he worked tirelessly behind the scenes, using quiet diplomacy to save as many people as he could. But Kertzer's research, using these new archives, adds a truly devastating layer to this story. Kevin: I'm bracing myself. What did he find? Michael: He found concrete proof of what was lost when the fiery Pope Pius XI died and the cautious Cardinal Pacelli took his place. In the final months of his life, Pius XI had secretly commissioned an American Jesuit priest to draft a powerful encyclical—a major papal document—that would be a full-throated condemnation of racism and antisemitism. It was to be called Humani Generis Unitas, or The Unity of the Human Race. Kevin: Whoa. So a direct, powerful condemnation from the Pope was in the works? A document specifically targeting the core tenets of Nazi ideology? Michael: Yes. And it gets even more dramatic. Pius XI was scheduled to give a major speech on the tenth anniversary of his treaty with Mussolini's Italy, in February 1939. He planned to use the occasion to denounce the Axis alliance and Mussolini's embrace of Nazi racial laws. He had the speech written. He was ready to deliver it to all the bishops of Italy. Mussolini's spies knew about it and were in a panic. They saw the Pope as their biggest obstacle. Kevin: This is unbelievable. So what happened? Michael: Pope Pius XI died. He died the night before the speech was to be given. Kevin: You're kidding me. The night before? That's... that's almost too cinematic to be real. Michael: It's historical fact. And what happened next is the crux of Kertzer's argument. The man who takes charge of the Vatican is the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli. He is elected Pope just a few weeks later, taking the name Pius XII. And one of his first acts? He orders all copies of that fiery, anti-Nazi speech to be collected and destroyed. The secret encyclical against antisemitism? It's buried in the archives, never to be seen. Kevin: Wow. So a direct, powerful condemnation from the highest moral authority in the West was ready to go, and it just... disappeared. It was actively suppressed. That's devastating. That changes the entire narrative from 'he was silent' to 'he chose silence.' Michael: It reframes the entire debate. The path of moral confrontation, the one Pius XI was about to embark on, was deliberately abandoned. The new Pope, Pius XII, chose a different path: the path of caution, diplomacy, and what the world would come to know as his great, controversial silence.

Kevin: Hearing that story about the suppressed speech... it's just a gut punch. It makes the whole debate about Pius XII so much more tragic. It wasn't just an absence of a voice; it was the deliberate silencing of one. Michael: Exactly. And that's the power of Kertzer's work, backed by these new documents. It moves the story from speculation to evidence. The book shows that the Vatican's path during the war wasn't inevitable. There was a fork in the road. One pope, Pius XI, was ready to take the path of open, moral confrontation, regardless of the consequences. Kevin: And the other, Pius XII, chose the path of quiet diplomacy, believing it was the only way to protect the Church and its followers. But in doing so, he sacrificed that clear, public moral voice at the very moment the world needed to hear it most. Michael: The book doesn't portray Pius XII as a monster or a Nazi sympathizer. It paints him as a deeply cautious, traditional, aristocratic churchman who was terrified of Communism and convinced of his own diplomatic prowess. He made a calculated decision based on his worldview, and that decision has echoed through history, leaving this legacy of profound moral ambiguity. Kevin: It leaves you with this haunting 'what if.' What if Pius XI had lived just one more day? What if that speech had been given? What if that encyclical had been published? We can never know, but it makes you think about the immense, almost unbearable weight of a single person's decision in a moment of crisis. Michael: It really does. It forces us to ask a question that is still incredibly relevant today: when faced with overwhelming evil, is it better to shout from the rooftops, even if it costs you everything, or to work quietly in the shadows, hoping to save a few? Kertzer's book doesn't give an easy answer, but it lays out the stakes of that choice with chilling clarity. Kevin: And that's a question we'd love to hear your thoughts on. Find us on our social channels and let us know what you think. It's a heavy one, but an important one. It’s about what we expect from our leaders, and from ourselves, when history comes calling. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.