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JAN. 5 FEB. 13

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Winner of 3 Drama Desk
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llitler's Pope'

John Cornwell's new book examines the Vatican's
response to the Nazis and Pope Pius XII's failure
to speak out against the Final Solution.

The Purple Rose Theatre Company Production of

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ohn Cornwell's Hitler's Pope
(Penguin Group; $29.95)
may not be the definitive
book on Pope Pius XII, but
it surely provides a new dimension
to the questions surrounding papal
activity during the
Holocaust.
Past books and arti-
cles have focused on
Pius XII's anti-commu
nism and how it may
have muted his reac-
tion to Hitler, or the
long history of anti-
Judaism in the Church
and how this played
out during the reign of
Pius XII. Cornwell has
something to con-
tribute on both issues,
but brings added depth
with his examination
of the institution of
the papacy itself
His approach views
the activities of Pius
XII — before ascend-
ing to the papacy and
during his tenure — as
primarily a product of
his larger vision for
Vatican control over
national churches.
Cornwell traces this
theme from the 19th
century forward, show-
ing how the Vatican
sought to strengthen
central control over
Catholic clergy outside
the Vatican and how, even before he
was to become pope, this became the
dominating theme of Eugenio Pacelli's
career.
By showing that Pacelli began
working on this idea as far back as
1917, some 22 years before becoming
pope, Cornwell provides a consistent
and plausible theory on the pope's

Abraham Foxman serves as national
director of the Anti-Defamation League.

conduct in the early Nazi period and
during the war.
He in no way portrays Pacelli as a
lover of Nazism, though he describes
him as clearly ready to tolerate Nazi
abuses if he saw an imminent threat
from the communists. But in his tun-
nel-vision approach to getting Vatican
control and Canon Law (with its pro-
visions protecting centralized power)

accepted, Pius XII was, according to
Cornwell, more than ready to accom-
modate Hitler's control over German
life, including allowing the demise of
the strong democratic Catholic politi-
cal party in Germany.
It is Cornwell's lengthy descrip-
tion of Pacelli's activity and thinking
leading up to the Reich Concordat
between the Vatican and Germany
— a treaty that authorized the papa-
cy to impose Canon Law on German