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Hitler’s Pope? Debunking the Sad and Tragic Myth About Pope Pius XII
It’s Time to Set the Record Straight
Revisionist history has been a problem for as long as people have been recording history. In recent years, especially with the global reach of the Internet, the issue has only grown worse. One man who has suffered unjustly from the rewriting of history is Eugenio Pacelli, better known to history as Pope Pius XII. Pius XII was Pope during World War II and has been, shockingly, referred to by many revisionists as “Hitler’s Pope.”
Eugenio Pacelli saw the Nazi menace long before most world leaders of his time. Before becoming Pope in 1939 he was the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1920 to 1930, during which time he clearly saw the threat posed by Hitler and the National Socialist Party. From 1930 to 1939 he held the post of Vatican Secretary of State, where he further worked against the rise of the Nazis.
In 1937, Pacelli warned the American consul to Berlin that Hitler was “an untrustworthy scoundrel and fundamentally wicked person.” The consul wrote that “Pacelli did not believe Hitler capable of moderation” and that Pacelli fully supported the German bishops in their anti-Nazi stand. Pacelli also wrote a report for President Roosevelt and delivered it to US Ambassador Joseph Kennedy in which he flatly stated that the…
