Dark Mysteries of the Vatican

by H. Paul Jeffers

  “John Paul II was the only one with the authority to open the archives and to release selected documents on ties between the Vatican and the Germans from 1922 to 1939, when the man who later became Pius XII was the Vatican’s ambassador to Germany. Among the first of the wartime documents to be released, according [to the Vatican,] would be those dealing with Pius XII’s ‘charity and assistance’ for those who were prisoners of war. ‘We want historians to know the great activities of charity and assistance by Pius XII toward many prisoners and other war victims, including those of any nation, religion and race,’ the statement read.”

  On August 13, 2003, reporter Laurie Goldstein of the New York Times reported that “diplomatic documents recently brought to light by a Jesuit historian indicated that while serving as a diplomat, the future pope expressed strong antipathy to the Nazi regime in private communication with American officials. One document was a confidential memorandum written in April 1938 from Cardinal Pacelli, who said…that compromise with the Nazis should be out of question.” The other is a report by an American consul general relating that in a long conversation in 1937, Cardinal Pacelli called Hitler ‘a fundamentally wicked person’ and ‘an untrustworthy scoundrel.’

  “Historians who saw the documents said they bolstered the view that the man who became Pope Pius XII was not a Nazi sympathizer, and was in fact convinced that the Nazis were a threat to the church and the stability of Europe. But the historians agreed that the documents in no way explained or exonerated Pius XII’s inaction in the face of the Holocaust.” Neither document “mentioned the persecution of Jews that was well under way when they were written. The documents were described by Charles R. Gallagher, a Jesuit historian at St. Louis University, in an article in the Sept. 1 issue of America, the Jesuit weekly. Gallagher, 38, was a former police officer who was a nonordained Jesuit studying to be a priest. He said he came across them [the documents] while researching a biography about another more obscure papal diplomat….

  “Mr. Gallagher said in an interview that he hoped the documents would illustrate that as a diplomat, Cardinal Pacelli made his case against the Nazis in private, to other diplomats. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that these documents exonerate him,’ he said. ‘What I think these findings might help to dispel is the impression that this pope was, as others have called him, ‘Hitler’s Pope.’

  “Mr. Gallagher found the Pacelli memorandum among the diplomatic papers of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy that were housed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Joseph Kennedy…served as ambassador to England from 1938 to 1940. Ambassador Kennedy received the memorandum in April 1938 when he met in Rome with Cardinal Pacelli, who was then the Vatican’s secretary of state…. The Cardinal also wrote that the church at times felt powerless and isolated in its daily struggle against all sorts of political excesses from the Bolsheviks to the new pagans arising among the young Aryan generations. He wrote that ‘evidence of good faith’ by the Nazi regime was ‘completely lacking’ and that ‘the possibility of an agreement’ with the Nazis was ‘out of question for the time being.’”

  Although the Vatican archives section dealing with the years of Pius XII’s papacy had not yet been opened to historians in 2008, “in a speech to representatives from the US-based Pave the Way Foundation during their visit to his summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, [Pope Benedict XVI] said…that Pius XII ‘spared no effort, wherever it was possible, to intervene (for Jews either) directly or through instructions given to individuals or institutions in the Catholic Church.’”

  Benedict said Pius XII, “had to work ‘secretly and silently’ to ‘avert the worst and save the highest number of Jews possible,’…repeating assertions made by Vatican experts in the past. The Pope also said Pius XII was thanked by Jewish groups during and after the war for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. He cited a meeting the leader of the Roman Catholic Church had in the Vatican in November 1945 at which 80 death camp survivors ‘thanked him personally for his generosity.’” Benedict also said “further investigation would reinforce ‘the historical truth, overcoming all remaining prejudice.’”

  Benedict’s defense came as the process begun by Pope John Paul II of canonizing Pius XII continued, and a few days before the fiftieth anniversary of Pius XII’s death in 1958. Born in Rome in 1876, Eugenio Pacelli became a priest and obtained his first assignment as a “curate at Chiesa Nuova, the church where he had served as an altar boy. While there, he taught catechism to children…. At the same time he pursued his studies for a doctorate in Canon Law and Civil Law…and he added doctorates in Philosophy and in Theology.” In 1904, he “became a Papal Chamberlain with the title of Monsignor and one year later a Domestic Prelate….

  “In 1908, Pacelli attended the Eucharistic Congress in London. The 32-year-old priest was by that time well embarked on what would become a nearly 40-year career of brilliant diplomatic service for the Church. From 1904 to 1916, he was a research aide in the Office of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs where he assisted Cardinal Pietro Gasparri in the crucial task of clarifying and updating canon law. In 1910, Monsignor Pacelli was again back in London where he represented the Holy See at the Coronation of King George V.

  “In 1911, Pope Pius X appointed Pacelli Undersecretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. This department of the Secretariat of State, negotiated terms of agreements with foreign governments that would allow the Church to carry out its teaching mission. In 1912, he was appointed Secretary. Two years later, he became Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.”

  When Pius X died in 1914, Pope Benedict XV appointed Monsignor Pacelli as Papal Nuncio to Bavaria, Germany. Before assuming the post, “he was consecrated a Bishop by Pope Benedict XV in the Sistine Chapel (May 13, 1917). He was then elevated to the rank of Archbishop and went to Germany to present his credentials to Ludwig III, King of Bavaria on May 28, 1917. American newspaper correspondent Dorothy Thompson, wrote: ‘Those of us who were foreign correspondents in Berlin during the days of the Weimar Republic were not unfamiliar with the figure of the dean of the diplomatic corps. Tall, slender, with magnificent eyes, strong features and expressive hands, in his appearance and bearing Archbishop Pacelli looked every inch what he was, a Roman nobleman, of the proudest blood of the Western world. In knowledge of German and European affairs and in diplomatic astuteness, the Nuncio was without an equal.’…

  “On June 22, 1920, Pacelli became the first Apostolic Nuncio to Germany. Four years later, March 29, 1924, he signed a concordat with Bavaria which was ratified by its Parliament on January 15, 1925. It determined the rights and duties of the Church and the government in respect to each other. After concluding the concordat with Bavaria, Pacelli was able to succeed with Prussia and Baden.…After some time in Munich, the Apostolic Nuncio’s residence was transferred to Berlin.”

  “The Lateran Treaty of 1929 established formal relations between Italy and the Vatican. Following the example of Mussolini, Adolf Hitler initiated a concordat. This is a strictly defined legal agreement between two governments intended to preserve the freedom of the Church to teach and minister to the faithful.”

  On February 7, 1930, Pacelli “was appointed Secretary of State and became the archpriest of the Vatican Basilica.” In this capacity, he “negotiated with the Germans to protect the rights of Catholics.” Traveling widely, including an historic visit to the United States in 1936, he was seen by more people and was the most accessible Pope in the history of the papacy up to his pontificate.

  In an encyclical Mit brennender sorge, condemning anti-Semitism, Pius XI said, “None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are ‘as a drop of a bucket’ (Isaiah XI. 15). The encyclical prepared under the di
rection of Cardinal Pacelli, then Secretary of State, was written in German for wider dissemination in that country. It was smuggled out of Italy, copied and distributed to parish priests to be read from all of the pulpits on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937…. An internal German memo dated March 23, 1937, stated that the encyclical was ‘almost a call to do battle against the Reich government.’ The encyclical, Mit brenneder sorge, was confiscated, its printers were arrested and presses seized….

  “Cardinal Pacelli returned to France in 1937, as Cardinal-Legate, to consecrate and dedicate the new basilica in Lisieux during a Eucharistic Congress and made another anti-Nazi statement. He again presided (May 25–30, 1938) at a Eucharistic Congress in Budapest.”

  “The Cardinals elected Eugenio Pacelli the 262nd Pope on his sixty-third birthday, March 2, 1939. He received sixty-one out of the sixty-two votes because he did not vote for himself, and was elected Pontiff. After serving the Church under four Popes (Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV and Pius XI) for almost twenty years, Eugenio Pacelli took the name of Pius XII….

  “Immediately after his election, Pius XII issued a call for a peace conference of European leaders. Documents show that in a last minute bid to avert bloodshed, the Pope called for a conference involving Italy, France, England, Germany and Poland. Pius XII’s peace plan was based on five points: the defense of small nations, the right to life, disarmament, some new kind of League of Nations, and a plea for the moral principles of justice and love…. Pius XII then met with the German Cardinals who had been present in the recent conclave…. These meetings provided him direct proof and information that motivated the content of his first encyclical, Summi pontificatus. Dated October 20, 1939, this encyclical was a strong attack on totalitarianism. In it, Pius XII singled out governments, who by their deification of the state, imperiled the spirit of humanity. He spoke about restoring the foundation of human society to its origin in natural law, to its source in Christ, the only true ruler of all men and women of all nations and races.

  “Pius XII reprimanded, “What age has been, for all its technical and purely civic progress, more tormented than ours by spiritual emptiness and deep-felt interior poverty?” The world had abandoned Christ’s cross for another [the Swastika] which brings only death….

  “On August 24, 1939, he gave each papal representative the text of a speech asking them to convey it to their respective governments. That evening he read the speech to the world [on radio]: ‘The danger is imminent, but there is still time. Nothing is lost with peace; all can be lost with war. Let men return to mutual understanding! Let them begin negotiations anew, conferring with good will and with respect for reciprocal rights.’”

  Mostly confined to Vatican City throughout World War II by the occupying Germans, “Pope Pius XII was almost universally regarded as a saintly man, a scholar, a man of peace, and a tower of strength.” After the war, he became the first pontiff to appear on television. When he died on October 9, 1958, the future Israeli prime minister Golda Meir said, “When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.”

  The Vatican newspaper L’osservatore Romano described his funeral as the greatest in the long history of Rome, surpassing even that of Julius Caesar. Because the body had not been properly embalmed, it began to decompose while it lay in state in St. Peter’s. As the flesh discolored, the corpse emitted such strong odors that one of the Swiss Guards fainted.

  The smells and discoloration and the fact that Pius XII had been a regular exerciser and was in good health resulted in the belief by conspiracy theorists that he had been poisoned. A week before his death, he complained of gastric pain and hiccups. He struggled back into his stringent schedule, but one day as his doctor was examining him he suddenly cried in alarm, “Dio mio, non ci vedo!” (My God, I cannot see!) It was a stroke. With his vision rapidly restored, he summoned his secretary of state, Angelo Dell’Acqua, and demanded, “Why have the [papal] audiences been canceled?” He received Holy Communion and Extreme Unction from his German Jesuit secretary, Father Robert Leiber, but he looked at the thermometer when his temperature was being taken, and said, “Non é grave” (It’s not bad) when he saw it read 99°. That night he drank a glass of red wine and called for a recording of Beethoven’s First Symphony. At 7:30 the next morning, a second stroke left him unconscious. It took him 20 hours to die. By Vatican custom, there was no autopsy.

  Later, as assertions were made that Pius XII had collaborated with the Nazis, and had done little to aid Jews, demands were raised that the Vatican open its sealed archives on Pius XII’s wartime years. These requests intensified after John Paul II commenced the process to add Pius XII to the catalog of saints.

  Perhaps contained in the Vatican archives are documents to shed some light on the relationship between the Holy See and the bosses of organized crime. Because La Cosa Nostra originated in Sicily and spread its tentacles to the United States and around the globe, alleged dealings between minions of the criminal underworld and the Catholic Church have been the subject of movies, such as The Godfather and its sequels and imitators, and almost countless books. Mystery novelist Donna Leon, best known for her subtle and enduring fictional Commissario Guido Brunetti detective series, set in Venice, once asked, “What did Italy do to deserve to have both the Vatican and the Mafia?”

  In the nonfiction The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder and the Mafia, Paul L. Williams traced the origin of alleged links between Vatican and Mafia to the deal in 1929 between the Holy See and Mussolini. Through the Lateran Treaty, the Church in Rome received money, tax-free property rights, status as a sovereign state, and the protection of Mussolini’s Fascist government. This resulted in the Vatican being largely insulated against interference from the Nazis during the German occupation of Italy during World War II, described by authors Mark Aarons and John Loftus in Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and Swiss Banks.

  A dramatic example of the Vatican-Mafia alliance [in 1934] involved the venerated cathedral of Naples. Its patron saint, San Gennaro (St. Januarius), Bishop of Beneventum was martyred about 305 A. D. In the Cathedral’s treasure chapel were an altar of solid silver, “a silver bust believed to contain San Gennaro’s head, and a reliquary with two vials of what was supposed to be his blood. [During] the feast of San Gennaro, into the Cathedral thronged clergy, civil officials, and throngs of pious Neapolitans. Bearing aloft the reliquary, a priest brought it before the silver case containing the head” and turned it upside down to exhibit a vial containing an opaque, solid mass. “After an hour of prayers the people beheld the dark mass grow soft, turn red, increase in volume, and bubble into a liquid. “Il miracolo e fatto!” (The miracle is made) cried the officiant. The choir sang a “Te Deum.” The worshippers then scrambled up to the altar rail to kiss the reliquary.

  This ritual usually occurred eighteen times a year. Time magazine reported that in 1969, “San Gennaro (St. Januarius) was dropped from the Vatican’s official church calendar, along with St. Christopher and other saints whose existence was in doubt…. Among other things the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples…persuaded the congregation of the cathedral to refrain from roaring approval when the liquid bubbled…. An encyclopedia labeled the San Gennaro miracles a ‘residue of paganized Christianity which the church has not managed to remove from Neapolitan usage.’ That was enough to bring the blood of all Naples to a boil. San Gennaro, a newspaper editorial proclaimed, was ‘not just the patron but the godfather of Naples.’…[Neapolitans] have been through it all before. In 1750 one iconoclast sought to discredit the ‘Miracle’ of San Gennaro as a mixture gold-affecting mercury and sulphide of mercury. In 1890 an Italian professor got results from a concoction of chocolate, water, sugar, casein, milk serum and salt. Even the Vatican’s doubts did not daunt the Neapolitans. After San Gennaro lost his place on the church calendar, a fe
rvent follower scrawled on the saint’s altar in the cathedral, ‘San Gennaro, don’t give a damn.’”

  In World War II, as American forces moved from invasion beaches at Salerno toward Naples, “the Vatican, having heard rumors that the retreating Germans…had made plans to melt down the silver of the altar of St. Januarius to pay for their occupation of southern Italy, contacted the Mafia and asked for their cooperation…. The Mafia…, also immensely religious, accepted the Vatican’s proposal with pious alacrity.” Because they had been cooperating with the Germans since the occupation began, they were permitted to transport” food and black-market items from Naples to Rome. “The result was that the silver of the altar was transported in Mafia trucks to the very entrance of the Vatican where it was safely deposited.”

  Residing in Naples at this time was American organized crime figure Vito Genovese, who had been deported from the United States in a crackdown on crime that landed Genovese’s boss, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, in prison. When the U.S. Army occupied Naples, it learned that its task would be easier if it had the help of Genovese and the Neapolitan mafiosi. Michele Sindona was among the Italians who also learned that to do business in Naples in 1943, Genovese was the man to see. Michele Sindona, a Sicilian, who was the future associate of Roberto Calvi in the Vatican bank scandal, “studied law and during the war became involved in the lemon business.” According to Luigi DiFonzo’s biography of Sindona, “he needed to purchase a truck to transport lemons. To accomplish this, Michele Sindona needed the protection of the Mafia because it had control of the produce industry and could supply him with the documents he needed to present to the border patrols. Help came from a local bishop….[He] got in touch with Geneovese.” The result was not only a truck, but “forged papers and a safe route to do business.”