Secret Documents Reveal Cardinal Pacelli’s Views on Nazism, Saint Louis University Student Discovers


		Contact: Clayton Berry Phone: 314.977.7117 berrycl@slu.edu August 21, 2003 Secret Documents Reveal Cardinal Pacelli’s Views on Nazism, Saint Louis University Student Discovers A Saint Louis University student has uncovered secret documents that reveal the personal and private views of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who would become Pope Pius XII, on Nazism. The discovery by Jesuit scholastic Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., is being highlighted in the Sept. 1 issue of the magazine America. In his article, Gallagher examines the personal and private views of Cardinal Pacelli on Nazism based on two newly discovered secret documents never before made public. America, the national Catholic weekly, is published by Jesuits in print and online. This article is available for reporters at http://www.americamagazine.org/pdf/gallagher.pdf. The first document, a 1939 U.S. State Department report from Alfred W. Klieforth, the U.S. consul general in Berlin, describes a 1937 three-hour meeting “to discuss the situation in Germany” with Cardinal Pacelli. “He opposed unilaterally every compromise with National Socialism," the report states. "He regarded Hitler not only as an untrustworthy scoundrel but as a fundamentally wicked person. He did not believe Hitler capable of moderation, in spite of appearances, and he fully supported the German bishops in their anti-Nazi stand.” The second document, discovered by Gallagher among the diplomatic papers of Joseph P. Kennedy in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, has been out of sight for 65 years. It is a report prepared by Pacelli and given on April 19, 1938, to Ambassador Kennedy, who was given permission to pass “these personal private views of mine on to your Friend” -- a cryptic yet clear allusion to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain also saw the report. From 1938-40 Kennedy served as the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. In the report, which Gallagher describes as “essentially a Vatican policy paper and private blast at Nazi ‘pro-paganism’,” Cardinal Pacelli made clear that the Nazi program struck at the “fundamental principle of freedom of the practice of religion,” and indicated the emergence of a new Nazi Kulturkampf against the Church. Sounding beleaguered and perhaps a bit frightened, Cardinal Pacelli expressed the view that the Church “at times felt powerless and isolated in its daily struggle against all sorts of political excesses from Bolsheviks to the new pagans arising among the young ‘Aryan’ generation.” Nevertheless, he assured Kennedy that any political compromise with the Nazi regime was “out of the question.” Gallagher argues that Cardinal Pacelli, who would become Pope Pius XII, made both open diplomatic and political declarations as well as conducted private and secret discussions in the tradition of 19th century diplomacy in which he was trained. Gallagher, who received his Ph.D. in American Catholic history from Marquette University, is now studying philosophy at Saint Louis University. He is a student in the University’s College of Philosophy and Letters, which provides the early academic formation of students preparing for the Catholic priesthood. He also is writing a biography of the Vatican diplomat Archbishop Joseph Patrick Hurley, who worked with Eugenio Pacelli from 1934-40. N.B. Related Links: Learn more about the Saint Louis University College of Philosophy and Letters. Read more about a SLU history professor's book on Pope Pius XII. Visit www.americamagazine.org. Read the Catholic News Service story on this discovery. Read the story from the L.A. Times.