Volume 55, Number 10 · June 12, 2008
Did Hitler Plan to Kidnap the Pope?
By István Deák
A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII
by Dan Kurzman
Da Capo, 284 pp., $26.00
Few popes were met with greater public expectation than Eugenio Pacelli when he was elected in 1939. It was hoped that as both an admired religious leader and a well-known diplomat, he would prove a welcome agent of European stability, a 'prince of peace.' Yet few popes exercised less political influence during a great world crisis than he did. Later generations, nevertheless, insist on assigning world-historical influence, whether blessed or evil, to a man whose politics were mainly characterized by inefficiency and hesitation. Immersed in mystical meditations—which among other things produced the 1950 dogma of the assumption into heavenly glory of the body and soul of Holy Mary—Pope Pius XII rarely made use of his considerable experience in international affairs. Neither as the autocratic ruler of a sovereign state nor as head of the world's Catholic community was he able to change the course of world events, either during World War II or thereafter.
Review, 3642 words
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