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A groundbreaking historical study based on documents
previously locked in the Vatican’s secret
archives: The Popes Against the Jews graphically
shows how the Catholic Church helped make the
Holocaust possible.
Pope John Paul II, as
part of his effort to improve Catholic-Jewish
relations, has himself called for a clear-eyed
historical investigation into any possible link
be-tween the Church and the Holocaust. An important
sign of his commitment was the recent decision to
allow the distinguished historian David I. Kertzer,
a specialist in Italian history, to be one of the
first scholars given access to long-sealed Vatican
archives.
The result is a book filled with
shocking revelations. It traces the Vatican’s
role in the development of modern anti-Semitism from
the nineteenth century up to the outbreak of the
Second World War. Kertzer shows why all the recent
attention given to Pope Pius XII’s failure to
publicly protest the slaughter of Europe’s
Jews in the war misses a far more important point.
What made the Holocaust possible was groundwork laid
over a period of decades. In this campaign of
demonization of the Jews—identifying them as
traitors to their countries, enemies of all that was
good, relentlessly pursuing world
domination—the Vatican itself played a key
role, as is shown here for the first
time.
Despite its focus, this is not an
anti-Catholic book. It seeks a balanced judgment and
an understanding of the historical forces that led
the Church along the path it took.
Inevitably
controversial, written with devastating clarity and
dispassionate authority, The Popes Against the Jews is a book of the greatest
importance.
"Without sanctimony or melodrama but with meticulous documentation,
David I. Kertzer tells a sickening story. THE POPES AGAINST THE JEWS is
at once the calm, patient lesson of a born history teacher and an iron
to burn scars in the mind." --Jack Miles, author of GOD: A
BIOGRAPHY
"David Kertzer's provocative new book challenges
the widely accepted distinction between Catholic anti-Judaism and modern
anti-Semitism. He moves beyond recent attacks on the Vatican's record
during WWII, indicting not just Pius XII but the entire tradition out of
which he emerged. Many will disagree with Kertzer's conclusions, but no
one will be able to ignore this disturbing history of the Papacy and the
Jews in the modern era." --Brian Porter, Associate Professor of
History at the University of Michigan and author of When Nationalism
Began to Hate
"This is a fascinating study of an
important and controversial subject. As well as being both polemical and
highly readable it is scholarly and contains a great deal of unfamiliar
information from the recently opened Vatican archives." --Denis
Mack Smith
"Once again Kertzer has produced impressive
evidence of the part played by the papacy in the growth of anti-Semitism
in the twentieth century. Painful as his historical narrative may be for
Catholics, it is a necessary prelude to a true reconciliation between
the Catholic Church and Judaism." --John Cornwell, author of
Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
"This
is a powerful and incisive analysis of the ways in which the Vatican and
the Catholic Church helped to nurture and shape the emergence of modern
anti-Semitic movements that made the Holocaust possible. With the help
of solid documentation and clear exposition, Kertzer sweeps away the
apologetic myths that have sought to disculpate the church from direct
complicity in the tragic fate of European
Jewry."
--Professor Robert S. Wistrich, Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, author of Hitler and the Holocaust
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