This was the first major international conference on Pius XII after the opening of his pontificate documents in the Vatican Archives. Funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the conference brought together more than forty scholars and archivists from a dozen countries in order to discuss the pontificate of Pius XII, addressing both the state of current research and future historiographical perspectives.

The Prefect of the Apostolic Archive, Bishop Sergio Pagano, Martin Baumeister, Brigitte Marin gave opening speeches that were followed by a historical introduction by Nina Valbousquet and Simon Unger-Alvi. Together, they stressed the need to adopt long-term perspectives and to combine classical “church history” with newer transnational approaches. Thematically, the scope of the conference was not limited to the Second World War, but rather considered the pontificate as a whole, taking also into consideration topics such as decolonisation and the Cold War. Together, the panels also went beyond Pacelli’s individual biography, addressing broader themes of global political, social and economic history. The conference aimed to address issues such as the attitude of Pius XII and his Curia towards democracy and human rights as well as totalitarianism and authoritarianism; towards decolonisation and the birth of the State of Israel; towards genocide and the legacies of fascism; towards the Cold War and the threat of communism, as well as Latin America and Asia. The conference went beyond an analysis based on religious or Church history, but rather adopted a global and postcolonial lens.

In the first panel, which focused on archival opportunities, GIOVANNI COCO (Vatican City) examined the newly available sources like Pius XII’s personal archive, underlining the difference between the already known “Acts and Documents relative to the Second World War” and the new wealth of original material. SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING (Washington) addressed the contribution of the pontiff’s personal archive in shedding further light on the Vatican’s attitude towards anti-Semitism and Germans who were accused of war crimes after the Second World War. She underlined how sections of the Church practiced many acts of one-sided charity towards the Germans, and at the same time showed worry about the possibility of Jews returning to Germany after the conflict could prove anti-Catholic. SASCHA HINKEL (Münster) and JÖRG HÖRNSCHEMEYER (Rome) outlined their current research on the personality of Eugenio Pacelli as an individual, through the analysis of over 20.000 documents relating to his personal correspondence via quantitative analysis methods. This research intended to be a starting point for future analysis with digital methods.

The second panel analysed the role of the media in the building of a mythology of Pius XII and his pontificate for Catholics all around the world. CAMILLA TENAGLIA (Trento) stressed how the Vatican acknowledged the importance of new media (the press first, then the radio and cinema) and of a new relation to the public, as demonstrated by the extensive coverage of the 1939 Conclave. MICHAEL BERKOWITZ (London) explored the construction of the Pius XII myth in the United States. In addition, STEFAN SAMERSKI (Munich) examined the papal policy of sanctification under Pius XII and its political implications. Together, these presentations showed in what ways the Vatican was (un)able to establish an internationally recognised image of and opinion on pope Pius XII.

The third panel addressed the Church’s relation to authority, exploring the challenges developing from the spreading of progressive and socialist ideas among many Catholics, as well as the emergence of a left-wing clergy in the 1940s and the 1950s. Book censorship, as explained by ELISABETH RICHTER (Münster), was increasingly contested in a time of growing exchange of ideas, and the criticism of the Index of Forbidden Books more and more widespread during these decades, which paved the way for its abolition in the 1960s. At the same time, however, the pontiff’s position on socialism was unyielding, as demonstrated by the firm decision to excommunicate communists in 1949, as explained by FABIEN ARCHAMBAULT (Limoges). Another example of the pope’s strong anti-communist action was the 1954 condemnation of the worker-priests in France, previously dealt with greater sensitivity by future pope Angelo Roncalli, then Apostolic Nuncio in France, as underlined by MARTA MARGOTTI (Turin).

The fourth panel addressed the subject of Pius XII and the Holocaust, as well as the role of Catholics in the Resistance. HUBERT WOLF (Münster) outlined his new research project focusing on the history of the victims and reconstructing the accounts of help seekers who personally wrote to Pius XII. Subsequently, TOMMASO DELL’ERA (Viterbo) underlined how anti-Semitic heritage remained alive throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s within the Church, and how it developed during the Holocaust. However, ELENA MAZZINI (Florence) also underlined that despite this lingering anti-Semitism, material help for Jews was in fact provided in many countries. In Italy, this may be explained by the centrality of charity in Catholic beliefs, to a deeply rooted anti-German attitude amongst the population, and to the hope of achieving the conversion of the Jews. At the same time, as explained by ALESSANDRO SANTAGATA (Padova), many Italian priests saw the anti-German and anti-fascist resistance as an opportunity of autonomy from a centralised and at times ambiguous church.

In the fifth panel, GIANFRANCO ARMANDO (Vatican City) outlined the research opportunities on the topic of Italian reconstruction after 1945 thanks to the new sources available in the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza (PCA) and Opera Nazionale di Assistenza Religiosa e Morale degli Operai archives. CAMILLE MAHÉ (Paris) underlined that the PCA also allowed the Holy See to bring material, food and health care to many Italian children from 1944 onwards. Subsequently, ROSARIO FORLENZA (Rome) and BJØRN THOMASSEN (Roskilde) analysed the Church’s role in shaping Christian democracy as a viable political force for the following decades, but also addressed Christian democratic point of views that were often diverging from those of the Vatican in their search for autonomy. Finally, MARIE LEVANT (Paris) provided an outlook on Pius XII’s policy in the Middle East after 1945. In particular, she addressed the history of Vatican charity efforts in that region such as the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) and the Pontificial Mission for Palestine (PMP).

The Vatican’s relation to African, Asian, and Latin American countries and its role in decolonisation processes was explored by the sixth panel. While OLIVIER SIBRE (Paris) examined the Church’s policies concerning East Asian countries, JAIME PENSADO (Notre Dame, IN) chronicled the development of the Pax Romana association in Mexico. As it expanded to the Americas, Pax Romana aimed to provide a common Ibero-American Catholic framework against communism, Protestantism, and American imperialism, but it encountered rising pressure for modernisation from students leaning to the left. SUSANNA DE STRADIS (Notre Dame, IN) focused on Catholicism in the United States, outlining the complex position of the Church regarding the necessity of aligning with Washington on foreign policy matters and at the same time navigating the autonomy aspirations of the American clergy and the growing pushes for secularism within the United States. Finally, MARIA CHIARA RIOLI (Venice/Fordham/New York) explored the role of the Church in the process leading to the creation of the state of Israel. Her project proposed a different approach to the subject by shifting the perspective to humanitarian initiatives that were aimed at civilian support during the war of 1947/48.

The seventh panel further examined a fundamental division within the Church on the themes of eurocentrism and colonialism. SIEGFRIED WEICHLEIN (Fribourg), MARIALUISA SERGIO (Rome) and ÉDOUARD COQUET (Paris/Pisa) underlined how, while sections of the Church managed to forge new links with formerly colonised nations, conservative elements within the Church would fiercely oppose such changes, a fracture which overshadowed the Second Vatican Council and, in many ways, preceded the schism of Msgr Marcel Lefebvre in the 1960s. While Pius XII instructed his missionaries to oppose colonialism, he also maintained a certain degree of ambiguity, never explicitly announcing this condemnation within Europe in order to maintain a strong relation to colonial powers, such as France, Spain, and Portugal.

The conference also included a public roundtable discussion with Giuliana Chamedes (Madison, WI), David Kertzer (Providence, RI), Raffaella Perin (Milan) and Karène Sanchez Summerer (Leiden). Crucially, none of these historians expected the archives to reveal a “smoking gun” on Vatican’s role during the Holocaust, but they anticipated that the new sources will lead to a more detailed understanding of ambiguous papal politics in this context. Perin, for example, underlined the importance of diplomacy as a necessary condition for humanitarian action. This was the key for the continuity of the Vatican impartial position throughout the World Wars, and of the attempts to remain neutral after 1945 as well. Sanchez Summerer stressed the importance of newly available sources in understanding the centrality of missionaries in Catholic humanitarianism, with their fundamental role of intermediaries on the ground, a role which might be overlooked if scholars focused too much on the institutional side of these initiatives. Chamedes argued that the transformation of Vatican’s notion of humanitarianism, as during the 1930s the Holy See’s conception of rights revolved around protecting Catholicism and defending the concordats, which conflicted with humanitarianism and the protection of minorities. Kertzer stated that the most important findings based on the new source material will probably be about the post-war period. One very important example would be the papacy’s role in Italian politics and the forming of the Christian Democratic Party in the early post-war years.

The eighth panel addressed the establishment of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe and continued the analysis of the new geopolitical and ideological dilemmas faced by the Church. EMILIA HRABOVEC (Bratislava) examined the Czechoslovakian case: while Prague saw an agreement with Rome as a way to solve the Slovakian question, asking for a replacement of pro-Prague bishops, the Vatican tried to influence the bishops in the country to undermine communism, while at the same time avoiding public statements. MARION DOTTER (Munich) examined how the Church acted on international, national and regional levels to the growth of Soviet power between 1945 and 1956. In particular, the pontiff had to dramatically re-evaluate his relation with liberalism and democracy, which he and his predecessors had harshly criticised in order to forge a new alliance with the United States, based on a general endorsement of the Western bloc’s values. However, as underlined by JOSÉ RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ LAGO (Vigo) and CECÍLE GONҪALVES (Paris), the Church maintained strategical and ideological relationships with anti-democratic regimes in the Iberian Peninsula as a bulwark against communism.

The ninth panel addressed the Church’s reaction to the rapid cultural changes in the post-war years, which eventually led to the Second Vatican Council. While RACHEL JOHNSTON-WHITE (Groningen) examined the limits of papal influence in a time of challenged authority, MICHAEL O’SULLIVAN (Poughkeepsie, NY) explored the Vatican’s reaction to changing attitudes towards sexuality and birth control by focusing on Pius XII’s position on family planning in West Germany. Finally, LIVIANA GAZZETTA (Rome) and KRISTIEN SUENENS (Leuven) explored the stance of the Vatican to the increasing transformation of women’s roles in society. While Gazzetta focused on Italian Catholics’ perception of feminism, Suenens analysed the changes of women’s participation in monastic life.
The conference was concluded by a public event organised by the German and French embassies at the Holy See that was held at the Centre Saint-Louis in Rome and moderated by Giovanni Maria Vian, the former editor of the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano. Lucia Ceci, Simon Unger-Alvi, and Nina Valbousquet presented some of the conference’s major findings. They underlined the continuities in Pius XII’s pontificate and at the same time the importance of recognising the plurality of ideological, theological, and cultural factions and movements within the Church, which was far from monolithic.

Overall, the conference was an extremely useful forum for researchers, and it successfully outlined the future strands of research on the subject, one task particularly needed for a controversial field that has recently benefited from a dramatic increase in the availability of archival materials. Finally, the conference proved the renewed necessity for a cooperation between various international research strands and groups.

Conference overview:

Brigitte Marin (École Française, Rome) / Martin Baumeister (Deutsches Historisches Institut, Rome) / Sergio Pagano (Vatican Apostolic Archive, Vatican City): Address of Welcome

Nina Valbousquet (École Française, Rome) and Simon Unger-Alvi (Deutsches Historisches Institut, Rome): Research Questions on Pius XII

Panel I – Archival Opportunities

Giovanni Coco (Apostolic Archive, Vatican City): Scrivere e riscrivere la Storia. L’apertura degli Archivi Vaticani per il pontificato di Pio XII

Suzanne Brown-Fleming (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington): Il Papa Tedesco. Eugenio Pacelli and Germany

Sascha Hinkel (Münster) / Jörg Hörnschemeyer (Rome): The Man Eugenio Pacelli in the Online Edition of his Nuncial Reports from Germany. A Digital Approach

Panel II – Snapshots of a Papacy: Power and Media

Camilla Tenaglia (Trento): Card. Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pius XII. The Mediatization of a Papal Election

Michael Berkowitz (London): The Making of Pius XII – By Sammy Schulman?

Stefan Samerski (Munich): The Saints of the Pope – Canonization and Beatification in the Age of Pius XII

Panel III – Church Government and Authority

Elisabeth Richter (Münster): Censoring Books during the Turbulent Years of War and beyond. The Index of Forbidden Books during the Pontificate of Pius XII

Fabien Archambault (Limoges): L’excommunication des communistes en 1949

Marta Margotti (Turin): La questione dei preti operai e il nunzio a Parigi Angelo Roncalli (1944-1953)

Panel IV – The Church and the Holocaust

Hubert Wolf (Münster): Asking the Pope for Help. A Critical Online Edition

Tommaso Dell’Era (Viterbo): Anti-Jewish Prejudices and Theological Definition of Racism. Their Impact on the Catholic Attitudes during the Shoah

Elena Mazzini (Florence): The Local Church, the Holy See and the Rescue Practices. The Aids to the Jews during the Nazi-Fascist Occupation of Florence in the light of New Archival Knowledge

Alessandro Santagata (Padova): Il cattolicesimo italiano nella Resistenza (1943-1945). Stato della ricerca e nuove prospettive

Panel V – Postwar Reconstruction

Gianfranco Armando (Vatican City): Gli archivi della POA e dell’ONARMO. Chiesta cattolica e ricostruzione post-bellica

Rosario Forlenza (Rome) and Bjørn Thomassen (Roskilde): Pius XII and the Emergence of Christian Democracy in Post-World War II Europe

Camille Mahé (Paris): The Role of the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza in the Reconstruction of Italy in the Second Post-War Period

Marie Levant (Paris): Pius XII and the Middle East. General Background and Case Studies

Panel VI – A Global Church in the Post-war Era

Olivier Sibre (Paris): The Holy See and the New World. Asia-Pacific (China, Korea, Japan) from 1945 to 1955

Jaime Pensado (Notre Dame, IN): The Radicalization of Latin American Catholic Students during the Post-war Era

Susanna de Stradis (Notre Dame, IN): Roman Catholicism (1945-1958): Open Questions and New Sources

Maria Chiara Rioli, (Venice/Fordham/New York): The Vatican and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Humanitarianism, Diplomacy and Interreligious Relations

Panel VII – Decolonization and Missions

Siegfried Weichlein (Fribourg): Papal Diplomacy and Decolonization. Perspectives and Questions

Marialuisa Sergio (Rome): Missionary Activity and Decolonization during the Pontificate of Pius XII. Theological Debate and National Cases

Édouard Coquet (Paris/Pisa): Africanisation and Centralization. Roman Strategies in Sub-Saharian Africa in the Late Colonial Period (1930s-1950s)

Public Roundtable: Genocide Diplomacy and Humanitarianism

Giuliana Chamedes (Madison, WI), David Kertzer (Providence, RI), Raffaella Perin (Milan), Karène Sanchez Summerer (Leiden)

Panel VIII – Cold War and Communism

José Ramón Rodríguez Lago (Vigo): The Iberian Axis. The Catholic Factor and the Role Played by the Vatican and the United States in Spain and Portugal between 1939 and 1958

Emilia Hrabovec (Bratislava): La Santa Sede e la Cecoslovacchia nel contesto dell’inizio della guerra fredda 1945-1949

Marion Dotter (Munich): Watching the Iron Curtain’s Descent. Perception and Reaction of the Holy See to the Development of a Communist Rule in East Central Europe

Cécile Gonçalves (Paris): Global Anticommunism and the Dogma of the Assumption in Salazarist Portugal

Panel IX – Political and Cultural Changes: Toward Vatican II

Rachel Johnston-White (Groningen): The Catholic Church and the Question of Authority, 1939-1962

Michael O’Sullivan (Poughkeepsie, NY): Sex and Birth Control in West Germany. Reacting to Pius XII’s Speeches on the Rhythm Method

Kristien Suenens (Leuven): The Vatican Archives and Transformations of Convent Life in Post-war Belgium

Liviana Gazzetta (Rome): Mondo cattolico italiano e cittadinanza femminile durante il pontificato di Pio XII (1939-1958)

Nina Valbousquet and Simon Unger-Alvi: Concluding remarks