The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI.

Bailey, Richard G.

The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI, by Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky. Introduction by Garry Wills, translated by Steven Rendall. New York, Harcourt Brace, 1997. xxiv, 319 pp. $25.00 U.S. (cloth), $14.00 U.S. (paper).

John Cornwell's recent book, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Plus XII (Viking, 1999) resurrects the "Hochhuth problem"-- Pius XII's silence during the Holocaust. In response to the charge of complicity with sinister forces of his era it might be pointed out that Pius XII was responsible for saving Jews in Eastern Europe. He offered refuge to the Chief Rabbi in Rome. The Jews of Rome engraved a plaque showing their gratitude to him and at the time of his death Golda Meir wrote of his concern for Jews during the Holocaust.

The evidence also favors complicity. Pius XII knew of Nazi designs on the Jews as early as 1941 but chose the path of silence to protect the Church from Nazi reprisals. Silence was also interpreted as tacit approval. Ernst Menshausen of the German mission to the Vatican took Pius XII's silence as an indication that he stood "on the side of the Axis Powers" -- quoted in Ladislas Farago, Aftermath (1974), p. 172. At the time of the deportation of Jews in Rome, numerous envoys told Pius XII that failure to publicly denounce the action would be moral bankruptcy. On October 28, 1943 German Ambassador Weizsacher reported to Berlin that Pius XII "although reportedly beseeched by all sides, has not allowed himself to be drawn into any statement condemning the deportation of Jews from Rome ... he has also in this delicate matter done everything in order not to burden relations with the German government" (quoted in Farago, p. 174). According to the Archbishop of Venice it was not the Church's mission to protect the Jews. In January 1939 he put it bluntly: "To say simply that the Church protects the Jews, is to assert what is not true; for the Church, properly speaking, protects by divine mandate only the freedom of its universal mission which is to communicate its supernatural good to each and all" (Hidden Encyclical, p. 150). Yet, after the war the Church used its ample resources to help Nazi fugitives, The rescue effort was headed by Bishop Alois Hudal who was one of Pius XII's closest friends, Adjutant at the Papal Throne, and author of Foundations of National Socialism (1936) which espoused Nazi racist theories.

The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI provides useful historical background to the debate over Pius XII's silence. The encyclical that is the subject of the book was composed in Paris in the summer of 1938 by Fathers John LaFarge, Gustav Gundlach, and the French Jesuit and social activist Gustave Desbuquois. An abridged French version, entitled Humani generis unitas, was delivered to Rome in September 1938 but never published. After a long and difficult search Passelecq and Suchecky secured the abridged French version on microfilm and this was the text reproduced in the Hidden Encyclical. Gundlach probably authored the first 70 paragraphs which were a critique of modernism and modern political conceptions of nation, state, and race. LaFarge, Gundlach, and Desbuquois collaborated on the remaining 108 paragraphs which dealt with the unity of the human race, race and racism, the Jew and anti-Semitism, and the social role of Catholic educational institutions.

The encyclical and related sources reproduced in the book reveal Pius XI's political agenda in the last year of his life. The Church was in a fierce struggle against fascist interference in the sphere of free religious activity. Pius XI identified the battleground as racism. That is, the forces behind racism were using it to sabotage "true religion." What was at stake was control over the minds of the faithful. It was within the context of opposing the forces behind racism (to defend the Church rather than save Jews) that Pius XI commissioned the American Jesuit Father LaFarge to write an encyclical against racism, the project which would produce Humani generis unitas. LaFarge, whose writings championed interracial justice and emphasized the unity of humanity within cultural diversity, was a logical choice for the task. He subsequently met with the Jesuit Superior General, Father Wladimir Ledochowski who named Gundlach and Desbuquois to assist in the project.

Gundlach was a German Jesuit and specialist on class society who contributed the article on anti-Semitism to the Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche in 1930. He defined two types of anti-Semitism. The first was "politico-racial," which was condemned by the Church because it denied the unity of the human race in Christ and the importance of Israel in God's plan. The second was "politico-governmental" and was permissible because it combated the "harmful influence" and "moral nihilism" of assimilated Jews with liberal and libertine tendencies, who were operating "within the camp of world plutocracy [and] ... international Bolshevism" to destroy society (pp. 48, 50). Passelecq and Suchecky point out that it was this "mental framework" created by "a world view in which Israel was associated with all the misdeeds of modernity" and a fear of Jewish plotting "to undermine the Christian order of international society" that blinded the Church to the realities of anti-Semitism on the eve of World War II (pp. 159, 167).

Politico-governmental anti-Semitism was also advocated in Church publications. On September 25, 1936 a writer in La Civilta cattolica proposed that Jews be segregated because they were a disruptive element in society due to their "material-financial" and "revolutionary" dominance (p. 128). The anti-Semitism that proposed segregation was supposedly not racist. It was a defence of national traditions. It was to Father Enrico Rosa, a defender of Jewish segregation and an editor at La Civilta cattolica, that Ledochowski submitted the draft version of Humani generis unitas for critical revision.

The fate of the encyclical was ultimately in the hands of Ledochowski and Gundlach suspected that he never wanted the document published. Ledochowski, like Hudal, was of the view that a compromise with Nazi Germany was desirable if Bolshevism was to be destroyed. When Pius XI died in February 1939 the anti-racist policy at Saint-Siege was dropped. Pius XII's policy considerations became tainted with complicity. According to Gundlach Pius XII was counseled to remain silent and do nothing that would offend Germany. Humani generis unitas was returned to its authors on the condition there would be no mention the work was commissioned by Pius XI.

In Gundlach's view of things, Humani generis unitas was part of a vigorous attack against modernism and all forms of political absolutism, and Pius XII forsook his papal responsibilities by refusing to work with a document authorized by his predecessor. But even if Humani generis unitas had been published it would not have had any impact on established anti-Semitism. The encyclical chose to shift the Jewish question from one of race to one of religion, adopting the Church's official position of "doctrinal anti-Judaism." The Jews crucified Christ and were under divine judgment unless they converted (Paragraphs 135-140). Furthermore, circumstances of Jews in "purely profane spheres" was not the Church's affair (Par. 148). Rather than challenge entrenched mentalities, Humani generis unitas would have perpetuated them.

The strengths of The Hidden Encyclical are the wealth of primary sources the authors gathered relating to the encyclical, the inclusion of the entire abridged French version of Humani generis unitas, and extensive notes. Unfortunately the book is poorly organized. Primary sources are presented chronologically with inadequate effort to integrate and interpret them. Letters between Gundlach and LaFarge are often quoted in their entirety, even when there is no relevant detail.

Pius XII is well on his way to being canonized. The continuing debate over his silence raises questions. Is a saint the sort of person who chooses the greater good on behalf of human suffering, or is a saint the sort of person who ensures that the troth committed to the care of the Church is "preserved intact" (Par. 148) and defended above all else?

Richard G. Bailey
Queen's University, Kingston