The latest attack on Pius XII.

Rome--Peter Godman, a New Zealander who is professor of the Latin Middle Ages and the Renaissance periods, at the University of Tubingen, Germany, recently presented his book Der Vatikan und Hitler in Berlin. The English version of this book is now available as well (Hitler and the Vatican: Inside the secret archives that revealed the new story of the Nazis and the Church).

The new book, like recent others by Jewish writers, once more accuses Popes Pins XI and Pins XII for failing to do what Godman thinks the Holy See should have done to oppose Nazism and defend the Jews.

The book does not convince Father Peter Gumpel, the postulator of Pins XII's cause for beatification. In a recent interview with Zenit he said, "The Holy See has always acted responsibly, considering all the possibilities that existed at the time. In every action, the pastoral concern was taken into account not only for the fate of the Catholic community, but also of the other communities.... In particular it sought to condemn totalitarianism, the idolatry of the Reich, the theories of race and blood, and, even more so, policies contrary to the life of the weakest."

All protests were reported in a volume published in Germany in 1965: Der Notenwechsel zwischen dem Heiligen Stuhl und der Deutschen Reichsregierung (The Exchange of Notes between the Holy See and the Government of the Federal Republic) and Von der Ratifizierung des Reichskonkordats bis zur Enzyklika 'Mit brennender Sorge' (From the ratification of the Concordat (1933) to the encyclical 'With Burning Sorrow, 1938). Godman says little or nothing about these features even though they are extremely relevant.

The German newspaper Die Welt, in its review of Godman's book, speaks about "a decadent work," and accuses him of having been negligent about his sources. Father Gumpel says that Hitler and the Vatican fails as history (Zenit, August, 2004).