History: Pope Pius XII: Historian, professor, and Orthodox Rabbi produces major refutation of smear campaign against WWII Pope

Maybe you remember a few of the main books that have argued that Roman Catholic Pope Pius XII was little more than a hateful anti-Jew meanocrat. You may have encountered John Cromwell's Hitler's Pope, or Gary Wills' Papal Sin reached the heights of notoreity "by arguing that Pope Pius XII was complicit in the Holocaust by failing to do enough to save the Jews from Nazi extermination," according to Chris Field of Human Events email newsletter.

The weakness of the Cromwell / Wills kind of historiography has been brawt into severe question by Orthodox Rabbi David Dalin "explodes this newly resurrected, widely accepted, yet utterly bankrupt smearing of a pope who was, in fact, to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, 'a righteous gentile.' "

The Amazon.com material includes a write-up from the inside flap-jacket of Rabbi Dalin's new work, one among several of his historiographical studies, The Myth of Hitler's Pope, a write-up that makes a startling revelation quite relevant to MidEast politics today and the pursuit of the Holocaust in Europe as opposed to the existence of the State of Israel.

Was Pope Pius XII secretly in league with Adolf Hitler? No, says Rabbi David G. Dalin—but there was a cleric in league with Hitler: the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. As Pope Pius XII worked to save Jews from the Nazis, the grand mufti became Hitler’s staunch ally and a promoter of the Holocaust, with a legacy that feeds radical Islam today. In this shocking and thoroughly documented book, Rabbi Dalin explodes the myth of Hitler’s pope and condemns the myth-makers for not only rewriting history, but for denying the testimony of Holocaust survivors, hijacking the Holocaust for unseemly political ends, and ignoring the real threat to the Jewish people. In The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, you’ll learn: · The true history of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust—how the Catholic Church did more than any other religious body to save Jewish lives · The real history of the Church and the Nazis—including the Nazi plan to kidnap the pope · The real agenda of the myth-makers: hijacking the Holocaust to attack the very idea of the papacy—especially the papacy of the late Pope John Paul II—as well as Christianity and traditional religion as a whole · Hitler’s cleric—Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who advised and assisted the Nazis in carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution · How Pope Pius XII rescued Jews—and deserves to be called a "righteous gentile"—while the grand mufti of Jerusalem called for their extermination Full of shocking and irrefutable detail, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope is sure to generate controversy, and more important, to set the record straight. If you want the truth about Pope Pius XII, about the Catholic Church, the Jews, and the Holocaust, and about how the myth of Hitler’s pope plays into the culture wars of our own time—and how the fact of Hitler’s mufti is a vital source of radical Islam today—you must begin here.

As readers of refWrite know, I (a Protestant Christian) have my criticisms of some important Catholic doctrines and institutions and the social doctrine of subsidiarity (to get technical on you for a second), not least of all in regard to the absolutes of the "consistent ethic of life" and the points of the "Just War theory" - all of which I think in several respects are seriously overwrawt and quite mistaken for the guidance of Christian ethical reflection and pursuit of moral behaviour. We all, even the most resolute Catholics, can criticize specifics of particular situations and trends within the Catholic embrace, whether approved or disapproved by the Vatican. But all of that is a far cry from the calumnious distortion of history put out by the anti-Pius XII industry which exploits the fears of Jewish laity, while congratulating uncritically several assumptions of leftwing and Liberal ideology - all to the end of achieving an incinerating defamation a particular recent modern Pope. Rabbi Dalin's book is bound to send a good number of these obfuscating smear-artists running. - Owlb