The Pope's Last Crusade: How an American Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI's Campaign to Stop Hitler

by Peter Eisner

Overview

Drawing on untapped resources, exclusive interviews, and new archival research, The Pope’s Last Crusade by Peter Eisner is a thrilling narrative that sheds new light on Pope Pius XI’s valiant effort to condemn Nazism and the policies of the Third Reich—a crusade that might have changed the course of World War II.

A shocking tale of intrigue and suspense, illustrated with sixteen pages of archival photos, The Pope’s Last Crusade: How an American Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI's Campaign to Stop Hitler illuminates this religious leader’s daring yet little-known campaign, a spiritual and political battle that would be derailed by Pius’s XIs death just a few months later. Peter Eisner reveals how Pius XI intended to unequivocally reject Nazism in one of the most unprecedented and progressive pronouncements ever issued by the Vatican, and how a group of conservative churchmen plotted to prevent it.

For years, only parts of this story have been known. Eisner offers a new interpretation of this historic event and the powerful figures at its center in an essential work that provides thoughtful insight and raises controversial questions impacting our own time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062049155
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	443,935
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Peter Eisner has been an editor and reporter at the Washington Post, Newsday, and the Associated Press. His books include the award-winning The Freedom Line and The Italian Letter, which he wrote with Knut Royce. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Settling of Accounts 1

1 Nostalgia Confronts Reality 7

2 A "Crooked Cross" 19

3 The Imposition of the Reich 36

4 The Pope's Battle Plan 50

5 The Flying Cardinal 68

6 A Democratic Response 84

7 In the Heat of the Summer 101

8 The Pope's Discontent 120

9 Shame and Despair 142

10 A New Year and an End to Appeasement 158

11 Will There Be Time? 170

12 Change Overnight 185

13 The New Regime 204

Epilogue 221

Acknowledgments 233

Excerpts from Lafarge's Encyclical 237

Notes 245

Bibliography 273

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

Gripping. ... Finally, the story of a lost opportunity that could have affected the course of history can now be told.

Voice of Reason

Eisner (The Freedom Line) resorts to dramatization and speculation (“The pope woke up... feeling as well rested as he had in recent days”), undercutting his efforts to persuade readers of the accuracy of his account in this less-than-thrilling tale of the little-known efforts by the Vatican to counter the Nazis before WWII. Pope Pius XI has been all but eclipsed in historical memory by the contentious reputation of his successor, Pius XII, who is regarded as having done far less than he could have to counter Hitler and to rescue the Jews of Europe from concentration camps. According to Eisner, the Vatican’s track record might have been different if Pius XI had lived to deliver a speech in 1939 condemning the German regime—that speech would have been based on the thinking of the Rev. John LaFarge, an American, who, two years earlier, had written a book (Interracial Justice) calling for church action against racism, and whom Pius XI had commissioned to write a papal encyclical on the same subject. Putting aside the author’s what-ifs, Eisner has done history and the Vatican a service by retrieving from obscurity a significant episode in Catholic-Jewish relations. Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Mar. 1)

Publishers Weekly

Much has been written about Pope Pius XII and his actions during World War II, most famously by John Cornwell in his provocatively titled Hitler's Pope. Speculation continues among historians about how differently things might have turned out for Europe had that pope taken a stronger stance against Nazism and Italian fascism. This book focuses on his predecessor, Pius XI. It has now become known that, with the help of American priest John LaFarge, he was ready to take that stronger stance in the days before his death in 1939. Pius XI specifically asked LaFarge, whose writings on American racism the pope had read, to draft a strongly worded encyclical against racism and anti-Semitism. Unfortunately it never saw the light of day. Using LaFarge's journals and recent releases from the Vatican archives, Eisner (The Freedom Line) tells the story of LaFarge's clandestine recruitment for the task and the intrigue surrounding the encyclical's ultimate suppression. VERDICT This engrossing look behind the scenes of the Vatican at a pivotal moment in world history will appeal to history buffs. It would make a great book club read as well, where a lively discussion over one of the great "what ifs" of history could be had. [See Prepub Alert, 9/20/12.]—Brett Rohlwing, Milwaukee P.L.

Library Journal

The story of the race to compose a last top-secret encyclical against Nazi racism before the death of Pope Pius XI. Notwithstanding the spate of current works on the tragic shortcomings of Pius XII during World War II, journalist and producer Eisner (The Freedom Line: The Brave Men and Women Who Rescued Allied Airmen from the Nazis During World War II, 2004, etc.) refocuses the spotlight in this relevant study on his predecessor, who did speak out against anti-Semitism and the threat of Nazism--though he was silenced by an untimely death in 1939. Pius XI, an activist pope since 1922 under whom the Vatican ultimately became an independent city-state achieving political and financial stability, had been deeply moved by an American Jesuit priest's 1937 book Interracial Justice, about his work among poor Maryland blacks, and summoned the author, Rev. John LaFarge, to the Vatican in 1938. In his 80s, Pius XI had a serious heart condition, yet the growing Nazi menace demanded action: The year before, Pius had issued an important encyclical, With Deep Anxiety, slamming the Nazis for racist policies and oppression of Catholics; now, aware he was on death's door, Pius was determined to go further in a new message he urged LaFarge to write swiftly and in secret. Eisner traces LaFarge's work in Paris over the summer of 1938 and his missteps in confiding in the pope's Superior General Ledochowski as a go-between, a shadowy figure who allowed the document to languish while the pope grew more ill. Ledochowski, like the pope's secretary of state Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pius XII), believed that the pope was imbalanced and that communism (and Jews) was the menace, not Nazism. Eisner closes with excerpts from LaFarge's powerful encyclical and the chilling suggestion of what might have been the outcome had it been published. An exciting reminder of how Vatican machinations continue to haunt history.

Kirkus Reviews