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On Monday the Vatican’s top diplomat defended Pope Pius XII’s record on helping Jews during the Holocaust while historians offered a more critical view, and Rome’s chief Rabbi cautioned against morally defending anti-Jewish prejudice.
“The Holy Spirit does not always prevent the necessary consequences of our negligence.” (Fr. Alvaro Calderon, Prometheus: The Religion of Man, p. 201)...
Pope Pius XII is pictured at the Vatican in a file photo dated March 15, 1949. (CNS file photo) Church history is a very strange phenomenon. It does not matter whether your academic position classifies you as an historian. If you are a Christian you risk having the label “apologist” put on your work, if you defend any aspect of Christian history—no matter how compelling and unassailable the evidence you advance. Conversely, if you are not regarded as an “apologist,” a glaze of impartiality protects you, even if your research is shallow and simplistic, hiding many errors, omissions ...