Pius XII, the War and the Silence in a Book by David I. Kertzer

Journal title ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA
Author/s Gabriele Rigano
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2024/304 Language Italian
Pages 16 P. 150-165 File size 141 KB
DOI 10.3280/IC2024-304008
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The affair of Pius XII’s silence has always aroused much controversy, even beyond historiography. However, the opening of the archives of the Pius’ pontificate in the Vatican in March 2020, albeit very late, reignites the historiographical debate as well. Some recent publications have begun to grapple with the new documentation, such as that of David Kertzer, “A Pope at War”. This book has several limits due to the partiality of the reconstruction, and the limited engagement with pre-existing literature. Moreover, the lack of a long-term perspective prevents the interpretation and comparison of the affair of Pius XII with the main historiographical debates of the history of Christianity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. Such limits make the book superficial, with no possibility of moving beyond the sterile controversy between accusers and apologists.

Keywords: war, Pius XII silence, David I. Kertzer, Church History, historiography

Gabriele Rigano, Pio XII, la guerra e i silenzi in un libro di David I. Kertzer in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 304/2024, pp 150-165, DOI: 10.3280/IC2024-304008