The secret archives on the papacy of Pius XI between 1922 and 1939 are now opened to scholars. Among these documents, scholars will find Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli's private views on the 1933 Concordat with Nazi Germany, his relations with Fascist Italy, as well as information about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Nazi annexation of Austria, the attempts to appease Hitler by France and Great Britain with the 1938 Munich Agreement. The documents will show that to avoid reprisals against Catholics and Jews, Cardinal Pacelli had to be very cautious. Scholars may now examine the 30,000 files totaling millions of pages. Unjust judgments expressed in recent books, for example, John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope, 1999, and Susan Zuccotti's Under His Very Windows, 2001, will undoubtedly be overturned.

An early defense of Pope Pius XII appeared in a special enlarged edition of the Vatican's weekly publication of L'Osservatore della Domenica (1964), entitled The Pope, Yesterday and Today. These testimonials were by contemporary historians, poets, literary and religious writers and others of international stature. An important witness to the role of Pius XII in wartime Italy is Rabbi Israel Zolli, Chief Rabbi of Rome. He was an eye-witness of the deportation of Rome's Jews by the Gestapo in 1943. In his book, Antisemitismo, he states: "…No hero in all of history was more militant, more fought against, none more heroic than Pius XII in pursuing the work of true charity!...and this on behalf of all the suffering children of God."

Among the first to answer the modern critics of Pius XII, I provoked other scholars into re-assessing the Papacy's role during World War II. My books collect first-hand eyewitness accounts of Pius XII's contemporaries; English translations of primary material (from diplomatic and Vatican sources) available nowhere else; and reveal the utter hatred the Nazis had for Pius XII, because of his defense of persecuted Jews and uncompromising stand on behalf of Christian principles. I tried to defend the honor of the Pontiff. In a field filled with biased historians hiding behind the façade of "objectivity," I honestly declared my unambiguous support for Pius XII at the outset of all my books. In my judgment, not only has the wartime Pontiff been defamed, but there is more than enough evidence to prove that he was a genuine saint. Clearly it is time to stop the misrepresentations with regard to the role played by the Catholic Church during World War II.

Currently anti-Catholicism is an acceptable prejudice. One need only recall the anti-papal polemics of ex-seminarians like Garry Wills (Papal Sin, 2000), and of ex-priests like James Carroll (Constantine's Sword, 2001), and other lapsed or angry liberal Catholics exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today. In The Myth of Hitler's Pope (2006), Rabbi David Dalin concludes that "these attacks on the pope and the Catholic Church are really an intra-Catholic argument about the di-rection of the Church today. The Holocaust is simply the biggest club available for liberal Catholics to use against traditional Catholics in their attempt to bash the papacy and thereby to smash traditional Catholic teaching. …"

Cornwell has deliberately twisted the facts and does not understand Vatican policy. Yet, his book, Hitler's Pope, has been widely cited as an authentic witness against Pius XII, even though this Pope's role and actions were misrepresented. The bias against him seems to have become an accepted historical fact. Recently, however, John Cornwell conceded that he was wrong to have ascribed evil motives to Pius XII and now finds it "impossible to judge" him. Indeed, the slanderous statements contradict the words of Holocaust survivors, the founders of Israel, and the contemporary record of the New York Times. The historical record shows that Pope Pius XII, through his network of apostolic delegates throughout the world, was able to save the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. His influence is described in my new book, Crusade of Charity: Pius XII and POWs (Paulist Press, 2006).

Pius XII received praise from Israeli Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, Israel Zolli, Alexander Safran, and many others. Rabbi André Zaoui expressed gratitude "for the immense good and incomparable charity that Your Holiness extended generously to the Jews of Italy and especially the children, women and elderly of the community of Rome (June 22, 1944)." Rabbi David de Sola Pool, chairman of the National Jewish Welfare Board wrote to the Pope: "We have received reports from our army chaplains in Italy of the aid and protection given... From the bottom of our hearts we send you the assurances of undying gratitude."