The Global Pontificate of Pius XII

Simon Unger-Alvi gained his doctorate in modern European history at the University of Oxford in 2018 and his German Habilitation from the University of Fribourg in 2023. He currently leads an international research group on postwar Catholicism and Pope Pius XII at the German Historical Institute in Rome. He was a Visiting Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and teaches as an associate professor in Fribourg. Nina Valbousquet is a historian and author of two monographs: Catholique et antisémite : Le réseau de Mgr Benigni (CNRS, 2020) and Les âmes tièdes. Le Vatican face à la Shoah (La Découverte, 2024). She is the editor of the special issue of the Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah on the Pius XII Archives and the Holocaust (2023) and the scientific curator of the exhibition on “The Churches and the Holocaust” at the Shoah Memorial in Paris (2022-2023). She is co-organizer of the Ecole Française de Rome 5-year research program and seminar on the Pius XII archives (2022-2026).

Introduction: Conservative Continuities and Roads to Reform in a Global Catholic Church

Simon Unger-Alvi and Nina Valbousquet



Part I: The Pope, the Archives



Chapter 1. Writing and Rewriting History: The Opening of the Vatican Archives for Pius XII’s Pontificate

Giovanni Coco



Chapter 2. Card. Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pius XII: the Mediatization of a Papal Election

Camilla Tenaglia



Chapter 3. The Saints of the Pope: Canonization and beatification in the age of Pius XII

Stefan Samerski



Part II: Peace, War and Genocide



Chapter 4. Anti-Jewish Prejudices, Anti-Semitism, Racism, and the Catholic Church’s Attitudes during the Shoah

Tommaso Dell’Era



Chapter 5. “Because the Jews are also prone to exaggeration” Or: Explanations for why Angelo Dell’Acqua’s appunto of 2 October 1942 was omitted from the “Actes et Documents”

Hubert Wolf, Jana Haack, Sascha Hinkel, Elisabeth-Marie Richter, Judith Schepers, Barbara Schüler



Chapter 6. The Local church, the Holy See and the rescue practices. The aids to the Jews during the Nazi-Fascist occupation of Florence (1943-1944)

Elena Mazzini and Francesca Cavarocchi



Chapter 7. The German Pope: Pius XII and German War Criminals

Suzanne Brown-Fleming



Part III: Postwar Reconstruction and Politics



Chapter 8. The Pontifical Assistance Commission: from WWII Rome to Postwar Italy

Alessandro Santagata



Chapter 9. Pius XII and Christian Democracy: Between Theology and Politics

Rosario Forlenza and Bjorn Thomassen



Chapter 10. The Condemnation of Worker-Priests and the Nuncio in Paris (1944–1953)

Marta Margotti



Chapter 11. Challenges and Dilemmas of the Papal Diplomacy in front of the Bolshevisation of Czechoslovakia (1945-1950)

Emilia Hrabovec



Chapter 12. Watching the Iron Curtain’s Descent: The Church of Austria and its Reactions to the Rise of the Communist Regimes in East Central Europe after the Second World War

Marion Dotter



Part IV: A Global Church in the Postwar Era



Chapter 13. The Holy See and the New World: Asia-Pacific (1945-1953)

Olivier Sibre



Chapter 14. The Vatican and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Humanitarianism, Diplomacy and Interreligious Relations

Maria Chiara Rioli



Chapter 15. Pius XII, the Salazar Regime, and the Colonial Question

Marialuisa Lucia Sergio



Chapter 16. Africanisation and Centralization: Roman Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Late Colonial Period (1930s-1950s)

Edouard Coquet



Conclusion: New Documents for a Revised History

Simon Unger Alvi and Nina Valbousquet