Donald J. Dietrich, Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition. Transaction Publishers: To order, call (888) 999-6778. Hardly anyone disagrees today about how bad Hitler and the Nazi regime were for the world. Besides unleashing World War II, Hitler had plans to exterminate entire peoples—plans which he proceeded to carry out before the eyes of a too-long unbelieving [...]
By Eugene J. Fisher Patrick J. Gallo, editor, Pius XII, the Holocaust and the Revisionists: Essays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2006. 218 pages. PB. NP. Sister Margherita Marchione, Crusade of Charity: Pius XII and POW's (1939-1945). New York: Paulist Press, 2006. 284 pages. Ronald J. Rychlak, Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church saved Half a Million [...]
The Church That Forgot Christ By Jimmy Breslin. Free Press. 239 pp. $26 Reviewed by Kenneth Woodward Ostensibly, this is a book about the clergy abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. But like everything Breslin writes, it is really about himself. Or rather, it is about him writing a book about clergy abuse. He wants [...]
by Ronald J. Rychlak Remember John Cornwell? In his last book, Hitler’s Pope, he claimed that he was a loyal, practicing Catholic who had the highest regard for Pope Pius XII and wanted to write a book defending him. He said he received special access to secret archives due to his previous writings defending the Church. He [...]
By Robert P. Lockwood When John Cornwell’s book, Hitler’s Pope was released, many critics missed the point in the sensationalism surrounding his unfounded claim that Pius XII was a silent collaborator in the Holocaust. Cornwell wrote the book as an advocacy paper against the leadership of Pope John Paul II within the Church and in favor [...]
By Michael Phayer, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis (2000) Reviewed by Robert P. Lockwood Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) faced Nazi Germany, as Secretary of State to Pius XI and as pope, with a remarkable consistency. The Nazis considered him an implacable foe, and he was hailed both during and after World War II as the [...]
For over three and a half centuries, the trial of Galileo has been an anti-Catholic bludgeon wielded to show the Church as the enemy of enlightenment, freedom of thought and scientific advancement. In the cultural wars of our own day, Galileo has become an all-encompassing trump card, played whether the discussion is over science, abortion, gay [...]
by Robert Lockwood A sad sign of the times is that there are those Catholics who let their own vision of what the Church should or should not be poison their public comments. They often engage in the most shocking anti-Catholic rhetoric to push a particular agenda within the Church, with little interest in the impact [...]
Ronald J. Rychlak John Cornwell's new book, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, turns out to be a deeply flawed attack on Pope John Paul II. That's right, the final chapter is actually an attack on the current plaintiff. Cornwell is disturbed by John Paul's "conservative" positions on celibate clergy, women priests, artificial contraception, and [...]
by Sister Margherita Marchione, Ph.D. Author: Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italyand, forthcoming, Pius XII: Architect for Peace An extraordinary new book, a scholarly compedium of vital historical documents, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican (Paulist Press, 1999) by Father Pierre Blet, S.J., greatly expands [...]
