Important at the National History museum. We are working on our public space and it will be dedicated solely to the theme of liberation. The museum talks about why the war was fought and how the war was won, but theres a third charge, what the war means to us today, and i think that is key of the liberation pavilion. One of the areas we will explore in the liberation pavilion will be faith in wartime, where we will discuss the Important Role religious belief laid to the played to the millions of people caught up in this global struggle. It charges the museum with bringing stories of how faith was crucial to those who found themselves surrounded by the horrors of war. This is what we are about to hear from our first speaker, Mark Riebling. He is a lecturer in holocaust and genocide studies at georgetown university. Previously, he was cofounder and Research Director of the nypd center for policing terrorism and the research to rector of the Manhattan Institute for policy research. His book wedge the secret war between the cia and the fbi has been recognized by many blueribbon panels. He has written for numerous publications, the New York Times and the guardian among them. He is going to be talking about his most recent book. It is his first term to the trip to the International Conference here, so i would like you to give Mark Riebling a very warm welcome. Thank you. [applause] mr. Riebling good morning. Can you hear me ok . Thank you. Many thanks to the Baptist Community ministries for bringing us here this morning. Im going to talk to you about one of the alltime great remaining historical controversies about the Second World War in europe, so if nothing else, there is no better way to record trip a perfectly good dinner party then to raise the subject am going to talk about tonight. I was a really good dinner party last night. If im a little bit less than spry this morning, its because i was out drinking on bourbon street less than spry this morning, its because i was out drinking on urban street with the general. It i will pass on this intelligence for any catholics may find themselves on bourbon street. The patron saint of hangovers is saying baby on us usually the questions are very lively and i learn a lot from the audiences perspective. First, i would like to give a flyover of the coats secret war the popes secret war against hitlers, which is the subject of my book, church of spies. Then i would like to focus on the covert birth of the cold war moral order, which i think is really important. And i would like to touch on how this affects us today. Including, if i may be modest, how it explains donald trump. Then i will take your questions. The context of this vatican secret war against hitlers its in this subgenre of world war ii studies, the war behind the war. That includes first of all the neutrals. That would be spain, switzerland, vatican city, the three big neutral locations. But more than locations, this secret war or war involving noncombatants involved moral factors and moral factors and war, you are napoleon. Napoleon believed moral factors are more were more important than material factors by a ratio of three to one. Hitler also believed spiritual factors and war were more important. In a book called why the allies won there is a whole chapter. We would normally expect the spiritual leaders like the pope to occupy this in a spirited way. In an undisputed way. It was not so easy for figures easy for pope pius the 12th, who was the pope during the bloodiest years of the bloodiest century in human history. He was elected under the shadow of the swastika in march 1930 9. And basically on the day of his coronation, on march 12 and 15th 1939, in that range, killer occupied czechoslovakia, which hitler occupied czechoslovakia, which more or less made war on europe inevitable. During the war and for a generation after the war, he was generally considered to have done a pretty good job under really messy circumstances, keeping the vatican neutral, and yet also trying to be a moral spokesman in a general way for what was going on. It really was not until the 1960s that people started questioning this view. Previously prominent juice like out prominent jews like Albert Einstein and goldeneye error golda meyer sang his praises. They did not find a denunciation of the genocide was going on. So a chorus of criticism began which culminated with a pretty wellknown book called hitlers pope. Critics said that the pope was cowed into silence by cowardice or antisemitism or apathy or political calculation or greed and defenders said, well, the reason he did not speak out is primarily because he was afraid he would make the plight of the victims worse. You can imagine everybody in europe was being held hostage with a gun to their head, and usually hostage negotiation skills, it requires putting the hostage taker at ease rather than denouncing them. So, both sides in the debate basically agreed the pope had done little or nothing to resist hitler. I found in my book both sides are wrong. The pope did resist hitler. The signature of this was his participation in three plots to kill him. Usually when i drop that boom like that i get questions that come fast and furious, sort of like, what, how come, how come we have not heard this before, how do you know what . Just to cover that quickly in the vast critical literature, all of the popes fiercest critics james carroll, david kurtzer, John Cornwell they all agree the pope hated hitler and did participate in these plots to overthrow him. But i noticed this when i was reading in the literature i noticed they did not take it any further than that. They discussed it in a paragraph, sometimes even a clause, and went on to other things. So, they seemed to show a lakh a lack of curiosity. What does this mean . What are the implications for how the worlds leading moral institution led the worst crisis in World History . I did a real deep dive on it. It took me from beginning to end about 18 years altogether. I spent a lot of time and the u. S. National archives, the vatican secret archives, the archives in munich, the u. S. War college, i found especially helpful information in the form of debriefings briefings between the hope and the german resistance who were trying to eliminate hitler. I think the biggest break i got was when i discovered the transcripts of secret papal audio surveillance recordings the pope made in his library when he was meeting with top nazis and German Churchmen in 1939 and 1940. That is what broke it open for me. It is true, surprisingly, that the pope, like richard nixon, made his own secret tapes. The vatican was hardwired by the inventor of the radio, marconi. What is interesting about these transcripts, the key reveal for me was the German Church was really scared. The german cardinals were really scared that hitler was so popular that if the pope or rome called out the nazis, germans would side with hitler, and the prestige of the papacy would be destroyed and hitlers hand would only be strengthened by papal enunciation. Denunciation. So, what the transcripts show in these transcripts from 1939 and 1940, between the pope and the german cardinals, he is going to heed their advice, appease hitler, and at the same time behind the scenes he will work secretly. In essence, because pius could not lead a church of saints, he decided to lead a church of spies. The idea of people espionage might sound like something out of a dan brown novel, but in that, the vatican does have a verily very highly rated intelligence system. It does not have an agency per se. But it is the worlds Oldest Institution and the worlds oldest state. And they are staying spies. The christian religion for the first 300 years was an underground organization because a lot of the first christians expected christ to come back very soon, so it never occurred to them they would become the official religion of the roman empire in the fourth century. The church operated by something called the discipline of the secrecy, which comes from the mark gospel, where if you know the discipline of secrecy, which comes from the mark gospel, where if you know the gospel, jesus would go places and not tell people where he was going. This is in the dna of the early church. It would revert to almost the primitive form of the church, as the church of the catacombs, and indeed, we know hitler is saying a lot to live in drop that we are getting a lot of ribbentrop, that we are getting a war christianity. Hitler calls it the worlds greatest you spin on espionage center. Mussolini calls it the cave of spies. They explain how to skim charities, which hotels in reliable, even with codenames agents could be. These are the things that interested this particular pope. In germany, his goal in establishing this episcopal spy network was to prove that hitler was violating church rights. There was a treaty signed in summer of 1933 between the vatican and the reich concordat, guaranteeing church rights. Of course, hitler being hitler, he went about violating those rights. So, the network which was set up, a really colorful organization with a colorful cast of characters. One of the key operatives, i divorced jewish lesbian who converted to catholicism and she was a very reliable courier, but alas, she was captured and died in the concentration camp in 1941. Another useful operative was in fact, hibblers hitlers bodyguard, who was a handy guide to have if youre trying to get rid of hitler. They had a lawyer, joseph muller. He had the nickname, joey ox. He was really a godfather or fix fixer figure in catholic munich. I guess he is half Oscar Schindler and half don corleone and so, he was a helpful guide for the church and he flew missions over the outs. Over the alps. He would put secret documents in a briefcase, land in switzerland, hand the documents over to his contracts. He would take them to italy and the vatican where they were stored on the top shelf of the popes library in a hollowed out red book. So, this was a quite sophisticated, advanced Intelligence Service and Joseph Mueller played an Important Role because he was wily, he was crafty, he was odysseus, the german resistance. Some have called him the traveling salesman of the german resistance and he certainly sold the pope on participating in these plots to kill hibbler. To kill hitler. Just try to move through this without getting bogged down in details. If youre interested in how this played out, the blowbyblow, read my book. Germanys military Intelligence Service was the key to these plots to kill hitler within germany. They wanted to get rid of hitler, because they thought he was leaving germany into disaster. And there was a conservative part of German Society that saw the nazis, basically they call them brown bolsheviks, and they thought traditional conservative germany would be destroyed by hitler. Their goal was to kill hitler and the purpose of the enterprise was to make a separate peace after hitlers death. They needed someone who could interlocute with great britain. They found an answer to this problem in the person of the pope. They sent Joseph Mueller to the vatican in october 1939, and the said, holy father, well help us affect regime change in germany by essentially being our foreign agent. Pius slept on it and when he woke up, he agreed. He said, yes, any government without hibbler is a government without hitler is a government i would like to see in germany. His motive was basically he thought that hitler was possessed, had a soul by the devil. He tried to exercise exorcise hitlers soul, and when that didnt work, he worked with the german resistance. His deputies pointed out to the pope, it was very long odds. His advisers were sure it would not succeed, these attempts to kill hitler, but he said, if there is one chance in a million, my conscience will not allow me to stand by. His involvement in these plots against all odds over five years is a dramatic story, which i fell in church of spies. The popes principal role was to meet in the vatican apartments with people such as the british envoy, and he would pass on information and he would get preapproved peace terms which had been hammered out in british war cabinet meetings sent over by halifax. And it said, if you do get rid of hitler and this is before the invasion of the west, we will make peace and these are the terms. It was pretty general peace terms for germany, accepted by london. Pius the 12th demonstrated he was not, in fact, neutral because on three pages he compromised hitlers war plans by passing them to the allies first with the invasion of norway, then the invasion of the french and low countries in may 1940, and then importantly, as early as october 1940, he gave extremely Accurate Information about hitlers plan to invade the soviet union. In none of these plans, did the allies act expeditiously. People very rarely act on great intelligence. The popes stature went up dramatically and this was the beginning of a much closer relationship between britain and the holy see and it certainly survived the cold war. The plots involve the just so its especially in germany, the jesuits especially in germany, on the ground in the munich province of the jesuit order. They served it did have a big impact on what the cold war order was. Each of these three plots failed, as we know, because hitler survived until april 1945. The first plot failed because the german generals lost their nerve after hitler invaded the west. The view among the german generals was if i draw this sword, it will break off in my hands. The people not support me. The second plot failed when a bomb planted on hitlers plane in march 1943, it froze when the plane climbed to avoid flak. And the fourth, which people are most familiar with from movies when a german counts planted a bomb in hitlers headquarters, which wounded him, but did not kill him, and the plot failed when the conspirators failed to cut the communications in the wolfs lair. Pope pius xii is almost the only constant. Other players come and go. The head of the military intelligence and germany puis xii, three fellows pius xii, these three fellows are part of all of the plots. Technically he produced a change the german regime rather than to kill hitler per se. They went out of their way to give the pope moral cover, so he can say, i did not know what was going to happen hitler to happen to hitler. That being said, pope pius xii was no schoolboy. He had four decades of global affairs. When he convened the college of cardinals, he said throughout the war, when we were confronted by this it can expect her of not see as some nazism, i was guided by this passage those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. In my view, he was not hitlers pope. He could not have been if he was trying to kill hitler. If anything, he was churchills pope or roosevelts pope even. The church failed to properly mobilize their own faithful against the mobilization against the persecution of the jews. But they did rise to heroism. One of them was due to on high for and the other one was pius the xii. One of them with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And there were coconspirators in these plots and its a littleknown fact about Dietrich Bonhoeffer that he was taken to the vatican, led down into the vatican crypts, to see the lost team of st. Peter, and there he discussed with the popes deputies how to eliminate hitler, and more portly, what would come after hitler. So, one can always make the objection, all right, the hope did all of the stuff, but he was not elected to the cia chief, right . He was elected to be the moral shepherd of mankind. Shouldnt he have spoken out more forcefully, more directly, more frequently . Of course. You know, from safety and hindsight of new orleans in 2016, i think, of course that is true. He should have credit from the it fromd have cried the mountaintop. But its important to recognize, hitlers wouldbe killers ask the pope not see. The position was you will only put the resist its elements specifically the catholic resistance in germany under pressure, under surveillance, and we will have less freedom for action if we are suspected by the gestapo and we know that pope pius xii heated this advice. Heeded this advice. One of the biggest pieces of evidence that this was an influence on the popes decision to watch his words was the last day during the war he said the word jew is the first day we can document his participation in these plots to remove hitler. October 16, 1939. Its also true in 1944, the british and the Uniteds States government leaned very hard on pope pius xii not to denounce the genocide of the jews. They were concerned it would alienate the soviets. But most important, they were afraid of having an International Inquiry with expose the soviet complicity or the soviet butchery of the polish officer corps, 10,000 of them who were shot in the forest. Pius decided to listen to them and he backed down. But i think the main reason is pius chose to watch his words the transfers of his audio recordings show he felt he had a very weak hand and if he leaned on german catholics to follow him and the catholic moral teachers teachings, specifically with the jews and other controversial matters, the german faithful would have followed hitler and the German Church would have broken away and formed a state church as happened in england. The vatican did not want that to happen. I have to say a recent analogy and theres an example from our own times which bears on my theme, the struggle between a nationalist politician and an international moral leader, the quote an example from recent times, when pope francis went to mexico last year and he went up to the Mexican Border and a reporter asked, what you think about this american president ial candidate who wants to build a wall so people cannot go across United States . And pope francis said, such a person is not a christian. What happened then . The president ial candidate called the pope a disgrace. American catholics, interestingly enough, did not rise up against the president ial candidate. They were more upset with the pope. The pope had to back down and apologize and the papacy lost prestige and the president ial candidate gain prestige. Whats interesting to me about that is, at the time this happens, pope francis was more probably was probably the most popular person on the planet. He was probably the most popular pope in history. He was especially popular in the United States because he just visited here. This is the situation of the church in the world the less 500 years since the rise of the secular nations state, and the advent of mass communications. I would be hardpressed to point to a single example where the vatican achieved much of anything at all by criticizing a criticizing a specific secular policy in a specific secular state, and even john paul the second, when there was the cold war confrontation in poland, he was always very careful to speak in generalities and never call out the polish regime or the polish political leaders by name. Instead, he stuck to general ideas, most especially the dignity of the human person. Is there water . Is there water . Jamie . If someone could bring up a bottle of water, a little thirsty. Moral order, peace i would like to move through quickly, because i would like to leave room for questions, but the key ideas, i think were very usefully resented high by ian presented in the opening keynote, but when i did not hear imprecise to the degree i think its worthwhile is Human Dignity, the dignity of the human person. Nato was important. European unification was important. Christian soldiers, democracy. I would add economic populism. Britain rejected this idea of plutocracy. Thank you. They got rid of churchill because they wanted a more equitable distributional of wealth. These are all important ideas. The key one and the reason we won the cold war is this idea of the dignity of the human person, which was a front the soviets could not compete with effectively. This idea was really the core philosophy. If you look at the Meeting Proceedings of the catholic, the architects in germany, they keep coming back to this idea that this is why we have to resist hitler, this is why we have to build an ark of states. This is what it is really all about the. The idea that if we have an economic organization, economic populism, labor unions, it is the glue that holds it all together. It is the idea that man is more than just his body. Man is being with the soul. You cant just put people in cattle cars and ship them off to siberia or auschwitz. But there is something very special and sacred about the individual human soul. I would call this the judeochristian view of human nature. I think it is really important. Now as we see the post world order praying, it seems like it fraying it seems like it questions this order that has served us very well. I think that the reason that it is fraying and coming under pressure is because once we won the cold war in 1989, we thought we didnt need the idea of Human Dignity anymore. So we stopped talking about it during the clinton administration. Instead of globalization and bringing American Goods and betrayed and all of the stuff, and free trade and all of the stuff, but the end of the 1990s, who dids rising in russia though came about because russian spelling they russian felt they were losing their dignity. This begins the unraveling. They had freedom and the sad that we are losing our dignity. Just as a general note to people interested in history or other people pursuing these things, my view of the concept of Human Dignity is very underrated. As a means of historical exploration. If you see things that dont make sense, who is losing their dignity and who is giving it back to them. Whether it is the rise of heather in germany, whether it rise of hitler in germany, whether it is extremists in iraq who felt that after the u. S. Invasion, they were dip product deprived of their dignity. What it was the japanese who thought they gave a personal dignity by bombing will harbor, bombing pearl harbor, there is a lot of liberal social science that mrs. This. It can be measured or quantified. I think you can be registered and observed. To skip to the last part were promised to talk about the election, realtor politics had said at one point that he thought my book was a great guide to understanding the political season and the temper of the times in the election, he went to one particular quote. The catholic conspirators say that our main purpose is to replant the image of humanity in the bread of our countrymen. Ourn the breasts of countrymen. That is a problem we are now facing. It is the root of a lot of what is going on. Politics are clashing with the judeochristian view of humanity in which we are not defined by what group we belong to or what our politics are. But our individual moral choices. People felt that they were losing a lot with their jobs. Including their dignity. We have a president elect who came along and these people felt that he was restoring to dignity. As we navigate these waters, we dont know what is going to happen. I think president obama says Something Interesting and in athens. We have to guard against the crude division of people in us versus them. I think that is right. The best way to do that is to renew our understanding of what this kid judeochristian idea of a person is. There are many examples and church of spies of how this was done and others affected peoples moral choices during the war. That view of human nature was in 1939 when he said in the eyes of god, and because of our creator there was neither Gentile Norge gentile nor jew. What he meant by that was that our personal worth is not defined by how we worship or who we worship. It is something very personal and special about the human soul. This is what christ said to his disciples. He marginalized people who he made the marginalized people feel they were just as important as the roman emperors. I think that we could do worse. I worry that we are doing worse than to replant this particular view of mankind in the rest of in the breasts of our countrymen. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, mark. We have microphones and the audience. You will start in the back in the center where it is going to be very difficult for me to reach. I will ask our question is to please stand so that everyone can see you. Starting with the speaker. During yesterdays talks, we heard about the Catholic Church and bishops paving the way for nazis to escape to argentina and elsewhere. My question to you is if your Research Indicated that the pope knew about this or not . There is a movement to canonize pope pius the 12th. Can you give us a perspective . Mark i always get this wherever i go and speak. My short answer to that, i would defer to professor stein acher. It is totally up on what the Research Documentation is. I personally have not seen the evidence that he favored not the nazui exfiltration of war criminals. I do believe he was skeptical about things like the norberg the nuremberg trials and a lot of harsh punishment of people who baby who werent who may be were not outright butchers but they were kind of complicit. The reason for that is he was very troubled by the way germany was treated in the versailles agreements. He had another war for germans retained a dignity. The Catholic Church did assist. People also say that a lot of jews were saved in italy. They have the second highest survival rate in europe. The jews in italy. The pope says that that happened because he knew about it. He critics say that there was no evidence that he knew about it. I dont think you can have a different standard in both cases. Whether the not the war nazi war criminals escape using monasteries or whether jews escape using monasteries. I would say that the birds will be known when the vatican opens. Many pages will open next year. The quick and dirty on that is in my view that the Catholic Church has a very tried and true tradition of sanctuary. The catholic idea of sanctuary figures in people coming to the church, they are trouble, they are refugees and the church doesnt do a lot of tap dancing about whether they are guilty. They just let them come in. We saw this during the not the nazi occupation of italy where some people where harboring brain jews and communists in vatican properties. Why are you harboring these with riff raffs . The priest said to the nazi for the same reason that we will soon be sheltering you. [laughter] so that is that. On the question of pies the pius the 12th, it is not my place to say who should be made is safe according to the rules saint according to the rules of the Catholic Church. I think the Israeli Government has made themselves very clear that they feel it would destroy alltime relations between the state of israel and the vatican. I believe pope francis is seriously dragging his feet on that. Probably for that reason. We will see. I think that according to the Church Teachings of the time, he probably was a saint. But Church Teachings have changed since then. Particularly the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s which now have a much more broad reading of what the popes obligations toward noncatholics are. Maybe that depends on which stated they will use. Standard they will use. The standard of today or the status of the time. Maybe hundreds of years before we know. Another question any back here as well. Given the outcome was that a concern about alienating your catholic lands by persecuting them or even invading the vatican . Was it a concern that they would alienate their own soldiers or catholics . Simply by occupied the vatican city . Ugly that is correct. Mark i believe that is correct. You can take it i believe that is correct. They wanted to return to berlin and the added to celebrate a new soccer stadium. They thought this not be good for public relations. Especially as the war got worse and worse, i think maybe it would want to make a separate deal with the west. I think that is for sure that the not his work to some degree were to some degree constrained by public opinion. What is interesting about the catholic germany is that it is mostly he wasnt out of germany. Part of germany. These were the coup plans of germany that were key to the two plans. They never had strongholds in the positive part. That was important. With regard to buy the dell. He wasnt executed until the second of february 9045. Of february 1945. He not to did not publicize these educations processing for the good that they would have a bad effect on morale. I hope you were answered to your satisfaction. We have one more year. The middle. Thank you. Le prior the popes ro to its rise to ascendancy. He was in berlin. He negotiated. Did his attitude change after that process . Subsequently . Mark he did it on the orders of his predecessor as folk. Pope. There is a little bit of evidence, not a lot but a little bit that pope pius the 11th and the 12th, at the beginning they liked hitlerss anticommunism and his likes to spend catholic respectpledge to Catholic Church rights. They held that if we face and down that when hes being nice to us, we will heavily to stay on stan on later. We will a lot have given him a pretext for attacking us. But very quickly, the vatican soured,hitler because even while the concordant was being negotiated, the Catholic Churches labor leaders were being beaten and demonstrations were being set upon by brown shirts. If it was a marriage of convenience that lasted two months at most and by 1934, gthe vatican and the nazis were at odds. The main thing about pius the experience and the part that is most important for his participation in the plot against hitler, is that he got to know the key members of a later became the german resistance to hitler. Ride horses together. And the pope was very trusted by these german personalities and he the advantage to be a true honest broker of a postwar order because he was the one trusted party among parties that no one could trust. Here in the center as well. You mentioned originally the terms of surrender were given under chamberlain. Was there any worry in the vatican when chamberlain went out of power as to what he might do or tell to the germans . Mark very in addition question, yes. Very interesting question, yes. When italy entered the war in june, 1940 the vatican was concerned that evidence of his dealings with the british might fall into axis hands. There was a lot of smoke rising from roman chimneys and that month. The pope asked repeatedly the british, also the german resistance but particularly the british resistance to destroy any pieces of paper bearing upon the popes precipitation participation in these blots. British and behold the did not destroy all of their stuff. And when it started emerging in the early 1970s, it proved to be a gold mine for econstructing these plots, because the secret cables to london, we have. And they are probably the best source for the first plot. Churchill pursued a different policy than chamberlain did. Churchill said, and this is like a direct quote our policy towards all such overtures from the germans should be absolute silence. Theidnt wnaant to break up alliance by having back channel talks with hitlers opponents, which could be found out. In fact, when stalin did start finding out about them in 1944 through his mole in the British Intelligence system, it became a real problem for stalin. Somebody say it was a trigger of the cold war, with stalin in summer of 1944 started getting suspicious that the allies were going to somehow make a separate thee with germany leaving west with a free hand to go and attack russia. So, it was important. We have another question in the middle. Dont worry we will get to the outside, too. Onwould you comment, please, any of the relations between the pope and mussolini or the government in italy . Wouldthe book on that i really referring to is by mussolini and the pope deals primarily with pope pius the 11th. Another primary source, though, is a book called secrets of a vatican cardinal. Its very clear that the vatican is ambivalent about loosely mussolini primarily because he was so popular, but they really disliked about mussolini the problems they had with mussolini developed for two reasons. First when mussolini started pursuing racial laws. The italians had no interest in pursuing the jews at all. Italian catholicism had a long tradition of tolerance for the jews. So, the vatican just thought the whole thing was completely at odds with the italian society, which i felt itself really an exempla. The thother was when he brought italy into the war. So, the idea was italians are losing their dignity by being in bed with the germans. One of the interesting things i found in the Roosevelt Library is i found documents from e holy seeconvoy to th talking about the role pius the 12th had played in the coup which top of mussolini in july 1943, and there is mention of a secret radio link between roosevelt and the pope, which they talked about how regime change was going to happen in italy. So, there is a chapter of my book which talks about the popes attitude towards loosely, and towards mussolini. And id refer you to that if youre interested. I know i saw a question over here on the side. You make the comparison between a concern of catholics in germany rallying around hitler if there is too much antigerman support coming from the vatican, and you compare that to of the United States, their reaction to Pope Franciss statement about the wall. I would like to get your thoughts on that. I think you are talking about two hugely different groups of topics. That isrom boston, ground zero for the sexual abuse scandal. Comes up andncis says Something Like this, and i think that was more of a reaction of people finally saying we are rebelling for to the fact of decades of hearing do what i say, not what i do. And the major initial response reactions,ciss people said, this comes from somebody who is behind a wall. I would like to get your thoughts on that. That and i think that is very well said and very well thought. I do think the larger point reta ope, which is that when a p who is an international, transnational authority descends to particular case and a particular country, he does not know what is going to happen. He does not really know what is going to happen. Whereas if a pope, you know, effects the death or removal of a leader, he does want what will happen, that leader is going to be gone. And there is a separate set of considerations. Say with Something Like the holocaust. No one has suggested that if pius the 12th had said stop it, that hitler would have stopped it. I do not think that is the hitler we know. But we do know that if hitler had not been removed from the scene, it is almost certain the reich what it collapsed in the holocaust wouldve stopped. Which is the better option, the longer odds with the better path, better payoff, or the thing that would look more towards traditional moral leaders as doing . But certainly how the church is viewed, how the vatican is viewed by catholics in the country is important. And i take very seriously what you say about the abuse scandal, for sure. In germany the vatican also had a problem with the faithful because bismarck and others in the process of uniting germany had to beat down catholic political power which was against the unification of germany for local list kinds of reasons, regional reasons. German cap except very defensive about being accused by the protestant majority german catholics are very defensive about being accused of being unpatriotic. That was part of the consideration. It is true that catholics are different in different places. And popes have to be aware of that, and they forget about that at their peril. In the back, in the center section. Requires al speculation on your part. Do you think the ideas you talked about about individual Human Dignity, do you think those concepts and ideas played any role in the most recent president ial election and does this new administration have any mightr, uh, that they follow what youve talked about . Mark i definitely have an idea. Ok, great. Right here, mark. I know the lights are bright, sorry. Mark yes, look, it played a huge role i would say besides the obvious whites the workingclass who had been taken as the typical demographic who won the election, there was also a piece of it where part of what was going on is where personal dignity became like a zerosum thing. Which i do not think it should be. Other wordsi, certain people felt their dignity and hast enhanced by other people having their dignity denigrated. I think that is what is the concern to me about it and also of concern to the New York Times and other liberal organizations of people having a problem with it. That 50no denying Million People felt that their dignity was on the road to being enhanced by america first. And i think also by things. Liberal overreach where i think a lot of people would prefer that on their street in their town, washington not be telling them, you know, whether they men or take with two and they felt like they were losing their dignity by having these things taken out of their hands of their own communities. I think we have to look at this problem very closely. And as we go ahead, make sure that as we return dignity to those who have been denied it, that we dont deny it to those who should have it. We have time for certainly one more, maybe two more. And right over here. Yes, good morning. Thank you for your talk. You mentioned some of the reasons why the Catholic Church and the pope in particular felt they had to be cautious about their public pronouncements as hitler gained power. But what about as the allies made a dances, as made advances, as rome and france fel l, as the outcome of the war was very clear, did you detect and the records and what you know about the popes public statements, which i know nothing about, was there any change in a policy, that we looking back at say, no, here is the evidence that the cap and church in europe the Catholic Church, that the pope had these views and was willing to act on behalf of Human Dignity and preservation of life . Well, theres no evidence 12the views really changed. Even late in the war, he did not criticize the nazis till june 1945. They were still trying to get people out of germany and still trying to save jews, especially in places like hungry, and the battery did save many jews by working behind the scenes in hungary in the last months of the war. To the very end, there was a compelling reason to not with not alienate them because they were trying to work behind the scenes to get out jews and other people who were in jeopardy. I think, yes . Im sorry. Mark i think a real turning point in the popes thinking, if you want to talk about the human rights thing, was the atlantic charter, which professor properly spotlighted. But i think pope pius the 12th was really a visionary in this respect. Because reading the atlantic charter, it was apparent to pius he immediately started beating the allies with this behind the scenes. He said, stalin will never accept this. Stalin will never accept the idea of Human Dignity in the atlantic charter. So, once you defeat germany, assuming you do, then what . How are you going to do with the communist threat . In this way pius the 12th was the first cold warrior. The first person to see it coming. Even before churchill. Churchill still kind of in Wishful Thinking that maybe stalin could be tamed and turned into a good nationalist, maybe like putin is today. The vatican just did not buy it. Roosevelt was very naive in terms of the ability to handle stalin. So, pius the 12th, when he was proved right in 1946, he was looked to by truman and look to by the British Government then as someone who really could lead the way into a new cold war order. Thank you very much, mark. Mamark thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] monday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan 3s American History tv, reel america will air the 1997 film the time has come. For overseaseated audiences, the film restored by the National Archives documents the progress of africanamericans by profiling several newly elected black public officials. By being a part of the Justice System as a judge, i feel that i am making an impact on the social, economic and political life of my community. The registration, the voting and participation of blacks in the democratic process is bringing about a new sense of hope and not just a new sense of hope and a new sense of optimism, but it also bringing about a sense of economic parity. American history tv on cspan 3. The president ial inauguration of donald trump is friday, cspan will have live coverage of all of the ceremonies. Watch on cspan and cspan. Org and listen on the cspan radio app. Author william marvel talks about edwin stanton. The secretary of war during post of the civil war. Mr. Marvel argues that his loyalties lasted only as long as they were useful to him. He also gives examples of the wartime powers and suggests they were often applied with disregard for civil liberties. This is in petersburg virginia