great deal of interest well beyond account catholic world. pius xi had clearly xwroomed pacelli to become the next pope. after a conclave lasting less than 24 hours, vatican secretary of state eugenio pa chel little is sworn in as pope. he chooses to call himself pius xii to honor his mentor. one of the things that made pacelli the right choice at this point in time was that all the rival parties the believed that he was in their camp. he was as it were all things to all men. he was widely recognized for his diplomatic skill. it was seen that given that the world was in a state of such tension that a diplomat pope and one who had considerable experience in international affairs is might be in order. as tensions in europe continued to rise, pope pius xii
it was a very public, violent attack on jews and after that, it was game over. bishops from all over europe write to the vatican s secretary of state eugene know pacelli demanding a response to the violence in germany. is the primate of the catholic church in england wrote to pacelli and said we need to be clear that this is nazi terrorism against jews. can you make a statement? and pacelli writes back saying well, it s a difficult issue and what we need to do is just issue a statement of general love and concern and mercy for all in a universal way. in january, 1939, hitler makes a bone-chilling speech threatening the annihilation of the jewish race in europe.
the crux of the debate lies in the character of pope pius xii. who was he, and why did he make the decisions he did? there are those who see in his reluctance to identify the suffering of jews in particular some see in that the strains of anti-semitism. pacelli s time in germany as a papal diplomat is critical to his formation, his thinking about germans and germany, and one could argue his thinking about jews. he describes meeting with jewish officials who he describes as dirty communists with slanted eyes. we can see his negative stereotypes about jews in his writings, and i m not convinced they ever really exited his thinking.