Rating: 
Summary: Vatican Apologist from Mississippi
Review: While one can argue that Cornwall's Hitler's Pope went to far in its full scale assault on Pope Pius, the author of this work a trial lawyer by trade, does not help matters with a defense better suited for a court room then an academic review. While Rychlak does cite the large amounts of evidence of Jews who, after WWII, were effusive in their praise of the pope, he fails to refute some of the most powerful indictments against the Church's behavior during the war. While one could discount the praise for Pious that Jews gave as an effort to curry favor with the long serving pope during the creation of the State of Israel, I will take it as face value as thanks for those Jews that the church saved. However, that fails to deal with Cornwall's most devastating charges such as: 1- Pious support for the concordant with Hitler and his willingness to disband Germany's catholic party, the most powerful bulwark against Nazism that existed at the time of its dissolution. 2- The church's willingness to allow priests to serve as chaplains in even the most blood thirst of Nazi military units such as the SS. 3- The church's failure, even now, to excommunicate Hitler, a baptized catholic. 4- The Pope's failure to condemn the activities of catholic eastern and south eastern regimes that supported the genocide against the Jews. Certainly, one can understand the Pope in the context of a man who believed that Communism was the greater threat to his church than fascism. However, one might also say that such thoughts belong in the realm of politics, and that it is the responsibility of the righteous to attack evil, wherever they find it. The world still waits for a balance biography of this fascinating and conflicted individual. Neither this, nor Cornwall's book meets that bill.
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