Pius XII elected

1939MajorContested

Eugenio Pacelli, the Vatican's secretary of state, is elected in a one-day conclave months before World War II. His wartime conduct remains one of the most debated questions in papal history.

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Contested history

Consensus: Pius XII knew of the mass murder of Jews by 1942 and did not publicly name and condemn it; historians disagree about his reasons and about how much of the Church's rescue work he directed. The Vatican opened his pontificate's archives in March 2020.

The Vatican received detailed reports of mass killings during the warEstablished

Wartime diplomatic files and documents released since 2020 show reports reaching the Secretariat of State in 1942.

Silence was a deliberate choice to avoid reprisals and protect Catholics and Jews in hidingDebated

Defenders cite the Dutch deportations after bishops protested in 1942; critics argue a clear public statement could have saved lives.

Church institutions in Rome sheltered thousands of Jews in 1943 and 1944Established

Convents, monasteries and Vatican properties hid Jews during the German occupation; whether Pius ordered this directly is debated.

Pius XII was sympathetic to NazismUnsupported

His 1937 drafting role in Mit brennender Sorge and his contacts with anti-Hitler plotters cut against this; John Cornwell later softened his 'Hitler's Pope' thesis.