Pius XII and the Low Countries

Kim Christiaens, Jan De Volder, Sam Kuijken, Dries Vanysacker (eds)

Pages: 384 p.
Size:156 x 234 mm
Illustrations:6 b/w, 1 tables b/w.

Language(s):English
Publication Year:2025

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Subject(s)

BIO

Dr. Kim Christiaens is the Director of KADOC-KU Leuven and Professor at the KU Leuven, as a member of the Research Group ‘History of Modernity & Society 1800-2000’ at the Faculty of Arts.

Dr. Jan De Volder is Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, on the Cusanus Chair ‘Religion, Conflict and Peace’, and member of the Research Unit ‘History of Church and Theology’.

Drs. Sam Kuijken is an archivist at KADOC and PhD Researcher on the topic ‘From Colonial to Global: Catholic Internationalism and Worldviews 1945-1958’, focusing on the globalization of Christian international organizations.

Dr. Dries Vanysacker is professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven; member of the Research Unit ‘History of Church and Theology’; and academic secretary of the RHE.

Summary

The opening of the different Vatican Archives for the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) in March 2020 sparked the interest of scholars across different disciplines worldwide. It invigorated tendencies to revisit the history of the 1940s and 1950s beyond the established narratives and sources, and nourished hopes to address both longstanding and emerging questions, and to discover innovative themes and approaches. Three years after the opening of these archives, a multidisciplinary group of scholars from Belgium and the Netherlands convened at a scientific conference in Rome, organized by the editors of this volume, to study the impact of the archival access on diverse research domains. This publication presents new research based on documentation unearthed in the Vatican archives, spanning both the Second World War and the postwar period and challenges existing scholarship not only on the history of the Catholic Church, but also on broader themes in the Low Countries.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Kim Christiaens, Jan De Volder, Sam Kuijken & Dries Vanysacker

Part I - Historiography

The State of the Art of Research on Pius XII
Philippe Chenaux

Different Archives on Pius XII. A Comparative Approach and Historiographic Considerations
Matteo Luigi Napolitano

Pope Pius XII and the Shoah. Methodological Approaches
Jean-Dominique Durand

Part II - The Second World War

The Terrible Secret. Reflection on Holocaust Awareness in the Vatican, June 1941-December 1942
Monika Stolarczyk-Bilardie

Pragmatic prudence or principled protest? The Catholic Church in Belgium and the Netherlands and the persecution of the Jews (1940-1945) according to the Vatican Archives
Jan De Volder

A ‘diplomat Pope’ in the face of war (1939-1945). As seen by Harold Tittmann
Vincent Dujardin

Pius XII and the Netherlands during the Second World War. Solace or silence between Utrecht and the Vatican
Jan Th. M. Bank

The Silences of the Popes in War. Benedict XV and Belgium, Pius XII and Poland
Gabriele Rigano

Part III - Intra-ecclesiastical developments

Secret Visits to the Brussels Nunciature. Archbishop Clemente Micara, Father Donatus Wynant and the observant crisis in the Belgian Capuchin province
Anton Milh

Pius XII and Women Religious. The Belgian Perspective
Kristien Suenens

Wartime Canon Law. Another History of the Church during the second world conflict
Élisabeth Bruyere

Mgr. Paolo Giobbe’s Internunciature in the Netherlands (1935-1958). Documents in the Vatican Archives
Marco Figliola

Part IV - Global and cultural developments

The Vatican and the burden of Postwar Divine Interventions
Peter Jan Margry

Pius XII and the Olympic Games of Melbourne 1956 within his broader vision on sport and in the light of his successors’ contacts with the International Olympic Committee
Dries Vanysacker

Pius XII, Teilhard de Chardin and the Belgian Jesuits
Dominique Lambert

Between Fears and Hopes. Belgian Perspectives on the Catholic Turn Towards Latin America (1945-1958)
Kim Christiaens and Sam Kuijken

Further Notes on Eugenio Pacelli’s ‘Ostpolitik’
Johan Ickx

List of Contributors