Pius XII and the Low Countries

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.

1) Introduction

I. Historiography
2) Chenaux, The State of the Art of Research on Pius XII.
3) Napolitano, Different Archives on Pius XII. A Comparative Approach and Historiographic Considerations.
4) Durand,  Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Methodological Approaches.

II. The Second World War.
5) Stolarczyk-Bilardie, The Terrible Secret: Reflection on the Holocaust Awareness in the Vatican, June 1941-December 1942.
6) De Volder, Principled Protest or Pragmatic Prudence? The Catholic Church in Belgium and the Netherlands and the Persecution of the Jews (1940-1945) according to the Vatican Archives.
7) Dujardin, A ‘diplomat Pope’ in the face of war (1939-1945): as seen by Harold Tittmann.
8) Bank, Pius XII and the Netherlands during the Second World War: Solace or silence between Utrecht and the Vatican.
9) Rigano, The Silences of the Popes in War: Benedict XV and Belgium, Pius XII and Poland.

III. Intra-Ecclesiastical Developments
10) Milh, Secret visits to the Brussels nunciature . Archbishop Clemente Micara, Father Donatus Wynant and the observant crisis in the Belgian Capuchin province.
11) Suenens, Pius XII and women religious: The Belgian perspective.
12) Bruyère, Wartime Canon Law: Another History of the Church during the second world conflict.
13) Figliola, Mgr. Paolo Giobbe’s Internunciature in the Netherlands (1935-1958): documents in the Vatican Archives.

IV. Global and Cultural Developments
14) Margry, The Vatican and the burden of Postwar Divine Interventions.
15) Vanysacker, 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.
16) Lambert, Pius XII, Teilhard de Chardin and the Belgian Jesuits.
17) Christiaens & Kuijken , Between fears and hopes: Belgian perspectives on the Catholic turn towards Latin America (1945-1958).
18) Ickx,Further Notes on Eugenio Pacelli’s ‘Ostpolitik’