Book: Prewar Pope Prepared Attack on Nazis Before Dying

The Roman Catholic Church was on the verge of condemning Nazi persecution of Jews when Pope Pius XI died on the eve of World War II, but his successor, Pius XII, dropped an anti-racist papal pronouncement, a new book discloses.

The text had lain buried for more than half a century until Belgian historians Georges Passele and Bernard Suchecky found a copy on microfilm in the United States. It will be published in France on Thursday.

Pope Pius XI commissioned the encyclical, the highest form of papal writing, in June, 1938, to denounce racism and anti-Semitism, according to their book, “L’Encyclique Cachee de Pie XI” (The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI). The Pope died in February, 1939.

The encyclical, titled “Humani Generis Unitas” (The Unity of the Human Race), included a section denouncing attacks on the natural rights of Jews by German and Italian racial laws of the time. It declared Christianity incompatible with racism, including anti-Semitism. But it also echoed traditional Roman Catholic teachings against the Jewish faith.

Referring to “a flagrant denial of elementary justice for the Jews,” the draft said: “This unjust, unforgiving campaign against the Jews under the cloak of Christianity has at least the advantage . . . of recalling the authentic basis for the social separation of Jews from the rest of humanity.”

Extracts of the encyclical were published in 1970 by the Kansas City, Mo.-based National Catholic Reporter, but not the passage concerning the Jews. The full version had remained secret since the death of Pius XI.

Passele, a Benedictine monk, and Suchecky, a Jewish professor, found the draft by tracking down the papers of its author, U.S. writer John LaFarge. They said they overcame resistance from the Vatican and the powerful Jesuit order.