Catholic Church

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• 10/18/2020
  

  Does the "Divided Loyalty" Question Still Dog Catholic Politicians?

  by D.G. Hart

  Joe Biden will likely do what JFK and Al Smith did, namely, fit his faith into the norms of American politics.

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• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  9/11/2020
  

  "GUILTY": Justice for the Jesuits in El Salvador

  Applying the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction for human rights abuses, a Spanish Court found former El Salvador Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano guilty in the assassination of six Jesuit priests and two Salvadoran women in 1989. The National Security Archive supplied hundreds of declassified documents as evidence. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/27/2020
  

  The Pope, the Jews, and the Secrets in the Archives

  by David I. Kerzer

  Newly available Vatican documents, reported here for the first time, offer fresh insights into larger questions of how the Vatican thought about and reacted to the mass murder of Europe’s Jews, and into the Vatican’s mindset immediately after the war about the Holocaust, the Jewish people, and the Roman Catholic Church’s role and prerogatives as an institution.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/28/2020
  

  Unsealed Archives Give Fresh Clues to Pope Pius XII’s Response to the Holocaust

  Reports by historian David Kertzer that documents in the Vatican archives reflect on the antisemitism of Pope Pius XII and his advisors have sparked countercharges by church historians that reports based on newly available sources will give priority to sensational findings. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  8/29/2020
  

  Records From Once-Secret Archive Offer New Clues Into Vatican Response To Holocaust

  Historian David Kertzer has published work based on newly available documents from the Vatican's archives, which suggests Pope Pius XII was motivated by political concerns to accept persecution of Europe's Jews and obstructed the reuniting of Jewish orphans with their families after the war.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/16/2020
  

  A Saint's Sins

  Columnist Elizabeth Breunig consults historians including James Sandos, Robert Senkiewicz and Steven Hackel to evaluate how the canonization of Father Junipero Serra among Catholics and his memorialization by Californians squares with recognition of atrocities committed against Native Americans by Spanish colonizers. 

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• SOURCE: Times of Israel
  6/30/2020
  

  St. Louis’s Statue of Pius XII: A Double-Standard

  by Eunice G. Pollack

  If Yale has renamed a residential college named for John C. Calhoun and Princeton will cease to name its public policy school after Woodrow Wilson, the Jesuit St. Louis University should consider evidence of Pope Pius XII's actions in the face of the Holocaust and remove his statue from campus. 

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• SOURCE: Patheos
  6/7/2020
  

  “It’s About Time They Got Here”: Catholics and the Civil Rights Movement

  by Pat McNamara

  A Church historian advocates learning about how American Catholics have supported and challenged racism.

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• SOURCE: Catholic Sun
  5/22/2020
  

  Polish Historian Questions German Researcher’s Claims About Wartime Pope

  "I’ve never personally encountered a situation in which 11 volumes of material, published over two decades, are suddenly countermanded by a single document, found after a few days’ research," says Jan Zaryn.

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• 5/17/2020
  

  What the New Evidence on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust Means

  by Rafael Medoff

  In the end, whatever their respective reasons, the Pope and the president both opted to look away from the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time.

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• SOURCE: National Catholic Register
  5/1/2020
  

  Pope Pius XII Detractor Cries Wolf

  German historian and Catholic Priest Father Hubert Wolf has claimed that recently opened Vatican documents show Pope Pius XII was complicit with Nazi atrocities. Other Church historians dispute the novelty or veracity of his evidence.

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• SOURCE: New York Post
  5/3/2020
  

  German Catholic Bishops Admit They Were ‘Complicit’ In Nazi Crimes

  Germany’s Catholic bishops have acknowledged that they were “complicit” in allowing the Nazis to rise to power.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/29/2020
  

  Pope Pius XII, Accused of Silence During the Holocaust, Knew Jews Were Being Killed, Researcher Says

  A team of resesarchers led by Hubert Wolf discovered documents suggesting Pope Pius XII knew at an early stage of the Nazi efforts at genocide, concealed those facts from the United States government and others, and concealed documents to protect the Church's image.

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• SOURCE: America Magazine
  4/27/2020
  

  Review: Phyllis Zagano Makes The Case For Women Deacons

  Phyllis Zagano's most recent work "Women: Icons of Christ," examines the ways women have participated and been acknowledged as deacons in the body of Christ.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/9/19
  

  How Africa is transforming the Catholic Church

  by Elizabeth A. Foster

  Pope Francis’s visit to Africa highlights the growing trend toward decolonizing Catholicism

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/2/2019
  

  The Nuns Who Bought and Sold Human Beings

  America’s nuns are beginning to confront their ties to slavery, but it’s still a long road to repentance.

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• SOURCE: The Daily Beast
  July 5, 2019
  

  Did the Vatican Hide Art That Depicted Female Priests?

  A historian finds Catholic iconography with women performing acts that only men are allowed to do today—and that the works were covered up. Others aren’t convinced.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/27/19
  

  What Catholic Church records tell us about America’s earliest black history

  by Jane Landers

  These records date back to the 1590s and document some of the earliest black history of the U.S.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/13/19
  

  When the Catholic Church’s prohibition on scandal helped women

  by Sara McDougall

  But why has scandal been systematically silenced in the church for so long? One answer lies in the medieval church's doctrine on scandal.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/20/19
  

  The Catholic Church’s shameful history of Native American abuses

  by William S. Cossen

  Colonizing indigenous land and constructing walls, both figurative and literal, to win public influence and political power is not a new story in American Catholic history.