So far, so good. And for anyone possessing more than a nodding acquaintance with historiography, suppressing evidence that runs counter to an ideological bent, misrepresentation of key documents or a consistent bias which “skews” inconvenient statements are well known tricks, enjoining the reader to be on constant guard. In spite of some postmodernist arguments to the contrary, historical truth must always be the ultimate goal of any objective researcher.

In view of this, then, it is all the more breathtaking when a strand of revisionism appears, heaping obloquy on a dead pope for remaining “silent” in the face of Nazi exterminatory policies and is praised to the skies by the selfsame pundits who denounce the “revisionism” of David Irving. We are entitled to ask: What on earth is going on?

This paradox of modern historical judgment is a main theme of Margherita Marchione’s new book: Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace (Paulist Press, New York). Marchione points out that for a number of years, throughout the war, indeed until the early 1960s, Pius was generally hailed as a towering moral hero in the face of cataclysmic terror. Numerous commentators pointed to a man who worked tirelessly for peace, was solicitous on behalf of all those persecuted by Nazism — Jews and Gentiles alike — and, when the right moment presented itself, spoke out clearly with a voice that cut through the fog of propaganda billowing from both sides in the war.

In examining the cultural and ideological shifts that took place in western society in the 1960s, leading to a widened anti-authoritarianism and suspicion of any established moral authority (the Roman Catholic Church being a prime target), Marchione arrives at conclusions which even hardened detractors of Pius will have to come to terms with. These winds of changing opinion on Pius’s record blew from the moment that Rolf Hochhuth’s play Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy) made its appearance in 1963. Here, according to Hochhuth, was a shepherd who did not lead his sheep, but actively betrayed them. His “silence” on learning of the Holocaust was that of Pilate when faced with the decision to release Christ or deliver him to the execution squad, washing his hands of the whole sordid process. Of course, Hochhuth averred that Pius, like the Roman procurator, took the latter, dishonorable course. In the meantime, the trains to Auschwitz followed their own unchangeable and deathly timetable. Yet although protests were made by many who had direct experience of Pius’s charitable work, Hochhuth’s black history gained credence; even Deborah Lipstadt herself maintained in the late 1980s that Hochhuth’s work “had stood the test of time.”

The problem with this harsh new interpretation of Pius’s actions is that it flies in the face of a veritable mountain of evidence, particularly that provided by witnesses to the actual events of World War II. And it is in examining the testimony of those “who were there” that Marchione is at her strongest.

To buttress her account of Pius as hero instead of revisionist villain, there are over one hundred pages of documentary extracts, culled from the twelve-volume published series Actes et documents du Saint-Siege relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Some might see this as overkill by the author, but the justification for their inclusion is clear: many who have condemned Pius out of hand are ignorant of the treasure-trove that the Actes et Documents comprise. Further, those who criticize the Holy See for its “secret archives” should take time to read and ponder the implications of the documents presented here. Take, for instance, the response of Allied governments to increasingly desperate queries from Rome as to the fate of prisoners of war, whether in Axis or Allied hands. In May 1941, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden declined to provide copy-typists so that lists of prisoners could be forwarded to the Vatican Information Service (VIS)! As one reads through the document appendix, it is hard not to be moved by the human tragedies lying behind the circumlocutory diplomatic statements. A typical example were the thousands of Polish deportees who had disappeared into the vast interior of the Soviet Union after 1939. In spite of strenuous Vatican efforts to find out more, evidence provided by Marchione suggests that the USA was reluctant to press its ally further on this matter. Was President Roosevelt keener on maintaining cordial relations with the man he called “Uncle Joe” than in humanitarian efforts?

Marchione is refreshingly honest when considering that vexing and intensely controversial question: did Pius do enough to help the Jews? The evidence presented in Pius XII Architect for Peace makes this reader posit a further question: did anyone else do as much? In the case of the Jews of Hungary who were singled out for extermination in 1944, there were tremendous problems to be overcome, not least of which were the actions of certain Jews themselves. The famous libel case of 1953, where the Zionist agent Rudolf Kasztner was accused of “collaboration” with the SS leaders Eichmann and Wisliceny highlights this perfectly. Even the Attorney General of Israel, Chaim Cohen, claimed in Kasztner’s defense that: “He was perfectly entitled to make a deal with the Nazis for the saving of a few and entitled not to warn the millions.” The millions who were destined for the death camps, that is.

It is heartening to note that the author writes with charity and distinction on subjects that excite contrary emotions among Catholics and Jews. When Pope John Paul II, as part of a lifelong mission to improve understanding and compassion between the two faiths published the famous “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” reactions were, to say the least, rather mixed. One of the most important responses to this document was provided by the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultation and Marchione analyses without rancor the difficulty that the Committee had with theological terms such as “sons and daughters of the Church” and “The Church” in its foundation by Christ as a mystical and spiritual body of all the faithful. Yet such distinctions are vital for understanding if ongoing dialogue between Jews and Catholics is to succeed in banishing the hostile spectres of many centuries.

Zorea’s thesis boils down to the following propositions.

1. Human life, the pinnacle of God’s creation, is sacred. Cain’s crime was not punished by death; to execute a murderer is an exercise of imperfect human “justice” which does not satisfy Divine Justice. Old Testament precepts with permanent “spiritual” value (the Commandments) must be distinguished from “material” applications to historically conditioned situations (e.g., destroying populations under the ban).
2. God Incarnate reaffirmed the value of human life by redeeming it. In the Christian dispensation, capital punishment only compounds violence. It can deny a criminal the opportunity to repent and be saved and, if viewed as restitution, is tantamount to denying Christ’s redemptive death. We are all sinners deserving death; no man may dare to impose such an irrevocable punishment.
3. For centuries the Church did not approve but “tolerated” capital punishment, as it did slavery. Even as a powerful institution in Europe it never sentenced criminals to death, though it left that option to secular authorities. As Christian civilization progressed, human dignity and human rights were better understood (cf. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
4. The five arguments used to justify capital punishment are: justice, revenge, expediency, prevention, and deterrence. The first three are unworthy of Christians (see B). As for the last two, the modern penal system can protect society from convicted criminals through incarceration.

There is some merit to Zorea’s discussion of the pertinent passage in the Summa. Unfortunately he tries first to poison the Aristotelian well, ignoring the possibility that God can work in and through secular authority. The final chapter reviews Catholic social teaching, from workers’ rights to Humanae Vitae, seamless-garment style. “In the same way . . .” is supposed to cover all leaps of logic. Curiously, Evangelium Vitae is cited only to repeat a few general bromides.

Regrettably, inaccuracies of style and substance abound in this volume. (Being created in the image of God confers “Divine nature” on men, [p. 36]; Aristotle is a dogmatic “materialist,” [pp. 113-114]; revelation ended on Pentecost, [p. 137].) Such carelessness does not dispose the reader to give serious consideration to Zorea’s argument as it emerges over the course of the book.

The virtue of simplicity is the same thing as purity of intention or purity of heart, such as we find in the Sixth Beatitude. It means to keep in mind in all your thoughts, words and deeds the one and same purpose, namely, to please God and to do his will.

This is the same idea as that expressed in the Baltimore Catechism as the answer to the question, “Why did God make you?” “God made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this life and to be happy with him forever in the next life.”

St. Ignatius Loyola begins his famous Spiritual Exercises with a similar idea at the beginning of the First Principle and Foundation: “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.” And in the very first chapter of the Imitation of Christ we read, “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, except to love God and to serve him alone.”

The title of this little book reminds me of the popular KISS motto, “Keep It Simple Stupid.” Bishop Gibergues, the author, is not calling anyone stupid, but he does point out the importance of keeping our spiritual life as simple as possible. He is not recommending complicated ways to pray that may be more suitable to monks or cloistered nuns. In an easy, simple style he explains how every Christian can grow in the spiritual life by offering everything he thinks and does for the greater honor and glory of God.

The author explains how to practice simplicity towards God, towards oneself, towards the world and, in short, in all things. At the end of the book he presents two chapters on how to imitate the simplicity of Jesus and Mary, and then concludes with a short essay on the role of the Holy Spirit in teaching one how to achieve simplicity in the spiritual life.

Perhaps one of the devotions which can be easily practiced by the faithful in almost any circumstance is the morning offering as made popular through the Apostleship of Prayer. True, this practice can become repetitious and mechanical. However, the morning offering can also serve as a means of consecrating our entire day in thought, word and deed to God and bringing all our actions into harmony with those of Christ in his eucharistic sacrifice. Fr. Smith points out how important this simple prayer became in the life of Fr. Walter Ciszek, the famous Jesuit who was imprisoned in the dreaded Lubianka Prison in Moscow without any access to the Mass.

Father Herbert Smith, a well-known Jesuit priest and author on spirituality and homilist in residence at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia brings together his rich experience and work with the Apostleship of Prayer in this volume which is also the fruit of his own personal prayer. Father is aware that one cannot teach others about prayer unless one’s own life is filled with prayer and above all open to the Holy Spirit.

First, the author briefly provides the theological foundations for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, drawing on the Popes and theologians. He then quickly proceeds to his collections of homilies based on various themes. These homilies are preceded by practical and prayerful suggestions for the homilist. It should also be noted that the author brings many of these homilies into harmony with appropriate feasts such as the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of Christ the King and the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as well as selected Sundays of the year. These homilies are suitable for the Mass itself or for devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary or the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Good Friday, retreats and Holy Hours.

These homilies are focused on major themes to provide the average Catholic who joins the Apostleship of Prayer with a deeper appreciation of what this apostleship entails. One must live the morning offering throughout the entire day. Thus, all members are encouraged to relate to Jesus as a friend and allow his love to enter their hearts so that their love may help build the “civilization of love” so often envisioned by Pope John Paul II. Also commendable is the author’s description of how devotion to the Heart of Mary leads one to a deeper love of the Heart of her Son. Practical suggestions are provided for making the prayerful daily examen of St. Ignatius part of one’s daily life. A series of homilies relating the Our Father to the Heart of Jesus provides rich material for a novena or days of recollection.

There is something very attractive about the life of this humble priest. He practiced the theological and moral virtues to a heroic degree — so much so that he is almost a mirror-reflection of Jesus Christ himself.

The book by Michael Crosby is basically a summary of the various testimonies that were given before a commission established by the Archdiocese of Detroit to investigate the holiness of Solanus Casey. The first part gives an account of the life of Fr. Casey, who came from a large Irish family of ten boys and six girls; the second part of the book tells us how Fr. Solanus practiced the various virtues — most of them to a heroic degree. He was born to pious Irish immigrants in Wisconsin in 1870; as the result of a special grace he went to Detroit in 1896 and joined the Capuchins, a decision he never regretted.

Since, like St. John Vianney, he had trouble with his studies, his superiors decided to ordain him but to restrict him to saying Mass. Because of the limitations set on the exercise of his priesthood, he spent most of his life doing the work of a lay brother.

Because of his virtuous life, which was accompanied with hundreds of miraculous cures, his cause for beatification has been introduced and accepted by Pope John Paul II. So we can now refer to him as Venerable Solanus Casey.

Every saint manifests the infinite perfection of God in his own particular way. Solanus Casey was outstanding for his faith and trust in God. He was a man of unshakable, unperturbable faith. And like St. Ignatius Loyola, who was a favorite saint for him, Solanus found God in all things. Related to this was his sense of gratitude to God for his many gifts. He used to counsel the people who came to him to thank God not only for what they had already received, but also to thank him for the future and for the death God has planned for them.

What did this humble priest do? What he did for over forty years was to answer the door and to take care of the needs of the people who came to the friars for help — either spiritual or material. Fr. Solanus was always there from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. He became widely known for his good advice, his encouragement, his promise of prayers, and eventually for the many cures worked by God through him and his intercession. Every day in Detroit there were lines of people waiting to talk to Fr. Solanus Casey. Whatever good he did he attributed to God alone, never to himself. His brother friars attest to the fact that Solanus Casey was a very humble man who gave all the credit to God.

In addition to giving good spiritual advice, Solanus was a model of kindness and helpfulness to all who came to him. He was never in a hurry, never impatient with the many requests for his time. In the practice of faith, hope, charity, patience and humility Fr. Solanus is an excellent model for all of us, whether priests, religious or lay persons.

I was given the grace to meet and speak with Mother Teresa of Calcutta on several occasions; I also preached to the Sisters three or four times while she was present. I think she was the holiest person I have ever met. While reading this life of Fr. Solanus, I see many similarities between the two holy persons — one a man and the other a woman. They both incarnated in their persons an extraordinary imitation of Jesus Christ that radiated from their persons.

Why do some things attract and delight us? Subjective theories of beauty maintain that beauty is solely in the eye of the beholder. While there certainly does have to be a receptivity on the part of the subject in order to appreciate beauty, a receptivity that may need careful training for some refined matters of acquired taste, a purely idiosyncratic approach to beauty does not do justice to contemporary scientific appreciation of the role of elegance and simplicity in the discernment of truth in scientific hypotheses, let alone to the objectivity of such factors as unity, harmony, proportion, wholeness, and radiance that have long been central to the classical analysis of beauty. The subjective conditions required for the appreciation of beauty in a given sphere are not to be confused with what actually produce the truth recorded in a physicist’s statement of the laws of physics or the factors that actually produced the beauty of an object, whether natural or the result of human artifice.

Presuming, then, that in principle beauty beckons all of us, but some more and some less in particular cases, depending on our openness and our preparedness to appreciate what we are experiencing, Dubay locates the core of the beautiful in “radiant form.” In a survey of diverse spheres of experience that range from mathematics and music to painting and microbiology, Dubay finds the evidence constantly to point to form as the factor in all kinds of reality that evokes the delight we associate in every case with beauty. Whether it be a brilliant theory which a scientist constructs to account for the data, or the sculpture an artist chisels out of a hunk of rock, or the loveliness a tulip presents to the eye beyond any usefulness for its biological functions, Dubay argues that the light of truth shining forth from this form upon the perceiver bears witness to the light of the radiant form as true to the artists who fashioned that form.

Now, to include the tulip within the same list as the hypothesis and the sculpture will seem to some minds to be an illicit move, an instance of question-begging, since Dubay’s thesis is about the form that radiates the truth in the mind of an artist to the minds of perceivers. In order to buttress his case for seeing beauty as a unifying factor for science and theology, much of the second portion of the book is devoted to elaborate illustration of the argument for design in nature. Mindful of David Hume on every page, but without even needing to invoke his name, Dubay reviews the latest scientific evidence from the “macromarvels” of interstellar astronomy to the “minimarvels” at the microscopic and molecular levels that the order, proportion, and delicate harmonies of nature can simply not have been the result of chance but had to be the work on an intelligent designer, and that it is often the unexpected beauty at each of these levels that clinches the argument scientifically and theologically. One finds in these pages interesting and accurate reports of such diverse research as the anthropic principle championed by Augros and Sinclair, the details of the history of science explored by Pierre Duhem and Stanley Jaki, and the new challenges to neo-Darwinian evolution being voiced by biochemist Michael Behe.

In Tertio Millennio Adveniente, his apostolic letter in preparation for the Jubilee, the Holy Father noted that: “In our century the martyrs have returned, many of them nameless, ‘unknown soldiers’, as it were, of God’s great cause. As far as possible, their witness should not be lost to the Church” (n. 37). In the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year, Incarnationis Mysterium, the Pope came back to that point, writing that: “This century now drawing to a close has known very many martyrs, especially because of Nazism, Communism and racial or tribal conflicts. People from every sector of society have suffered for their faith, paying with their blood for their fidelity to Christ and the Church, or courageously facing interminable years of imprisonment and privations of every kind” (n. 13).

Unfortunately, the memory of these witnesses to the faith — recall that the very term “martyrs” comes from the Greek of the early Church, “martyroi” being pre-eminently “witnesses” — is in danger of being forgotten, even in the lifetime of the survivors of the twentieth century’s persecutions. For the post-modern Christian, the very idea of a martyr is, at the very least, somewhat quaint. Worse still, the martyr is a most disturbing figure since the unity between the martyr’s life of faith and his very physical existence is a stinging reproach to “cafeteria Christians” who would rather pick and choose verities to taste. And, all too often, this discomfort leads, even if only subconsciously, to a willful ignorance. Consequently, few studies have focused on documenting the martyrs of the twentieth century, despite the fact that in absolute numbers that century’s martyrs surpass those of any previous century — if not those of all nineteen centuries of the Christian era combined. Historical accounts — including some of the more reputable ones of recent years — may admit the existence of some martyrs, but as a tangential issue at best.

It was in an attempt to at least partially fill this lacuna that Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of over a dozen books on ethics, culture, religion, and politics, took up the task of writing The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, an erudite, but easily readable tome which is the fruit of several years of dedicated research on several continents.

The scope of the book is global. Beginning with the tragedy of the Mexican persecutions at the dawn of the twentieth century, it proceeds through the beginning of the Soviet terror to the holocaust of the Spanish Church under the “Republican” government — the last still an almost unknown history to many Catholics despite the high profile beatifications and canonizations celebrated by Pope John Paul II. To cite but one statistic, in the month of July 1936 alone, 124 priests were killed by “Republicans” in Madrid while 197 others were similarly massacred in Barcelona. Several chapters are devoted to the Nazi persecutions of the Church, both in Germany and in German-occupied territories. Here, alongside the familiar stories of Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein, Royal recounts the lives of some lesser known martyrs, including those of Polish Bishop Michael Kozal, French Bishop Gabriel Piguet, and their nearly 1,000 priestly confrères who perished at Dachau; Austrian Father Otto Neururer who was crucified upside down and Father Karl Lampert arrested and eventually executed for announcing his colleague’s death; and French Carmelite Jacques Bunel, whose heroism in protecting Jewish children in his school before his arrest inspired the film Au revoir les enfants.

The post-war chapters dedicate considerable space to chronicling the Church’s long via crucis in Eastern Europe, the well-known stories of the Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and the Hungarian Cardinal Joszef Mindszenty being found next to those of lesser-known confessors and martyrs in Albania, Romania, and Lithuania. The final six chapters are a whirlwind tour de force of the vicissitudes of the Church in Latin America (the well-balanced portrait of El Salvador’s martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero is especially illuminating), Asia (with a special emphasis on the still-ongoing Communist persecutions of the Church in China, North Korea, and Vietnam), and Africa (where the Church has been assailed both by tribal violence and militant Islamic fundamentalism) in the later half of the twentieth century.

The Catholic Martyrs is admittedly a long book. But as the author himself noted, it could also have easily been several times longer, even with the still-partial information collected thus far. And what particularly recommends this volume, aside from its subject, are the pains which Royal has taken to situate each of the various persecutions he chronicles in an overall historical, political, cultural, and religious context, thus meriting the book’s subtitle A Comprehensive World History.

To pray to our Lady means not to substitute her for Christ, but to glorify her Son who desires us to have loving confidence in his Saints, especially in his Mother. To imitate the ‘faithful Virgin’ means to keep her Son’s commandments.

Mary was present at Pentecost, the birth of the Church. Therefore, the Church always makes place for Mary in the Liturgy. The Church prays to god with Mary in recognizing that she received the Word of god and put it into practice as she prays her prayer, the Magnificat. The Church also identifies herself with Mary in the offering of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The Church prays to God in honor of Mary by praising God for the participation of the Mother of Christ in the major events of her Son’s life. The Church praises God for the special graces that prepared Mary for her mission. The Church prays to Mary to praise her, “to congratulate her” in the words of the Gospel and to directly beg for her intercession with Christ and the Trinity.

From the very beginning of its history the Church has for this reason offered prayers to Mary. Pope Leo XIII stated in his encyclical Supremi Apostolatus (1883): “It has always been the habit of Catholics in danger and in arduous times to fly for refuge to Mary and to seek peace in her maternal goodness.” Further, as the Pontiff stated, “As it is her greatest pleasure to grant her help and comfort to those who seek her, it cannot be doubted that she will deign, even anxiously, to receive the aspirations of the Universal Church.”

The early Church bears witness that the Virgin Mary holds great importance for Christian piety. In the early creedal formulas, the Church proclaims Christ as “born of the Virgin Mary.” The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (third century) includes Mary in the Eucharistic prayer: “Sent from heaven into the bosom of the Virgin, conceived in her womb, he was made flesh and manifested Himself as [God’s] Son, born from the Spirit and from the Virgin.” The third century brings forth the Sub Tuum, the first known prayer in Mary’s honor. The text of the prayer reveals that the early Christians called upon Mary for her help in trials and sin. The fifth century manifests the arrival of the Akathist Hymn, which gives testimony to Mary’s powerful help. The Mass of the Annunciation in the sixth century reveals the first part of the prayer, Hail Mary. The seventh century proves the first invocations of the Litany of Mary.

As one moves into the Middle Ages, the prayers Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris Mater (eleventh century) are readily used to call upon Mary’s help. The fourteenth century witnesses the praying of the Stabat Mater and the Angelus. The fifteenth century brings into practice the final version of the Litany of Loreto and the Rosary. The fifteenth century sees the appearance of the prayer the Memorare. The final version of the Hail Mary appears in the following century.

Anthony Buono continues on in his text to place those prayers which are scriptural within their biblical context. He further illustrates how many of these prayers are used in the liturgy today and proceeds on to provide the reader with a line by line commentary of the text of the prayer. He closes the study of each prayer with an awareness that the prayer is written in such a fashion that it has rich application for our times.