David I. Kertzer > Quotes

“A tyrant remains a tyrant no matter how benevolently he may philosophize and smile,”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

“There is no past, memory paints it,’ ” the pope recited. “ ‘There is no future, for hope shapes it. There is only the present, but it is always escaping us.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

“I never want to see umbrellas around me," he [Mussolini] once said. "The umbrella is a bourgeois relic, it is the arm used by the pope's soldiers. A people who carry umbrellas cannot found an empire.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

“No such criticism of the racial laws would ever escape the pope’s lips or pen, not in 1939, nor over the following years in which they were in force.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“public opinion is undergoing a major evolution, due to the impressive German victories.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“how much he admired the pope’s ability to craft his speeches in a way that ensured they would offend no one.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“I got the clear impression that Roosevelt’s message was the first bomb to fall on the Vatican. The Holy See is in fact aware of the embarrassing position in which Roosevelt has tried to put the pope.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“plan for a future in which Germany would dominate continental Europe. His first and foremost duty, as he saw it, was to protect the institutional church.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“In his four years as pope, Pius XII had never spoken out against Italy’s anti-Jewish racial laws.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“People credit Pope for saving Rome,” explained Osborne in reporting the event to London, “though he had nothing to do with it.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“As the pope saw it, there were bad Fascists and good Fascists, the bad men of the Nazi regime and the good men.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“For all their obvious differences, the pope and Mussolini were alike in many ways. Both could have no real friends, for friendship implied equality.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

“The sharp-tongued Monsignor Tardini dubbed Hitler the “Motorized Attila.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“There is no past, memory paints it,’ ” the pope recited. “ ‘There is no future, for hope shapes it. There is only the present, but it is always escaping us.’ ”12”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

“As a result, Italians who today bear illustrious noble names are not necessarily the progeny of nobility but may be instead the descendants of poor Jews who sought a new life by passing through the doors of the Catechumens. Of”
― David I. Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

“Pope Pius XII was certainly not “Hitler’s pope,” as John Cornwell’s intentionally provocative book title would have it.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“I spoke in terms of morality, rights, honor, justice; and they responded to me in terms of method, practicality, tradition, and statistics.”[”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“the pope, speaking in English,”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“Em 9 de junho de 1958, menos de duas semanas antes, um membro do parlamento piemontês, isto é, o parlamento presidido por Cavour e que se reportava ao rei Victor Emmanuel II, levantou-se para falar. "Em Módena", disse ele aos seus colegas deputados, "têm ocorrido muitos casos de crianças judias serem batizadas devido a uma vingança, ou por estupidez ou devido ao fanatismo de algum empregado. Se estas ações extralegais não tivessem outra consequência a não ser de um pouco de água espargida por alguém que não deveria fazê-lo, elas teriam pouca importância." Contudo, o caso infelizmente não era esse, disse ele, pois bastava aquela aspersão de água pela mão de uma empregada para que um esquadrão da polícia fosse enviado para invadir um lar e tirar a criança de sua família, para que ela pudesse ser educada como católica. Aquilo era, trovejou ele, "o maior ultraje contra os sentimentos puros da natureza, contrário às regras mais elementares de moralidade, produzindo a mais infame opressão imaginável". Diante dessas palavras, ergueram-se murmúrios de protesto dos bancos à direita, onde ficavam os membros conservadores do parlamento, defensores da Igreja.

O deputado olhou para eles e prosseguiu: "Para poupar meus adversários de mais esforços, quero dizer desde já que fui informado de tudo isso por meus amigos judeus em Módena, que forneceram toda a documentação relevante". De fato, disse ele, "há hoje em Turim uma família judia que precisou fugir de Módena com sua filha, por medo que ela lhes fosse tirada porque uma jovem empregada afirmou tê-la batizado."

O deputado concluiu patrioticamente: "Falei disto como uma questão de consciência. Falei porque tal ultraje contra as leis da natureza e da moralidade deve ser, neste século XIX, no mínimo estigmatizado no único parlamento italiano, no único lugar da Itália que, graças aos esforços do povo e à lealdade do governante, ainda é livre." Ao descer do pódio, ele recebeu saudações de "bravo" dos deputados à sua esquerda e insultos e resmungos daqueles à sua direita.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

“In November 1941 Pius XII would learn in much greater detail about the unfolding mass murder of Europe’s Jews”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“Erased from memory are the pope’s regular assurances to the Duce that he need only inform him of anti-Fascist priests, and he would have them silenced.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“the National Socialists were divided into pro-church and anti-church factions that were “bitterly opposed to each other.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“state secret matter.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“Relations between the Facist regime and the American government were rapidly cooling. Italian newspapers did nothing to help, charging that Jews ruled the United States. They offered a list of the all-Jewish makeup of what was said to be the likely next American cabinet, headed by the President Bernard Baruch and Vice President Albert Einstein. Leon Trotsky was slated to be secretary of war; the face that he was neither American nor lived in the country was apparently no impediment.”
― Kertzer, David I.

“Because the humiliations and the punishments inflicted on the Germans this time will be even worse than those that followed Versailles;”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“fifty kilograms of gold”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“the Church acts immediately.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“It took a lot of nerve, De Vecchi added—broaching a taboo topic—for the archbishop to accuse the Fascists of being savages when at the same time the Vatican expected the government to keep silent about widespread cases of priestly immorality. One of these days, the ambassador warned, the pope would go too far. He would not”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

“pope would have Poland in his prayers.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

“The story of the earlier decades remains unknown and largely unexamined.”
― David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler