ABSTRACT
By comparison, the papacy, whose international stature had been enormously
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
diplomacy to persuade the Allies to spare the Eternal City the horrors of aerial bombardment and, when they failed, Pius XII’s visits to the bombed areas of Rome during the summer of 1943, while the hapless Mussolini was paying court to Hitler elsewhere, greatly enhanced ‘the personality cult’ surrounding the pope himself. In consequence, in the late 1940s the citizens of Rome, or at least their council representatives, would erect plaques to celebrate the pope’s status as Defensor Civitas, in gratitude for his efforts to protect his native city.4 The reputation of Pius XII rode high in the post-war period, and did not become seriously challenged until the early 1960s when the first doubts were raised about his role during the Holocaust.
