Potenciranje poznatoga i ponavljanje neistina: U povodu knjige John Cornwell, Hitler's pope. The secrete history of Pius XII, Viking, London, 1999., 430 str
In: Časopis za suvremenu povijest: Journal of contemporary history, Band 32, Heft 1, S. 183-190
ISSN: 0590-9597
While the author is impressed by Cornwell's style and presentation, he is appaled by the lack of seriousness exhibited by the author who writes about an imprtant subject (not broached for the first time, by any means) and by demonstrated inability to supress his preconceived notions and even prejudices. Cornwell relies heavily on Owen Chadwick, which assures that he mentions most important facts about the involvement of the Cardinal and Pope Pius XII (whom Cornwell systematicaly entitles by his family name. Pacelli) in contemporary politics, but he bends and ignores Chadwick's research when he makes his judgment about the Pope. Cornwell's treatment of the Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia (he gives it an entrie chapter) is a traversy of research and objective writing. His main source. if not the only, for the presentation of the Church in Croatia during the World War II is the 35 years old book by Carlo Falconi. Cornwell perhaps did not know , but he could have and must have been informed, that Falconi wrote his piece on the basis of the propagandistic material given to him by the Yugos]av secrete service and propagandists, which served the purpose of anti-Chatolic propaganda in Yugoslavia. A well intended reader could excuse Cornwell (he does not read Croatian and could not know what some authors wrote about Falconi's sources at the time his book appeared), if he did not point those "Croatian materials" as essential not only for the condemnation of the Croatian Catholic episcopate, but for Pius XII as well. (SOI : CSP: S. 190)