When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. In 2020, Pius XII's archives were finally opened, and David I. Kertzer has been mining this new material ever since, revealing how the pope came to set aside moral leadership in order to preserve his church's power. Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents, Kertzer clears away the myths and sheer falsehoods surrounding the pope's actions from 1939 to 1945, showing why the pope repeatedly bent to the wills of Hitler and Mussolini.
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