A review by bstephens
Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich

1.0

The last chapters dealing with the collaboration between the papacy and the Nazis and fascists in the 1930's and 1940 were very painful to read. Written as if there was an ethical conundrum associated with the decision about whether to support the murderous psychotic thugs in Germany and elsewhere, or that we should understand it was a different time, as if people did not really know what was happening or there were other pressures to weigh in the balance. Perhaps the writer failed to see the irony that an institution that has arrogated to itself the role, for hundreds of years, of lecturing the rest of humanity about morality failed to make the easiest moral call in history. We do not need any more apologists for this religion or any other - we need writers who can take on historical issues with moral clarity, which is certainly the least we owe the millions of victims of nazism and other fascist movements around the world.

The rest of the book makes it clear the papacy has been a rolling disaster for Italy and for the rest of humanity since its inception - the source of war, depravity, hideous repression and exploitation. But having reached what i can only describe as the whitewash at the end - the delicate balancing of this and that about the Holocaust of all things - I am left with the strong impression the actual history of the papacy is far worse than is described in this book.