Holy Silence opens with a quote from Pope Francis: "Who knows if the Church could have done more during the Holocaust? We must seek the truth." Steve Pressman's documentary, which examines the response of the Catholic Church (and the Pope in particular) to the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism and the horrors of the Holocaust, takes on the call to action. Pressman relies on interviews with historians and scholars to essentially narrate the documentary, providing both the historical record of the Vatican from the late 1920s through 1945 and commentary on political struggle within the Vatican to guide Papal policy. Pope Pius XI, who led the Catholic Church from 1922 until his death in 1939, believed it a matter of principle to confront the rise of racism and anti-Semitism publically, but his powerful Papal Secretary, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who had served in Germany and was a fervent anti-Communist, resisted and even obstructed those efforts.
When Pius XI died in 1939, Pacelli was elected to the Papacy (with the public support of Italian and German Fascists), taking the name Pius XII. He continued to remain silent on the subject even when confronted directly with evidence of the Holocaust. Pressman's documentary offers a rich and complicated history – Pius XII believed that the Allies could not win and that Hitler would control Europe – and reveals a pattern of the Catholic Church indulging anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s, even among Catholic priests. By refusing to denounce such actions, the Catholic Church condoned it with its silence.
While the Pope may not have been able to affect the political actions of Nazi Germany, the historians involved in this documentary are in general agreement that he could have influenced the actions of Catholics in Germany and elsewhere to stand up against the oppression of and violence against Jews. A few voices defend Pius XII but their arguments are defensive and weak in the face of overwhelming evidence, especially as individual priests and nuns in Rome took action to protect Jews during the German occupation of Italy. Suzanne Brown-Fleming, author of The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience, puts it succinctly when she calls for "an honest, responsible, clear assessment of this history" for "Catholics who are asking themselves, 'Why did my church fail?' Why did it fail the Jews, why did it fail Catholic principles ultimately, why did it fail to be a church of love and mercy?"
Holy Silence doesn't seek to condemn The Catholic Church but to provide a powerful and clear-eyed first step in confronting its actions before and during World War II. It's also timely given the recent resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world. There is no foul language or violent imagery but the subject matter is complex and potentially controversial and may not be appropriate for younger audiences. Recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P.