A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair

by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

With his first book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners , Daniel Jonah Goldhagen dramatically revised our understanding of the role ordinary Germans played in the Holocaust. Now he brings his formidable powers of research and argument to bear on the Catholic Church and its complicity in the destruction of European Jewry. What emerges is a work that goes far beyond the familiar inquiries—most of which focus solely on Pope Pius XII—to address an entire history of hatred and persecution that culminated, in some cases, in an active participation in mass-murder.

More than a chronicle, A Moral Reckoning is also an assessment of culpability and a bold attempt at defining what actions the Church must take to repair the harm it did to Jews—and to repair itself. Impressive in its scholarship, rigorous in its ethical focus, the result is a book of lasting importance.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holocaust, World War II, Religion, Politics

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is an American author, scholar, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University, widely known for his groundbreaking and controversial writings on genocide, antisemitism, and moral responsibility. He rose to international prominence with his first major book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), which argued that the Holocaust was made possible not only by Nazi leadership but by the participation of ordinary Germans who had internalized a deeply rooted “eliminationist antisemitism.” The book, adapted from his doctoral dissertation, won the American Political Science Association’s Gabriel A. Almond Award and the Democracy Prize of the Journal for German and International Politics. It became a bestseller, sparking vigorous debate among historians and the public alike.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a Jewish family, Goldhagen grew up in Newton. His father, Erich Goldhagen, a Holocaust survivor and retired Harvard professor, was interned as a child in a Nazi ghetto in Czernowitz. Daniel credits his father’s influence for shaping his intellectual and moral framework, particularly his understanding of Nazism and the Holocaust. Educated entirely at Harvard University, Goldhagen earned his degrees and later served on the faculty for two decades, first as a student and then as a professor.
While in graduate school, Goldhagen was inspired by historian Saul Friedländer’s work to investigate not just how the Holocaust happened, but why ordinary individuals committed such acts. His research in German archives led to his controversial thesis that a unique and virulent form of German antisemitism predisposed ordinary citizens to become willing participants in genocide. Despite sharp criticism from many historians, his work stimulated renewed discussions about individual responsibility, ideology, and moral choice in times of mass violence.
Goldhagen expanded his focus beyond the Holocaust in subsequent books. A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (2002) explored the Church’s moral and institutional responsibilities during the Nazi era. Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (2009) examined genocide as a recurring human phenomenon, offering insights into how such atrocities can be prevented. His later book, The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism (2013), traced the persistence and global resurgence of antisemitism in contemporary culture and politics.
Goldhagen lives with his wife, Sarah Williams Goldhagen, an architectural historian and critic. His body of work continues to provoke debate, influencing contemporary thought on genocide studies, moral philosophy, and the enduring human struggle against hatred and violence.

Reviews

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very controversial book.

One amazon reviewer said: "Let us not mince words: Goldhagen hates the Catholic Church and this book is a weapon to attack it. Sloppily researched and blatant in its distortion of events and documents this book has nothing useful to say about the historical record."

Goldhagen also minces no words. In his introduction he writes, "Christianity is a religion that consecrated and spread throughout its domain a hatred of one group of people - the Jews. It libelously deemed them to be Christ-killers, children of the devil, desecrators and defilers of all goodness, responsible for an enormous range of human calamities and suffering. This hatred led Christians, over the course of two millennia, to commit many grave crimes against Jews, including mass murders. The best-known and largest of these mass murders is the Holocaust."

I have purposely delayed reading "A Moral Reckoning" until I had first read many other accounts of the behavior of the Catholic Church and Cardinal Pacelli/Pope Pius XII toward Hitler and the Nazis, as well as numerous works regarding Catholic antisemitism over the ages, much of this as research for my novel The Heretic. Now I will read Goldhagen's book and let you know what I think.

MY CONCLUSION AFTER READING THE BOOK ...

It is, as charged, "sloppily researched" ...

There was little no original research; the book was compiled totally from from other sources. I have read many of Goldhagen's sources and find them to be far better in stating the arguments than Goldhagen does in citing them.

... and it is, as charged, "blatant in its distortion of events and documents." Here is one example ...

Goldhagen says (p 78): Pacelli's note to the German government (Goldhagen doesn't say to whom the note was addressed or the date) at the time of the Concordat's ratification, which reflected the view of the German Catholic church leaders, conveyed the Church's intention to let the Germans have a free hand with the Jews (by) stating that the Holy See has no intention of interfering in Germany's internal political affairs."

There is so much wrong with that statement ...

(1) the German bishops had repeatedly, prior to 1933, condemned Hitler and Nazism, banned Catholics from being members of the Nazi Party, and refused sacraments to Catholic Nazis. The bishops were literally forced by Pacelli to support Hitler in return for Hitler's willingness to implement the Reich Concordat that Pacelli desperately desired.

(2) jumping from "not interfering with Germany's internal political affairs" to giving the Germans "a free hand with the Jews" is a connection which may be supported by later actions but was surely not stated in the 1933 note. That may have been Pacelli's intention in 1933, but this note does not prove it. As a historical novelist, I might have a fictional character make that accusation or at least assert it might have been true. For a historian to state it as proven fact is simply unacceptable.

I have lost confidence in Goldhagen's presentation. I do think the Catholic Church behaved horribly in failing to oppose Hitler and the Nazi murder of the Jews (as did many others) but there are far better statements of that charge than the one Goldhagen has cobbled together.

[Mark Lisac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't give more than 2 stars to a book that had me skimming rapidly by the start of the second of two parts and ultimately giving to an interested friend before finishing. The first part lays out historical background. It does a creditable job of setting out both well known and little-known facts about the Catholic Church's failures and transgressions regarding Jews. Some of the accusations are central and some may involve a degree of selection. The book then seems to devolve into judgment and delivery of verdict. Its overall tone tends toward the hectoring and accusatory. That's justifiable, given that the main subject at hand is the Church's reaction to the massacre of Jews during the Second World War, although it does make one wonder whether some evidence has been stretched. (Other reviewers say other books have handled the subject matter better.)
However, Goldhagen blurs his basic concepts. The central point behind his accusations seems to be that everyone had free will and many could have resisted the genocidal acts more strongly. Yet the complaint against the Catholic Church is partly that it created a general moral atmosphere that tended to permit, or at least go unchallenged, what the Nazis were doing. That same conflict between individual decision making and general climate of thought applies to what happened inside the Church. Then there's the general climate of European antipathy toward Jews over the centuries. Goldhagen says the Church was central to creating hatred but does not really sort out lines of development or of responsibility. He occasionally conflates accusations against the Church with what are essentially accusations against Pope Pius XII. And he mentions but once again does not really sort out the way that anti-Jewish sentiment got tied up with anti-communism. There was plenty of material to work with in producing an indictment of the Church, more than its defenders want to admit, but the task was not carried out particularly well.

[Manugw · Rating 3 out of 5]

ELABORATED BUT CONFUSION MORAL TRIAL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The autor, a very bright Jewish Harvard scholar, assuming the attitude of a prosecutor more than a writer, makes fierce accusations against the role of the Catholic Church and its institutional behaviour towards the Jews during the course of history since Jesus times in general and over Pope Pius XII obscure rule in particular in the Second World War
It also describes with a lot of detail how the Vatican and the ecclesiastical Catholical hierarchy of almost every European country acquiesced to the horrifying Nazi hunt and deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps, as a mute accomplice, underlying the antisemitic foundations of the Catholic doctrine

There is also a short and concise analysis of the New Testament chapters that allude to the false incrimination of the Jews as Christ killers, a cornerstone of Christian antisemitism

Finally, there is a moral debate originated on basic moral and legal principles about how the Catholic Church should repay all the offenses made to the Jews as moral repair

Though the book exhibits abundant incriminatory evidence, displays interesting photos and provides outstanding complementary information, the language employed turns into a repetitive and tedious monologue that enfeebles the reader receptivity blurring key enlightening concepts product of the author own very valuable research

[Davidberlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disturbing book - for a number of reasons. Of course the subject itself is disturbing as it concerns the Holocaust and the role the Catholic Church (and especially Pope Pius X11) may have played in this. But the author does himself no favours from the point of view of style. This is a book in desperate need of editing. It is extraordinarily repetitive - I believe the genesis of the book was a 25 page essay on the subject and there does not really seem to be much more material than that here though it is ten times the length.

The author is a respected historian though one would not know it from this book as there is very little in the way of objective analysis. Instead it is over-heated, over-argued and, unfortunately, ultimately a little tedious (on this, of all subjects!)

I do not argue at all with his fundamental thesis - that the Church needs to make amends for the past and also remove all traces of anti-Semiticism from its attitudes if not its liturgy - but ultimately his emotive arguing is counter=productive, at least in my case.

[Mike Clinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a compellingly argued, methodical exposition of the Catholic Church's culpability with respect to the Holocaust--along with its longer and continuing tradition of antisemitism--as an institution that allowed its political identity to eclipse its moral commitments. It's simultaneously an example of how history can be approached as an authentically moral endeavor. My edition had an afterword that recounts in the kind of frank and colorful tone that in the body of the book Goldhagen mostly reserves for the citations the passionate reactions the book received, negative and positive, thus demonstrating how meaningful issues referring to the past can be for later generations (i.e., "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.")

[jedidja · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Topic is very interesting but many critics have -in my eyes rightfully so- pointed out that it doesn't look like Goldhagen did any original research for this, instead just referring to an endless list of existing research and spicing it up with dramatic language about the evil nature of the Catholic church. What threw me off most is his presentation of the material as historical, and then noting AFTER the publication that this book is meant to be seen as a moral rather than historical book- that doesn't really sit right with me.

[Stephen Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3 stars)

[Emily Grenon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t hate this book because it’s “anti-catholic” or whatever. I hate this book because it’s badly written, badly organized, and just generally a bit shit. If you want to read a book about this subject, there are better ones out there that aren’t organized in such a nonsense garbage way (think sub-sections starting before their sub-section headings) and that actually tell the story from beginning to end and not in a meandering sequence of random tangents.

[Ulrike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gestopt na blz 12, eerste keer dat ik een boek zo snel weg leg. Al vanaf de eerste alinea erger ik mij aan de schrijver die een duidelijk beeld in zijn hoofd heeft en niet naar andere ideeën lijkt te kunnen luisteren. Ook de schrijfstijl ergert mij, ik heb eerder het gevoel dat ik een scriptie van een student aan het lezen ben, waar ik zelfs als studente die bezig is met een scriptie, absoluut geen behoefte aan heb.

[Kerrie Taber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Besides the questions about the research done for the book, which other reviewers mentioned. My big problem with the book is that it is so repetitive. This book could have been a third as long as still covered all the material. He not only beat a dead horse about the Church’s role in the Holocaust, he dug it back up over and over to beat it some more.

[Karen Ettinger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but badly written. Very repetitive and feels like a lengthy rant. I couldn't get to the end. It's a shame....

[Risa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a telling book about the role of the church and its latent anti-semitism before, during, and after the Holocaust. It explores how the church, to this day, has blocked any proper examination of its role and records during that time.
The only problem with the book is that it is repetitive and a burdersome read.

[Paolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molto interessante

[Koz · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those great, Feel-Bad books.