My personal quest for Eugenio Pacelli
In this extract from his new book Gerard Noel explains how an unexpected papal audience led to a lifelong fascination with the wartime pope
1 August 2008

Pope Pius XII with his papers and books at the Vatican in 1956

The title of my new book, Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler, was carefully chosen. A quest for Eugenio Pacelli has developed during the half-century since Pope Pius XII died in 1958. This particular quest for Pacelli, however, comes to quite different conclusions about Pius XII. Furthermore it is based, in part, on very different and more personal sources from those on which other authors have relied. Below is a brief explanation of why the present study is different from any previous book about this controversial figure, leading to a discovery of the man I have called "the hound of Hitler".

In 1948, due to a curious and accidental set of circumstances, I had the fortunate experience of attending, with my mother, a private audience with Pope Pius XII. My interest in this extraordinary man began with that meeting. The audience resulted from a casual remark made to Mgr David Cashman, secretary to Archbishop William Godfrey, then Apostolic Delegate to Great Britain. Both men were good friends of our family.

Mgr Cashman, on hearing that we would shortly be visiting Rome, said he would prepare a letter for Archbishop Godfrey to sign. We could present this letter at the Vatican; it would contain a request for an audience with the Pope.

Such an audience, we presumed, would involve attending one of the weekly public appearances held by him or would, at most, include us in a "semi-private" audience where the Pope, moving around one of the ante-chambers of the apostolic palace, would stop at random, chatting to some individuals and then imparting his blessing upon all present.

Our visit to Rome was set for July. By then the Pope had departed for his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo on the shores of Lake Albano, about 15 miles from Rome. We duly presented our letter and subsequently received a note requesting our presence at Castel Gandolfo a few days later. On arrival, we were directed to sit with a group of people waiting in a large antechamber. Eventually a French monsignor came up to us and, having ascertained our names, asked us to follow him.

We still didn't realise what was happening. The truth suddenly dawned on us when the monsignor, in answer to my question in halting Italian, stated that we were, of course, to be "alone with the Holy Father". At the end of a long corridor, the monsignor threw open a door and ushered us into the Pope's study. There was Pius XII sitting bolt upright at his large desk. We were shown to chairs in front of the desk and the monsignor withdrew.

Having until the last minute been unprepared for this bombshell we, perhaps foolishly, had not prepared anything in particular to talk to the Pope about. I told him I had just left Oxford, to which he said: "Very fine!" (a favourite English phrase of his). He went on to say that the Complete Oxford Dictionary constituted an important item in his library. This, also, he found "very fine".

After a slightly awkward pause, my mother mentioned the names of some friends and cousins in America who, she knew, had met the pontiff during his visit there. Pope Pius seemed interested and this topic eked out the remaining minutes of our audience, interspersed with occasional interjections by the Holy Father, mostly to describe something as "very fine".

The French monsignor returned about 15 minutes later and, after the Pope had given each of us a rosary - wrapped in square white-and-blue envelopes, engraved in gold with the papal coat of arms - we respectfully took our leave. We made our way to our hired car and sank down on the back seat, absolutely stunned, still barely able to believe what had just happened.

When we returned to London, I asked Mgr Cashman what on earth he had put in the Delegate's introductory letter to the Maestro di Camera's office at the Vatican. He later brought a copy of the letter for me to read over lunch. It stated that my father had been a privy chamberlain to Pope Pius XI, who had given First Holy Communion to my sister in his private chapel. It also mentioned that our family was collaterally descended from saints Thomas More, John Fisher and Blessed Margaret Clitherowe. The letter also declared that my father's family (Noel-Gainsborough) was a distinguished "old Catholic family" (which was not entirely true). The waggish David Cashman and I enjoyed a good chuckle.

However, the experience of our unexpected private audience with Pope Pius XII provided a memory which has never faded. To look across the papal desk into the deep-set, dark, expressive eyes of this awe-inspiring Pope was a supremely evocative experience. From that encounter I began to take an active interest in the life and character of Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli. This interest was pursued fitfully at first, but increased considerably as time went on. Rolf Hochhuth's provocative play The Representative (1963) set in motion a process of intense speculation, associated ever since with the quest for Pacelli.



Many people helped me in my personal quest. The most important was Malachi Martin, a charming and highly articulate American of Irish origin who for several years, as a Jesuit, had been private secretary to Cardinal Augustine Bea SJ, confidant and confessor to Pope Pius XII. Without ever breaking the seal of confession, Bea told Malachi, whom I got to know well after he had left the Society of Jesus, much about Pacelli of which most people, including myself, were ignorant. These were eye-opening revelations.

Having left the Jesuits, Malachi went to live in New York and made many visits to London. I was editing The Catholic Herald at the time and met him often, in both cities. He knew of my interest in Pacelli and my translation of the official documents relating to the Holy See and World War Two. This I had found to be a laborious yet ultimately enlightening and rewarding task, giving me valuable insights into the workings of the Vatican and the mind of Pius XII from 1939 to 1940. I had also translated a book by Cardinal Bea, The Way to Unity After the Council. This proved a topic of mutual interest when we met.

My debt to Malachi was, and is, considerable. Sadly he died some years ago. His plan to write his own book about Pacelli did not, unfortunately, see the light of day. I never discovered what happened to the large collection of notes and books in his apartment on the Upper East Side of New York.

From our first encounter in 1948, my enduring fascination with Pacelli has thus spanned well over half a century. I found out a great deal about him during my years as a theological student in Rome, from 1953-55. In 1954, many others shared my interest: the Pope entered an intriguing new phase in his life, and Rome was positively vibrant with stories and theories about him.

One reason for previously withholding publication of this book was in order not to upset various people who have helped me and would not necessarily agree with some of my findings. Another reason was my fear of apparent disloyalty to Pius XII. On reflection however, in view of the harm done to him, as much by the well-meant but ill-conceived apologies for his career as by the attacks against him, I realised that it would be more disloyal not to reveal the whole truth about him. Only thus can justice be done.

My quest is therefore rather personal. The political and most controversial part of Pacelli's life, when he was Secretary of State and subsequently Pope, is fully described here, but not narrated in detail. Such minutiae are readily available elsewhere. My quest is for Pacelli the man and Pius the Pope, an attempt to unlock some of the mystery of an extraordinary life. This close-up examination of the psychology of Pacelli will, I hope, provide more clues to the man than yet another account of the outward facts of his life and pontificate.

For instance, my book reveals how Pius's life was saved and prolonged by the cellular rejuvenation treatment of Dr Paul Niehans, who is never mentioned in official histories of this Pope and is rarely mentioned in other accounts. However, this is a fascinating story. Dr Niehans, living in the Vatican and at Castel Gandolfo, administered three courses of treatment, the most important in 1954 when Pacelli had been given up for dead: he made a full recovery and lived for another four years.

Side effects of the treatment, however, compounded by insomnia and a meagre diet, included the increasingly frequent hallucinations from which the Pope suffered in his last years. These years were also plagued by horrific nightmares. Pacelli's blood-curdling screams could be heard throughout the papal apartments. During waking hours, following such terrible convulsions, his feelings of hatred for Hitler - or rather for Hitler's enormous sins against humanity - surfaced with increased vigour. Pacelli was convinced that Hitler was diabolically possessed. Indeed he conducted solitary nocturnal exercises of exorcism to drive the devil from Hitler's soul. All of this he described in detail (though not under seal of confession) to Cardinal Bea. The latter took a notably enlightened attitude toward the Jews, and the Pope was painfully aware of Bea's views on this matter. Pacelli's decision to stay silent in public about the fate of the Jews caused him acute distress. His silence was motivated by his sense of duty toward the Church, and the fear that such an action would fatally compromise his "Great Design".

It was only in 1945, when Hitler was dead, that Pope Pius issued a condemnation of Nazism as a blasphemous aberration. The inner conflict caused by abstaining from making an earlier statement of his true belief contributed to the depressions and nervous collapses of Pacelli's twilight years. All of this is clear from what he himself said, as recounted later by Bea to Malachi Martin.

The reported visions of Pacelli's later life are impossible to distinguish from his hallucinations. Among these "visions" were sightings of the Fatima phenomenon in the Vatican gardens, and a long conversation reputedly with Our Lord Himself. Pacelli later recounted how Our Lord had appeared to him in his bedroom. (Vatican wags expressed the hope that Sister Pasqualina had been careful to produce an extra cup of coffee.)

Undoubtedly there are pitfalls in considering Pacelli's mental condition in his latter years. Out of discreetness, most accounts barely allude to his difficulties. One must not, however, imply that Pacelli became mentally unbalanced in any ordinary sense; the true situation was much more complicated. However, an understanding of Pacelli's general mental state is essential if we are to unravel some of the baffling puzzles of his life and career.

No quest for Pacelli would be complete without a considerably more detailed account of the part played in his life by his housekeeper, muse and companion, Sister Pasqualina. Theirs as one of the great love stories of all time, no less so for being wholly platonic.

Unrecognised by the world, excised from official Vatican accounts and unfairly ignored by most commentators, Pasqualina was the most powerful woman in papal history. She was also by far the most important in Pacelli's life. They lived under the same roof, in innocent intimacy, for more than 40 years. Without the missing "Pasqualina dimension", the true Pacelli is, quite simply, undiscoverable.

Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler is published by Continuum, priced £20