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The story of the origin of Vatican Radio provides a unique look at the history of World War II
The book offers the first wide-ranging study on the history of Vatican Radio from its origins (1931) to the end of Pius XII’s pontificate (1958) based on unpublished sources. The opening of the Secret Vatican Archives on the records regarding Pius XII will shed light on the most controversial pontificate of the 20th century. Moreover, the recent rearrangement of the Vatican media provided the creation of a multimedia archive that is still in Fieri.
This research is an original point of view on the most relevant questions concerning these decades: the relation of the Catholic Church with the Fascist regimes and Western democracies; the attitude toward anti-Semitism and the Shoah in Europe, and in general toward the total war; the relationship of the Holy See with the new media in the mass society; the questions arisen in the after-war period such as the Christian Democratic Party in Italy; the new role of women; and anti-communism and the competition for the consensus in the social and moral order in a secularized society.
List of Abbreviations | ix
Introduction | 1
1 The Popes and the Media: The Origins of Vatican Radio (1931-1939) | 9
2 Vatican Radio and the Outbreak of the War (1939-1940) | 33
3 Vatican Radio, National Socialism, and Communism | 68
4 Vatican Radio, Racism, Antisemitism, and the Shoah | 110
5 Toward the Axis Defeat: Vatican Radio, the Occupation of Rome, and the End of the War | 142
Epilogue: The 1950s | 177
Acknowledgments | 183
Notes | 185
Index | 253