Non­fic­tion

The Pope’s Last Cru­sade: How an Amer­i­can Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI’s Cam­paign to Stop Hitler

  • From the Publisher
May 22, 2014

Peter Eisner€s lat­est book, The Pope’s Last Cru­sade, pro­vides exclu­sive new infor­ma­tion about a lit­tle-known intrigue that some schol­ars believe could have changed the his­to­ry of World War II.

When peo­ple think of the Vat­i­can dur­ing the war, they think not of Pope Pius XI, but of his suc­ces­sor, Pius XII€who was known for his silence dur­ing Hitler€s mas­sacre of the Jews. But before that, Pius XI spoke out against Hitler and Mus­soli­ni and called atten­tion to their atrocities.

As the Nazis massed forces against Europe In the sum­mer of 1938, Pius XI began a last-minute cam­paign to awak­en world lead­ers against the mur­der­ous Nazi cam­paign against the Jews.

The Pope€s Last Cru­sade is also the lit­tle-known sto­ry of John LaFarge, an Amer­i­can Jesuit priest, select­ed by the pope to write his encycli­cal against anti-Semi­tism. LaFarge and Pius XI faced treach­ery at the Vat­i­can that delayed pub­li­ca­tion. Pius XI died mys­te­ri­ous­ly in Feb­ru­ary 1939 and the doc­u­ment was nev­er released.

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