Robert Leiber

Robert Leiber, S.J. (10 April 1887 – 18 February 1967) was a close advisor to

Biography

Before 1924, Leiber worked with

He assisted Pius XII in researching the topics for his speeches and radio messages. Leiber was one of an "impromptu band of willing Jesuits" whom Pius XII employed "checking and double-checking every reference" in his written works.[3] Leiber, stationed at the Pontifical Gregorian University, three miles from the Vatican, complained after Pius XII's death that he was often expected to "drop whatever he was doing and hasten to the Vatican", taking public transportation.^[3]

As the Pope's trusted Private Secretary, Leiber acted at the intermediary between Pius XII and the

In an October 1958 meeting, Leiber turned down a position offered by new Pope John XXIII in light of his health, suggesting Augustin Bea instead. He authored several books and articles on Church history and on the Reichskonkordat. After suffering acute asthma attacks for many years, Leiber died in Rome in 1967, aged 79. ^{[citation needed]}

Ratline involvement

According to

According to a history professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University^[who?], Leiber had no direct authority to correspond with Hudal but "[his] role as one of Pius XII's closest confidantes allowed the German Jesuit to act as the pope's intermediary and messenger."^[6] Hudal maintained contact with Leiber and other Vatican officials during and after the war. Leiber destroyed all his personal papers before his death, rather than leave them for posterity, confirming to van Room that he had destroyed his papers because he feared they "would cast Pius in an unfavorable light".^[5]

Statements on Pius XII and the Holocaust

After the war, Leiber became actively involved in debates over the legacy of Pius XII during the Holocaust, frequently writing and speaking publicly,^[5] always as a staunch defender of Pius XII.^[1] Leiber wrote an article, published on 27 March 1963 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the main claim of which was that Pius XII had limited and generally unreliable information about the Holocaust.^[1]

As Leiber related to Dutch historian Ger van Roon, Leiber believed that Pius XII chose not to speak out about

In 1961, Leiber asserted that Pius personally ordered superiors of church properties to open their doors to Jews. If such orders were ever put into writing (which is unlikely, given the situation), no such written order has been found, prompting some historians to deny the orders. Michael Phayer argues that Catholic institutions in Italy and elsewhere that did admit or help Jews did so "independently, without the Vatican's instructions".[5]^[7] For his statistics on the number of Jews he claimed Pius XII to have saved, Leiber relied on fellow Jesuit Beato Ambord; the original compilation of the numbers is unknown.^[1]

Above all, Leiber disputed that the disbanding of the German Catholic Centre Party had been a quid pro quo for the signing of the Reichskonkordat.^[3] Leiber wrote in 1958 that "[Pacelli] wished that [the party] could have postponed its dissolution until after the signing of the concordat. The mere fact of its existence, he said, might have been of use at the negotiating state".^[3]

Notes

References

• ISBN 0-670-87620-8
• Phayer, Michael. 2000. The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press;
  ISBN 0-253-33725-9
• Phayer, Michael. 2008. Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War, Indiana University Press;
  ISBN 978-0-253-34930-9
• Riebling, Mark, 2015. Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler, New York: Basic Books,
  ISBN 978-0-465-02229-8
  .
• Zuccotti, Susan. 2000. Under his very Windows. The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press;
  ISBN 0-300-08487-0