In November 1946, a twelve-year-old girl stood before Pius XII and received a medal.

She was a Jewish child from the Warsaw Ghetto, passing as a Catholic orphan.

The Pope blessed her. He made the sign of the cross over her head. He told her, in Italian, that the Lord would reward her bravery.

She thanked him. She accepted the cross-shaped medal.

She did not say who she was.

She could not say. Not then. Not there. Not even after the war was over.

I have thought about that moment for years.

A Jewish girl, decorated by a Pope whose silence during the Holocaust is still argued over eighty years later. Blessed by the very man historians cannot agree about. Honored as a Catholic war hero by a spiritual authority who, depending on whom you ask, either helped save thousands of Jews in secret or stood by while millions were murdered.

Edna never resolved that question.

A Jewish child stood before one of the most powerful moral voices in the world. Neither of them could speak the truth.

A Jewish child stood before one of the most powerful moral voices in the world. Neither of them could speak the truth.

To understand the controversy around Pius XII, you have to look beyond him.

You have to look at the Pope who came before him, and the Pope who has tried to reckon with him in our own time.

Three popes. One century.

One question about what a moral voice owes the world when evil is on the march.

Pius XI: The Pope Who Spoke

Before Pius XII, there was Pius XI.

He watched Mussolini rise in Italy. He watched Hitler take power in Germany. And unlike his........

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