Wlodimir Ledóchowski

According to David Kertzer's 2014 book, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, during the rise of Fascism in Italy under Mussolini, Ledóchowski had exhibited strong anti-Semitic and pro-Fascist sympathies. Kertzer writes that Ledóchowski worked to promote anti-Semitism in the Vatican and to align the Vatican with Italy's and Germany's racist and expansionist ambitions. "The Jesuit leader [Ledochowski] made no secret of his enthusiasm for the Fascist regime. From the time when Mussolini came to power, he [Ledochowski] had done what he could to stamp out Church opposition to the Duce".[5] Kertzer further states that: "...[I]n early 1936, the Italian ambassador told Ledochowski that Mussolini wanted America [the US Jesuit magazine] anti-Fascist editor fired and a pro-Fascist editor put in his place...Ledochowski accommodated him readily... Soon a new editor was in place, suitably enthusiastic about the Fascist cause".[6] Furthermore, "Pignatti [the Italian ambassador] remarked that Italy's enemies were the Church's enemies. Ledochowski agreed. The attacks on Mussolini for waging war in Ethiopia, he [Ledochowski] replied were simply a 'pretext from which international Judaism is profiting in order to advance its attack on western civilization'".[7]

Kertzer writes that there is evidence that in 1937/8 Ledóchowski personally intervened to water down an encyclical against racism that was being prepared for the Pope by a fellow Jesuit, the American John LaFarge Jr. Later discoveries of versions of the text for the planned encyclical and a series of interviews with living participants in the drafting of the document in the 1960s & 70s seems to confirm Ledóchowski's reluctance to see anything too critical of the then German/Nazi government published.[8][9]

Kertzer says: "Ledochowski viewed the Jews as enemies of the Church and of European civilization, and he would do all he could to prevent the Pope from slowing the anti-Semitic wave that was sweeping Europe".[10] Kertzer documents many other instances in which Ledóchowski, and the Jesuit order which he headed, led and manipulated the Vatican and the Church into supporting Mussolini and the infamous racist laws against the Jews.[11]

According to Jesuit historian Vincent A. Lapomarda, there was "no doubt" about Ledóchowski's concern to thwart Nazi Germany in Europe once they had invaded Poland,

"Even if he had at one time entertained, as alleged by one historian, the conception of a union of a Catholic bloc in Europe against the Communists in the East and the Protestants in the West, events had dramatically altered that vision."

Ledóchowski accurately surmised Hitler's perfidious nature, and predicted the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and used the Jesuit-run Vatican Radio service to broadcast condemnations of Nazi crimes in Poland, which led to German government protests, and assisted underground resistance movements in occupied Europe.[12] The Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland was particularly severe, and Lapomarda writes that Ledóchowski helped "stiffen the general attitude of the Jesuits against the Nazis", and helped Vatican Radio, run by the Jesuit Filippo Soccorsi, and spoke out against Nazi oppression - particularly with regard to Poland - and against Vichy-French anti-Semitism.[13]