Soldier of Christ

“This well-crafted biography” presents “a balanced, but not uncritical, examination of the life of a controversial pope” ( Library Journal ). Debates over the legacy of Pope Pius XII are so heated they are known as the “Pius wars.”  Soldier of Christ  focuses instead on Eugenio Pacelli, the flawed yet gifted man himself. While offering insight into the pope’s response to Nazism, Robert A. Ventresca argues that it was the Cold War and Pius XII’s manner of engaging with the modern world