A Moral Reckoning

Goldhagen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, first engaged in serious academic discourse concerning the Holocaust following a lecture he attended as a student at Harvard University in 1983.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/01/books/challenging-a-view-of-the-holocaust.html|title=Challenging A View Of the Holocaust|last=Smith|first=Dinitia|date=April 1, 1996|work=The New York Times|access-date=January 4, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131114110042/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/01/books/challenging-a-view-of-the-holocaust.html|archive-date=November 14, 2013|url-status=live}} He gained prominence in the field with the publication of 1996's Hitler's Willing Executioners, which met acclaim and controversy, particularly in Germany.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/world/holocaust-writer-in-storm-over-role-of-catholic-church.html|title=Holocaust Writer in Storm Over Role of Catholic Church|last=Landler|first=Mark|date=November 14, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=January 4, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104092531/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/world/holocaust-writer-in-storm-over-role-of-catholic-church.html|archive-date=November 4, 2012|url-status=live}} The Journal for German and International Politics awarded him the Democracy Prize in 1997. In awarding the prize for the first time since 1990, the Journal wrote "Because of the penetrating quality and the moral power of his presentation, Daniel Goldhagen has greatly stirred the consciousness of the German public."{{cite web|url=http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/01.09/GoldhagenWinsGe.html|title=Goldhagen Wins German Prize For Holocaust Book|last=Ruder|first=Debra Bradley|date=January 9, 1997|website=Harvard Gazette|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990823224517/http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/01.09/GoldhagenWinsGe.html|archive-date=August 23, 1999|url-status=dead}}

Invited by The New Republic to review several books concerning Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust,{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/01/the-guilt-of-the-church/304824/|title=The Guilt of the Church|last=Rothenberg Gritz|first=Jennie|date=January 2003|website=The Atlantic|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116005256/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/01/the-guilt-of-the-church/304824/|archive-date=November 16, 2018|url-status=live|access-date=January 4, 2008}} Goldhagen was inspired to write a review of the literature concerning the question of the "culture of antisemitism" in the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II and its impact on the Holocaust.Dietrich, Donald. [http://bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/reviews/goldhagen.htm "Review"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060913222949/http://bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/reviews/goldhagen.htm |date=September 13, 2006 }}. bc.edu Accessed January 4, 2008. His impressions first appeared as a lengthy essay in the January 21, 2002, edition of The New Republic entitled "What Would Jesus Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust" before their publication by Knopf in extended book form as A Moral Reckoning.{{Cite journal|last=Rychlak|first=Ronald J.|author-link=Ronald J. Rychlak|date=June–July 2002|title=Goldhagen v. Pius XII|url=http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2040|url-status=live|journal=First Things|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150424002552/https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/06/goldhagen-v-pius-xii|archive-date=April 24, 2015|access-date=January 5, 2008}}

In The New York Times, book reviewer Geoffrey Wheatcroft said that A Moral Reckoning (2003) presents an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church comparable to Goldhagen's indictment of Germany in Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996), saying: "both as an international institution under the leadership of Pope Pius XII (1939–58), and at national levels in many European countries, the Church was deeply implicated in the appalling genocide.... Just as Germans had been carefully taught to hate the Jews, to the point that they could readily torment and kill them, so had Catholics";{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/books/sins-of-the-fathers.html|title=Sins of the Fathers|last=Wheatcroft|first=Geoffrey|date=November 24, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=January 4, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103174619/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/books/sins-of-the-fathers.html|archive-date=November 3, 2012|url-status=live}} that author Goldhagen "sees a deep vein of Jew-hatred ingrained within Catholic tradition; and he does not think that there was any difference of kind, between that old religious Jew-hatred and the murderous racial antisemitism of the twentieth century".

In 2003, in The Atlantic magazine, interviewer Jennie Rothenberg Gritz quoted Goldhagen saying that "moral issues" are the "principal substance" of A Moral Reckoning, that his concern was a "consideration of culpability and repair". In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Goldhagen said that "the book's real content" is in "setting forth general principles for moral repair from which I derive concrete proposals for the Church".Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. (December 15, 2002). [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/books/l-a-moral-reckoning-258571.html "'A Moral Reckoning'"] Letters to the Books editor, The New York Times. Accessed January 5, 2008. Donald Dietrich, author of God and Humanity in Auschwitz: Jewish-Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder, and a Boston College professor of Theology specializing in Holocaust studies, said that Goldhagen "asks the Catholic Church a question: 'What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of hatred and harm that, whatever its past, it would no longer endorse?' He has attempted to analyze the moral culpability of Catholics and their leaders, to judge the actors, and to discern how today's Catholics can make material, political and moral restitution."

Goldhagen's book suggests that the Church owes financial reparation and support to Jews and the State of Israel and should change its doctrine and the accepted Biblical canon to excise statements he labels as antisemitic and to indicate that "The Jews' way to God is as legitimate as the Christian way." Failing this, the author proposes disclaimers in every Christian Bible to annotate antisemitic passages and acknowledge them as having led to injury against Jews.

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H26878, Berlin, Neujahrsempfang in der neuen Reichskanzlei.jpgIn 2002, the book's German publisher—Siedler Verlag, a sister company of Random House—was sued by the archdiocese of Munich as a result of the misidentification of a photograph, falsely asserting the presence of Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, whom Rabbi David G. Dalin calls "a famous opponent of the Nazis", at a Nazi rally. The picture actually depicted Apostolic Nuncio to Germany Cesare Orsenigo participating in a May Day labor parade in Munich—not a Nazi rally in Berlin.Rychlak, Ronald J. (January 1, 2003) [http://www.crisismagazine.com/january2003/feature1.htm "Another Reckoning: A Response to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109201820/http://www.crisismagazine.com/january2003/feature1.htm |date=November 9, 2007 }} Crisis Magazine. Accessed January 5, 2008.

In October 2002, the district court of Munich required the publisher to withdraw the book or correct the copies, but in spite of the disclosure of the error in Germany, the book was released in English by Knopf with the error intact. A representative of the archdiocese said with regards to the mislabeled photograph that "The implication is that Cardinal Faulhaber was an associate of the Nazis. When one writes about these things, one should be more precise about the truth."

Goldhagen, who acknowledged that the photo wrongly identified the figure and location, described the lawsuit as a crude diversionary tactic to displace focus from the real issues. Goldhagen stated that the photograph was misidentified by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, from which the picture was obtained.Eddy, Melissa. (October 11, 2002) [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/german-holocaust-censorship-alleged/ "German Holocaust censorship alleged"]. AP. CBS News. Accessed April 6, 2008. Religious commentator and former priest Paul Collins characterized the mislabeling of the photograph as inexcusable,{{Cite news|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/a-moral-reckoning-the-role-of-the-catholic-church-in-the-holocaust-20030201-gdg74g.html|title=A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust|last=Collins|first=Paul|date=February 1, 2003|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|access-date=April 6, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190526203901/https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/a-moral-reckoning-the-role-of-the-catholic-church-in-the-holocaust-20030201-gdg74g.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true|archive-date=May 26, 2019|url-status=live}} while The New York Times reported that most historians agreed that "a single mislabeled photo in a 346-page book is a minor error."

Although A Moral Reckoning was favorably reviewed in The Spectator,{{Cite web|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/20286/a-failure-of-papal-nerve.thtml|title=A failure of papal nerve|last=Gerard|first=Noel|date=November 2, 2002|website=The Spectator|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605113946/http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/20286/a-failure-of-papal-nerve.thtml|archive-date=June 5, 2011|url-status=dead|access-date=April 6, 2008}} Kirkus Reviews,{{Cite web|url=http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-miscellaneous/4936037-1.html|title=A Moral Reckoning|date=October 1, 2002|publisher=Kirkus Reviews|via=AllBusiness.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120229045726/http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-miscellaneous/4936037-1.html|archive-date=February 29, 2012|url-status=dead|access-date=January 5, 2008}} and the San Francisco Chronicle,{{Cite news|url=https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Chilling-study-blames-Catholic-Church-for-the-2749074.php|title=Chilling study blames Catholic Church for the Holocaust|last=Boylan|first=Brian Richard|date=December 1, 2002|work=San Francisco Chronicle|access-date=April 6, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170429123914/https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Chilling-study-blames-Catholic-Church-for-the-2749074.php|archive-date=April 29, 2017|url-status=live}} and given a generally favorable overview ahead of an interview in The Atlantic, it was also subject to substantial criticism, even among some of those reviewers who found aspects of the work praiseworthy. The International Social Science Review, which described the book as a "seminal work" and a "valuable introduction to and synthesis of the literature on church and state during the Holocaust", also indicated that the message of the book is "diluted by stylistic problems".Green, Harol M. (Fall-Winter, 2003) [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IMR/is_3-4_79/ai_113139430/pg_1 "Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. A Moral Reckoning: the Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair - book review"] International Social Science Review. [https://archive.today/20120710013650/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IMR/is_3-4_78/ai_113139430/ Archived] from the original on July 10, 2012. Accessed April 6, 2008. The New York Times reviewer Geoffrey Wheatcroft praised Goldhagen's assembly of "an impressive body of evidence" but criticized his repetitiveness, his "misinterpreting the record" and his use of it to promote a particular view, which Wheatcroft deems appropriate for an advocate but reprehensible in a historian. Dietrich, whose review lauded Goldhagen for asking "many of the proper seminal questions", mirrored Wheatcroft's concerns about repetitiveness, misunderstandings and polemics, specifically stating: "The careful reader must closely read the footnotes since in many cases he contextually and theologically nuances his book's claims only there."

File:Pius PP. XI Achille Ratti 1938.jpg

John Cornwell, author of Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (1999), praised Daniel Goldhagen's "excellent job in exposing the propagandistic hagiography of recent defenders of Pius XII, especially their tendency to confuse diplomatic eulogy with historical fact", but said that Goldhagen errs in identifying a key Vatican figure as an antisemite, a misrepresentation he thinks "can only provide ammunition for the Pius XII lobby".{{Cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article816496.ece|title=Review: History: A Moral Reckoning by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen|last=Cornwell|first=John|date=October 27, 2002|work=The Sunday Times|access-date=January 5, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110517084509/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article816496.ece|archive-date=May 17, 2011|url-status=dead|author-link=John Cornwell (writer)}}In 2004, Cornwell said about his work Hitler's Pope, that subsequent evidence and debate had convinced him that Pius XII had such "little scope of action" as to render it "impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war". In that review, Cornwell said that with respect to Pius XII, "We have no way of entering his conscience." The Economist (December 9, 2004) "The papacy". ([http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PQSTTPS&CFID=13758594&CFTOKEN=eccddca748e3395-8EBC05CD-B27C-BB00-0129F3B899A8B0C7 sample]) economist.com. Accessed March 6, 2008. Cornwell, "Review: History: A Moral Reckoning by Daniel Johan Goldhagen". The journalist Gritz noted that "[Goldhagen] does not cushion his criticisms of the Church in diplomatic language", and that "even philosophy professor John K. Roth, who favorably reviewed A Moral Reckoning in the Los Angeles Times, said that the adjectives "unpretentious ... indecisive ... moderate ... patient" do not come to mind when reading Goldhagen. Another book review in The New York Times said that A Moral Reckoning is an "impressive and disturbing bill of indictment against" the Roman Catholic Church, yet its imbalanced perspective results in "turning history into a kind of cudgel".{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/books/books-of-the-times-the-church-and-the-jews-down-history-s-tragic-road.html|title=BOOKS OF THE TIMES; The Church and the Jews, Down History's Tragic Road|last=Bernstein|first=Richard|date=December 9, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 6, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160122092318/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/books/books-of-the-times-the-church-and-the-jews-down-history-s-tragic-road.html|archive-date=January 22, 2016|url-status=live}}

In summer of 2002, before its publication, Ronald Rychlak, author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope, decried it as factually incorrect, releasing a lengthy catalog of corrections to Goldhagen's essay "What Would Jesus Have Done?" After the book's publication, Rychlak published a review in the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, again pointing out factual errors and criticizing the book's tone and conclusions.{{Cite journal|last=Rychlak|first=Ronald J.|date=August 21, 2003|title=Daniel Goldhagen's Assault on Christianity|journal=Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions|volume=4|issue=2|pages=184–194|doi=10.1080/14690760412331326178|s2cid=143785356}} Following the book's publication, Rabbi Dalin and Joseph Bottum, later co-authors along with William Doino of The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII,See Doino, William; Joseph Bottum and David G. Dalin (November 28, 2004). The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII. Lexington Books. {{ISBN|0-7391-0906-5}}. in separate articles for The Weekly Standard denounced it as failing "to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship" and "filled with factual errors".{{Cite web|url=http://www.catholicleague.org/research/history_as_bigotry.htm|title=History as Bigotry: Daniel Goldhagen slanders the Catholic Church|last=Dalin|first=David G.|date=February 10, 2003|website=The Weekly Standard|via=the Catholic League|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071205124405/http://www.catholicleague.org/research/history_as_bigotry.htm|archive-date=December 5, 2007|url-status=dead|access-date=January 5, 2008}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/806rjxpb.asp?pg=1|title=The Usefulness of Daniel Goldhagen|last=Bottun|first=Joseph|date=October 23, 2002|website=The Weekly Standard|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227020659/http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/806rjxpb.asp?pg=1|archive-date=February 27, 2008|url-status=dead|access-date=January 4, 2008}}See {{cite book |title=The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII |last=Doino |first=William |author2=Joseph Bottum |author3=David G. Dalin |date=November 28, 2004 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=0-7391-0906-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/piuswarresponses0000unse }}. In his review, Paul Collins indicated that the purpose of the book was undermined by poor editing, incoherence and redundancy. Mark Riebling of National Review, who described himself as an admirer of Goldhagen's first book, called A Moral Reckoning "a 352-page exercise in intellectual bad manners" and "a spree of intellectual wilding".

In reply to the charge of historical inaccuracy, Daniel Goldhagen said that the "central contours" of A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (2002) are accurate, because the book's title and first page communicate its purpose of moral analysis, not historical analysis. He stated that he has invited to no avail European Church representatives to present their own historical account in discussing morality and reparation.

Opponents labelled Goldhagen as an "anti-Catholic", as promoting an anti-Catholic agenda. Bottum wrote that its "errors of fact combine to create a set of historical theses about the Nazis and the Catholic Church so tendentious that not even Pius XII's most determined belittlers have dared to assert them. And, in Goldhagen's final chapters, the bad historical theses unite to form a complete anti-Catholicism the likes of which we haven't seen since the elderly H. G. Wells decided Catholicism was the root of all evil". In the Catholic News Service, Eugene J. Fisher, the Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that Goldhagen avoided original research, as "such methodological and factual considerations would definitely get in the way of the demonic portrait of the Church that he seeks to paint".Fisher, Eugene J. [http://www.ethical-perspectives.be/page.php?LAN=E&FILE=ep_book&SID=233&ID=0 "Review of A Moral Reckoning"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012142441/http://www.ethical-perspectives.be/page.php?LAN=E&FILE=ep_book&SID=233&ID=0 |date=October 12, 2007 }} Written for Catholic News Service. Hosted with permission by Ethical Perspectives, Journal of the European Ethics Network. Accessed January 4, 2008.

In the book The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, Philip Jenkins said that A Moral Reckoning, along with anti-Catholic conspiracy theories and other "anti-Church historical polemic", belongs to the pseudohistory category of books about anti-Catholic "mythic history", historical manipulation, and national demonization, such as the Black Legend about Spain, and said that publishers publish such books because they sell many copies, not because they mean to "destroy or calumniate Catholicism".Jenkins, Philip [https://books.google.com/books?id=cVwthOtTiI4C&dq The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice], pp. 177, 179, 2003 Oxford University Press US Furthermore, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president William A. Donohue said that Daniel Goldhagen "hasn't a clue about Catholicism", and that he "separates himself" from other critics of Pope Pius XII "by demanding that the Catholic Church implode: he wants the Church to refigure its teachings, liturgy, and practices to such an extent that no one would recognize a trace of Catholicism in this new construction. That is why Goldhagen is not simply against Pope Pius XII: he is an inveterate anti-Catholic bigot."{{Cite web|url=https://www.catholicleague.org/executive-summary-6/|title=2002 Report on Anti-Catholicism {{!}} Executive Summary|last=Donohue|first=William A.|author-link=Bill Donohue|date=December 31, 2002|publisher=Catholic League|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080229000750/http://www.catholicleague.org/annualreport.php?year=2002&id=71|archive-date=February 29, 2008|url-status=live|access-date=January 5, 2008}} Moreover, Rabbi Dalin accused Goldhagen of engaging in a "misuse of the Holocaust to advance [his] ... anti-Catholic agenda".

• {{Cite book | last=Goldhagen | first=Daniel Jonah | title=A Moral Reckoning | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf | date=October 29, 2002 | isbn=0-375-41434-7 | pages=384 | url=https://archive.org/details/moralreckoningro00gold | url-access=registration }} 1st edition hardcover.
• {{Cite book |last=Goldhagen |first=Daniel Jonah | title=A Moral Reckoning | publisher=Little, Brown | date=November 3, 2002 | isbn= 0-349-11693-8 | pages=384}} Hardcover.
• {{Cite book |last=Goldhagen |first=Daniel Jonah | title=A Moral Reckoning | publisher=Abacus | date=December 11, 2003 | isbn= 0-316-72446-7 | pages=496}} Paperback.
• {{Cite book | last=Goldhagen | first=Daniel Jonah | title=A Moral Reckoning | publisher=Vintage Books | date=December 30, 2003 | isbn=0-375-71417-0 | pages=416 | url=https://archive.org/details/moralreckoningro00gold | url-access=registration }} Paperback.

• Antisemitism in the New Testament

{{Reflist|2}}

• Feldkamp, Michael F., Goldhagens unwillige Kirche. Alte und neue Fälschungen über Kirche und Papst während der NS-Herrschaft, München 2003, {{ISBN|3-7892-8127-1}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Deák|first=István|author-link=István Deák|title=Jews and Catholics|journal=The New York Review of Books|type=Book review|volume=49|issue=20|date=December 19, 2002|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2002/12/19/jews-and-catholics/}}
• {{Cite web|url=http://www.booksincanada.com/article_view.asp?id=3627|title=A Moral Reckoning|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303202357/http://www.booksincanada.com/article_view.asp?id=3627|archive-date=March 3, 2016|url-status=live|access-date=January 5, 2008|last=Maes|first=Nicholas|work=Books in Canada|type=Book review}}
• {{Cite journal|url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=13571077250157|title=Daniel Goldhagen. A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair|access-date=March 6, 2008|via=Humanities and Social Sciences Net Online|last=Ruff|first=Mark Edward|date=February 2004|type=Book review|volume=90|issue=1|pages=153–154|doi=10.1353/cat.2004.0040|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612034804/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=13571077250157|archive-date=June 12, 2007|url-status=dead|journal=The Catholic Historical Review|s2cid=159978427|url-access=subscription}}
• {{Cite web|url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=144851073956099|title=Daniel Goldhagen. A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair|access-date=March 6, 2008|last=Steigmann-Gall|first=Richard|date=January 2004|work=Humanities and Social Sciences Net Online|publisher=H-German|type=Book review|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070611022020/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=144851073956099|archive-date=June 11, 2007|url-status=dead}}

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