Gallagher was awarded the American Catholic Historical Association’s John Gilmary Shea Prize for his new book, “Vatican Secret Diplomacy,” which draws on Hurley’s unpublished archives.
“The author’s highly impressive research sheds light on both Pius XI and Pius XII and contributes significantly to our understanding of the latter’s view of communism and fascism before and during World War II,” said Thomas C. Reeves, professor at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, at the January 4 award ceremony in New York.
Hurley held diplomatic posts in India and Japan after his ordination to the priesthood in 1919, and served as an official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State from 1934 to 1940. The priest’s patriotism and his belief about the need to confront Adolf Hitler in Berlin and Benito Mussolini in Rome led to a series of rows with Pope Pius XII. In 1940, Hurley was appointed bishop of St. Augustine, Florida.
Born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli in 1876, Pius XII died in 1958. He became pope six months before the 1939 German invasion of Poland. His wartime record has been criticized by some historians who accuse him of failing to speak out forcefully against Nazi atrocities, although some recent researchers have questioned these claims.
Gallagher writes that Hurley believed, “Pius XII did not recognize the ‘new reality’ that Nazism was the foremost threat to Catholicism. For Pacelli, communism moved back to the top of the list, and Hurley could not understand why.”
Gallagher was born in 1965 in Boston, Mass. He currently resides at Favre House Jesuit Community in Wimbledon, England. He told Ecumenical News International he was deeply honored to receive this top award.
