Robert A. Graham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Andrew Graham SJ (11 March 1912, Sacramento – 11 February 1997, Los Gatos, California) was an American Jesuit priest and World War II historian of the Catholic Church. He was a vigorous defender of Pope Pius XII over accusations that he had failed to do what he could to defend the Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis.
Born the son of a former professional baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, Graham joined the California province of the Jesuits as a young man. He was ordained priest in 1941 and was soon sent to New York to work on the Jesuit weekly America, where he remained for two decades. In 1952 he gained a doctorate in political science and international law from the University of Geneva during a sabbatical.
In 1959 his book Vatican Diplomacy: A Study of Church and State on the International Plane was published. He then travelled the world interviewing witnesses on the Vatican's diplomatic response to Nazism during the Second World War at a time when the Vatican archives remained closed.
To counter growing attacks, in 1965 the Vatican began publication of some of its wartime documents in a series of books edited by a Jesuit team, Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Graham joined them in Rome in 1966 from the third volume (eleven would eventually be published by the project's completion in 1981. With Vatican permission, Graham also supplied researchers on request with other documents not included in the published collection.
Graham criticised what he called "irresponsible muddying of the well-springs of history" by some writers on the Vatican during the Second World War. He felt that had Pius XII spoken out more forcefully against Nazi persecution, "Hitler would have gone on a rampage of revenge - not only against Jews but against German bishops as well." Graham regarded the refutation of accusations against Pius XII as vital. "While his detractors can no longer injure him, their slanders and insinuations continue to plague the Church, for when a Pope is defamed, the Church suffers."
Graham remained in Rome until illness struck in 1996, when he returned to his native California.
