Michael Phayer, Professor Emeritus at Marquette University in Milwaukee, has published widely on the Catholic response to the Holocaust including The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 which appeared in 2000. In his latest book he elaborates upon many themes previously explored, especially the role and rationale of the policies of Pius xii (1939–58) during the Nazi genocide. The introduction indicates that the new study differs from its predecessor in two regards: the availability and use of new sources; and the coverage of the Cold War, which was not included in his earlier volume (p. xi). I see a third difference for the present work demonstrates somewhat less bias vis à vis the Holy See's policies than earlier displayed, with Phayer now acknowledging that he has been ‘more critical than indulgent’ in studying Pius xii (p. 43). Recourse to a wide variety of additional sources, including newly available documents from the US National Archives, as well as a number of secondary works, has led Phayer to jettison the charge of papal silence during the genocide, launched first by Rolf Hochhuth in his play ‘The Deputy’ (1963), and later by Carlo Falconi in The silence of Pius XII (1970). While Phayer had initially discounted the impact of the pope's Christmas message of December 1942, which decried that ‘hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or a slow decline’, he now acknowledges that in it ‘Pius unmistakably denounced genocide’ (p. 53), leading him to conclude that ‘Pius xii did not keep silent’ (p. 64). Unfortunately, Phayer has not delved into the partially opened papers of Pius xi in the Vatican Archives (1930–9); had he done so, he would not have characterised that pope's policy as having ‘flip flopped spinelessly’, or asserted that he was morally responsible for his successor's failure to condemn the German invasion of Poland (p. 5) or that he welcomed the accession of Hitler (p. 139). Despite such inaccurate generalisations, Phayer must be credited for having abandoned his contention that individual Catholics and clergy acted on their own initiative in rescuing Jews, without Vatican input. Whereas Phayer earlier questioned the papal role during the roundup of Jews in Rome, he now indicates that the Holy See, collaborating with the German ambassador, secured extra-territorial certificates for numerous Vatican properties so that they could function as safe havens. This plan failed, Phayer claims, because Rome's Jews, oblivious to the danger, refused to relocate (pp. 72–3). Here, and elsewhere, he recognises positive papal intervention (pp. 45, 93), catalogued by a number of writers including the Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide, author of Three popes and the Jews (1967), curiously missing from the bibliographies of both of Phayer's books. Finally, Phayer contends that this pope should have said and done more during the genocide, attributing his restraint to his overriding fear of Communism, determination to protect the institutional Church and to preserve Rome. Although Phayer's chapters on the Cold War provide no startling revelations or revisions, they bolster his contention that Pius xii's diplomatic policies and cautious approach during the Holocaust largely flowed from his obsession with the Communist threat.