In 2020, the Vatican opened its archives for the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958), the pope that led the Catholic Church during WWII, the Holocaust, and the beginning of the Cold War. The Global Pontificate of Pius XII brings together historians who were among the first to consult the previously unseen Vatican materials. These long-awaited records allow for an expansion of the current historiography beyond the pope’s biography. Methodologically, the volume works to transcend the rigidity of religious history and engage with new approaches in global, transnational, and postcolonial history to re-introduce questions surrounding religion into modern post-war historiography.

Simon Unger-Alvi gained his doctorate in modern European history at the University of Oxford in 2018 and his German Habilitation from the University of Fribourg in 2023. He currently leads an international research group on postwar Catholicism and Pope Pius XII at the German Historical Institute in Rome. He was a Visiting Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and teaches as an associate professor in Fribourg.

Nina Valbousquet is a historian and author of two monographs: Catholique et antisémite : Le réseau de Mgr Benigni (CNRS, 2020) and Les âmes tièdes. Le Vatican face à la Shoah (La Découverte, 2024). She is the editor of the special issue of the Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah on the Pius XII Archives and the Holocaust (2023) and the scientific curator of the exhibition on “The Churches and the Holocaust” at the Shoah Memorial in Paris (2022-2023). She is co-organizer of the Ecole Française de Rome 5-year research program and seminar on the Pius XII archives (2022-2026).