[Inside the Vatican magazine, January 2003]

The Ten Top People of 2002

There are many men and women of faith among us, many who are seeking to follow Christ by serving the poor, the Gospel, and peace. Here are 10 such people among a "cloud of witnesses."

Selecting 10 people out of many billions for recognition as "People of the year" is evidently a partial and imperfect endeavor. There are so many people who have done so much during the year 2002 that choosing 10 from among them inevitably overlooks dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions deserving of recognition, from children to old people, from mothers and fathers of families to vowed men and women religious, from doctors and nurses to poets and artists, why then, do we even attempt this "foolish" task?

We do so because we think the wisdom outweighs the folly. And this is the wisdom: in a world where the most popular journals recognize as "People of the Year" rock stars and fashion models, billionaire business tycoons and millionarie athletes, we think it is a special contribution we can make to the "culture of life" to choose 10 people who, in one way or another, are spending their lives on behalf of others: working with the poor, or for the poor; protecting the unborn, or praying for them; helping to build a more peaceful society in places where violent forces are threatening to bring chaos and war; helping to build the kingdom of God through their work and their prayer.

This year we chose 10 people, three women and seven men, three lay people and seven in religious life, from Italy, England, Russia, the United States, the Netherlands, Vietnam and Poland. We propose these 10 people as models of the Christian culture Pope John Paul II sees as a sign of hope for our world.

—The Editor
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Sister Margherita Marchione
 

A leading scholar on the life of Pope Pius XII, this Italian-American nun has led the fight to defend Pius against charges that he did little on behalf of Jews during World War II.

Margherita Marchione, 81, a sister with the Religious Teachers Filippini, breaks every mold her heritage, calling and age might suggest.

Her Italian parents, immigrants to America, were dismayed when their cherished youngest daughter at age 13 announced she was leaving home for the convent.

As a sister in a conservative order, she nevertheless attended the secular Columbia University in New York City, earning a Ph.D.

Now, at age 81, she travels the world, promoting causes that have earned her the name, the Fighting Nun.

In a habit she’s worn since 1938, only slightly modified, Sister Margherita balances her devotion to God and her passion for scholarship. As a dedicated member of her order, she still serves as the treasurer at the Villa Walsh motherhouse in Morristown, New Jersey, where we visited her. But she also is active in the secular world, serving on the New Jersey Historical Commission.

This tiny nun, a little more than five feet tall, has been described as charming, courageous and compassionate. The woman we met deserves the epithet "feisty." Indeed, her latest "mission," as she describes it, tends to incite feistiness. She is a passionate champion of the canonization of Pope Pius XII.

But Pius, once internationally acclaimed as "saintly," is now widely vilified.

So, Sister Margherita has gone on the offensive. She has several titles in print on the subject of Pope Pius, including a biography, Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace. Two books tackle head-on the history of the Holocaust in Italy and the Pope’s role. Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII, and Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy make a strong case for the active role the Vatican and Italians took to save many Jews. Her latest book is Shepherd of Souls: A Pictorial Life of Pope Pius XII.

Even in her autobiography, The Fighting Nun: My Story, she devotes more than two chapters to setting the record straight.

The British historian John Cornwell in his book, Hitler’s Pope: the Secret History of Pius XII, claims the Pope’s silence during the Holocaust condemned thousands of Jews to death by the Nazis. He further argues that Pius cut deals with Hitler in order to save German Catholics from persecution by the Nazis. Ultimately, Cornwell condemns Pope Pius as an anti-Semite who was a willing agent to Hitler’s master plan.

"Absolutely untrue!" bellows the tiny nun. (She has argued with Cornwell on several occasions on radio and television.) Was Pope Pius silent? No, actually he spoke out officially on several occasions against Hitler and the actions of Nazi Germany. Moreover, those official statements had violent repercussions in Germany and Poland: in Dachau alone, 2,800 priests were imprisoned. More than half died there.

What Pope Pius determined was that the Church, and Rome, could do more good by acting quietly besides speaking officially against Hitler. To that end, convents, monasteries, even the Vatican itself, on the Pope’s orders, were opened as havens for Jews. One amazing photograph in Sister Margherita’s collection shows a dozen young Jewish mothers holding their infants in what is captioned "The Nursery." The tapestry visible in the background has the Pope’s coat-of-arms: the Pope gave up his private quarters to house these women and their babies.

As a member of the Religious Teachers Filippini, Sister Margherita has access to the sisters of her order in Italy who participated in the sheltering of Jews. They share stories of setting up their cots throughout the convents, including the basements, so Jewish families could have the small bedrooms.

After the "fighting nun," takes apart her opponent’s arguments, she asks the compelling question, "Why?"

"Controversy sells, and they are making money," Sister Margherita says of Cornwell and others.

But why are Time magazine, the Washington Post and most especially, the New York Times so eager to promote and praise what has been proven to be inaccurate writing?

"By discrediting Pope Pius XII, the Church is discredited," Sister Margherita suggests. "He was widely admired and is now no longer widely known. If his voice of moral authority, thus the Church’s moral presence, can be taken out of the social ratio, the media’s voice is empowered."

Fighting words from the fighting nun. She has a spirit and a voice that are hard to ignore.
 

[Photo] Sister Margherita Marchione with Pope John Paul II

One of the 10 people who made a difference in the past year whom Pope John Paul II sees as a "model of the Christian culture, helping to build the kingdom of God through work and prayer" is Margherita Marchione. [Inside the Vatican magazine, January 2003]
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The Fighting Nun: My Story

The Fighting Nun: My Story is the autobiography of Sister Margherita Marchione, professor emerita of Italian language and literature at Fairleigh Dickinson University. It humorously reveals why she has been called the "independent nun," "flying nun," "whirlwind nun," "literary nun," "feisty nun" and, more recently, "the defender of Pope Pius XII."

Marchione’s life has been intensely lived—complemented by worldwide experience with popes and royalty, presidents and Nobel Prize winners, and internationally know artists and writers. Her teaching and administrative positions include more than fifty years of experience at the high school, college, and university levels. She is presently engaged in speaking tours here and abroad about her newest books: Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy, Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace, Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII, Shepherd of Souls: A Pictorial Life of Pope Pius XII.

About the Author:
 

Margherita Marchione received her B.A. from Georgian Court College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Author of forty books and more than 100 articles, she is a 1993 recipient of a Michael from the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame.
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THE COMPLETE TOP TEN VATICAN LIST FOR 2003

1. Luigi Giussani (Founder of CL --  Communion and Liberation Movement)
2.Viktor Tarasevich -- (Murdered Catholic journalist who founded the first
             Association of Christian Journalists in Russia)
3. Tarcisio Bertone -- (Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
             Faith; New archbishop of Genoa)
4. Sister Callista Cozzi -- (Spent 50 years in a Sudanese maternity hospital
             she founded)
5. Antonia Willemsen --(Secretary General of the international Catholic charity,
             ACN --Aid to the Church in Need)
6. Sister Margherita Marchione-- (Nun fighting in defense of Pius XII)
7. Francois Xavier Nguyen -- Cardinal who suffered 13 years of imprisonment
             in communist Vietnam)
8. Michael Fitzgerald --(Chief proponent in the Church of dialogue
             between Catholicism and Islam)
9. Thomas Monaghan --(Founder of Domino's Pizza giving $200 million to
             establish a Catholic university--Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida)
10. Stanislaw Dziwisz-- (John Paul II's personal secretary and most important
             day-to-day assistant)