Here's a book you might want to consider for your Catholic friends. And it's in stock right now!
No, I do not have stock in Amazon. But I learned a lot from this book, much of it horrifying. Some of the ugliest anti-Semitism in the book was printed in the official Vatican newspapers. And it was still there in the archives.
The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism by David I. Kertzer
In this meticulously researched, unflinching, and reasoned study, National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer presents shocking revelations about the role played by the Vatican in the development of modern anti-Semitism. Working in long-sealed Vatican archives, Kertzer unearths startling evidence to undermine the Church’s argument that it played no direct role in the spread of modern anti-Semitism. In doing so, he challenges the Vatican’s recent official statement on the subject, "We Remember." Kertzer tells an unsettling story that has stirred up controversy around the world and sheds a much-needed light on the past.
http://www.amazon.com/Popes-Against-Jews-Vaticans-Anti-Semitism/dp/0375706054
I've just finished reading Anthony Beevor's book about the Spanish Civil War from 1936-39, The Battle for Spain. The Church got a lot of mud on its cassocks in that war, too, most of it self-splattered. e.g., when liberal American Catholics spoke out against the terror-bombing of Spanish cities like Guernica, the Vatican threatened to excommunicate them. (And hinted they were Communists, of course.)
And part of the deal between Franco and the Vatican was that the Church would have total control over education in Spain. Soon as the war ended, the Spanish Church purged the nation's schools of anyone to the left of Hermann Goering (whose aircraft, along with Mussolini's, were responsible for most of the terror bombings).
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