Henry Kissenger and The Nazi Pope: Long Lives Addicted to Power

Two terrible twins in my mind and probably no one else's are Henry Kissenger and Pope Pius XII, the pope who bowed to the Nazis to preserve the Vatican and ignored the pleas of Catholics in France, England, Poland and other countries. He also never said the word Jew or acknowledged The Holocaust during World War II. The Pope's wretched performance in World War II is well documented in The Pope at War by David I. Kertzer. 

Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII, chose preservation of The Vatican over preservation of Catholic lives.  

In 1957, Henry Kissenger wrote his best book, A World Restored--arguably the book that defined his life's work.  In that book Kissenger wrote about the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 and how it restored stability to Europe.  Kissenger decided stability was the proper goal of diplomacy. No moral considerations could stand in the way of stability: the same reasoning that Pius XII used to put the preservation of The Vatican over the lives of Catholics and Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe.

Kissenger was in his mid-30s when Pius XII died in 1958 at 82 years old.  Kissenger lived longer, reaching 100 years, but both men clung to power and relevance until their last breath.  

After his pro-Nazi war years, Pius XII conspired with surviving Nazis by supporting the "Rat Line" that got Nazis and their looted wealth out of Europe to South America after World War II.  

Kissenger in his preference for stability opened relations with China and brought great prosperity to the communist nation, assuming that the world would benefit by bringing China into the world economy.  Fifty years later, China has the second largest economy in the world and is using it to build it its Navy and Army and threaten its neighbors, most notably Taiwan.  Building up a totalitarian country leads to a more powerful totalitarian country. 

Kissenger's path to the Vietnam peace deal includes abandoning our allies and giving consent to dropping more bombs on Cambodia and Laos than America dropped on Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. 

In his 90s, Kissenger still craved relevance. He insinuated himself into the Trump administration through Jared Kushner--giving credibility to the biggest abuser of power for personal wealth ever to work in the White House. Kushner's Saudi Sovereign Wealth deal may exceed Trump himself in abuse of power.  

Both men chose power over every moral consideration. Both strove for relevance until their dying breath. Each made the world a better place by breathing no more.