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American Jesuit priest and historian From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Andrew Graham, SJ (March 11, 1912 – February 11, 1997) was an American Jesuit priest and World War II historian of the Catholic Church. He was a vigorous defender of Pope Pius XII against accusations that he had failed to do what he could to defend the Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis.
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (October 2009) |
Graham was born on March 11, 1912, in Sacramento, California, the son of Charlie Graham, a former professional baseball player for the Boston Red Sox and part owner of the San Francisco Seals, Graham joined the California province of the Jesuits as a young man. He was ordained a priest in 1941 and was soon sent to New York City to work on the Jesuit weekly America, where he remained for two decades. Taking a sabbatical, in 1952, he earned a doctorate in political science and international law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.
In 1959, his book, Vatican Diplomacy: A Study of Church and State on the International Plane, was published.
To counter growing attacks, in 1965 the Vatican began publication of some of its wartime documents in a series of books edited by a Jesuit team, Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Graham joined them in Rome in 1966 and worked on volume three of what grew to eleven by the project's completion in 1981. In 1968, Graham published a book, The Pope and Poland in World War II, a summary of Volume III of the Actes, which deals with the Church in Poland.
Graham often published the findings of his research in La Civiltà Cattolica, the Jesuit-run, Catholic journal in Italy. In 1996, Graham published English translations of some of his La Civilta Cattolica articles in his book, The Vatican and Communism During World War: What Really Happened.[1]
Graham often wrote a column for Columbia, the official magazine of the Knights of Columbus.
In matters regarding Pius XII, he worked with Raimondo Spiazzi. The New York Times quoted Graham: "I am 79, I thought I ought to unload this stuff, before I pop off".[2] Graham remained in Rome until illness struck in 1996, when he returned to his native California. He died in Los Gatos, California, on February 11, 1997, aged 84, leaving behind a large body of published and unpublished work.
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