Article Note: Udi Greenberg, “Catholics, Protestants, and the Violent Birth of European Religious Pluralism”

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 2 (Summer 2024)

Article Note: Udi Greenberg, “Catholics, Protestants, and the Violent Birth of European Religious Pluralism,” American Historical Review 124, no. 2 (April 2019): 511-538.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University

In this article, Udi Greenberg explores how Catholics and Protestants set aside longstanding animosities in favour of new conceptions of religious pluralism and religious freedom that preserved Christian identity by excluding Jews and Muslims. In contrast to the view that Catholic-Protestant collaboration was either the “predictable consequence of a broader liberalization in postwar Christian thought and politics” (511) or a response to the pressures of the Cold War, Greenberg argues that it was in fact driven by two political upheavals between the 1930s and the 1960s. The first was the Nazi attempt to unite the two confessions into a single racial church marked by anticommunism and antisemitism, while the second was decolonization in Africa and Asia, which produced an inter-Christian alliance to preserve missionary work and combat Islam. This history, he contends, helps explain why contemporary European politics and law support a form of religious pluralism that benefits Christianity but discriminates against non-Christians.

Greenberg makes his case by examining leaders of postwar ecumenism and exploring their links to two ideological projects. The first attempt to overcome the confessional divide was driven by pro-Nazi Christians inspired by “the Third Reich’s vision of a unified anti-liberal and anti-Jewish European order. For these thinkers and leaders, interconfessionalism was not meant to promote liberal equality. Rather, it was designed to secure Christian supremacy in the public sphere, and it often coexisted smoothly with blatant antisemitism” (512). Ironically, after the war, these pro-Nazi ecumenists were joined by their erstwhile opponents, who helped them form new intellectual associations and political parties designed to bolster Christian hegemony in Europe.

Still, as Greenberg notes, both Catholic and Protestant church leaders remained opposed to formal cooperation—that is, until the crisis of decolonization threatened the existence of missionary churches and Christian communities in former colonies. Only a pan-Christian alliance would ward off religious enemies (especially Muslims), while only the ecumenical model of interreligious peace and cooperation could teach Asians and Africans the lessons they would need to reach European standards of civilization. Ecumenism, as Greenberg notes, was a tool to “revamp imperial logic” (512).

As Greenberg explains, this Catholic-Protestant collaboration both promoted and undermined religious pluralism:

What these two moments of European ecumenical flourishing shared was a key goal: dismantling some hierarchies in order to bolster others. Calls for interconfessional cooperation often differed from calls for universal equality; most notably, several influential ecumenists were antisemites and Islamophobes, and hoped to reverse tolerance for Jews or Muslims. What is more, in both time periods, Catholic-Protestant talk of peace was often laced with visions of struggle. The language and visions of the Nazi era were transferable to the era of decolonization in part because ecumenical activists conceived of these two moments as similar: periods of combat in which European culture and Christianity (which they often conflated) faced existential danger. (512)

Referencing the contradictory use of religious liberty in the contemporary era, with secular regimes banning supposedly inappropriate expressions of religion like Muslim clothing or circumcision, Greenberg observes:

It may be, then, that religious liberty is best understood not as a stable concept that emerged from liberal and secular governance; rather, as the story of European ecumenism shows, its meaning constantly shifts, enabling both increased equality and the denial of rights to the very minorities that religious liberty claims to protect. (514)

Having established his argument, Greenberg devotes the balance of his article to describing the depth of late-nineteenth-century animosity between the two confessions and to detailing the networks of people and organizations devoted to Catholic-Protestant collaboration from the 1930s to the 1960s. Readers are reminded of ultranationalist Catholics (Charles Maurras) and Protestant nationalists (leaders of the German Kulturkampf), and the way that members of each confession blamed the ills of modernity on the other. Pope Pius X’s 1910 description of Protestants as “enemies of the cross of Christ” and “corrupters” who “paved the way for … modern rebellions and apostacy” is just one example of this antagonism. (515) Across Europe, each confession lobbied for political and legal discrimination against the other. Globally, competition between Catholics and Protestants was played out on the mission field.

Ecumenical collaboration began in response to the threat of atheistic Communism. While the Vatican established the Jesuit Secretariat on Atheism in 1932, Protestants established the Swiss International Anti-Communist Alliance and the Campaign against Alienation from God and Anti-Divine Forces in Germany. But it was the Nazi campaign to politically mobilize Christians into “positive Christianity” for non-Jews and non-Communists that really brought leaders from the two confessions together, making Germany a “launching pad for systematic ecumenical writing and organization” (520). Catholic theologians Robert Grosche and Damasus Winzen launched the journal Catholica to explore connections to Protestantism and express their desire to participate in a Germanic, racially-based spiritual community, while Protestants like Wilhelm Stählin and others promoted the idea of a national body of Christ. Publications, mutual visits between seminaries, and various conferences bringing Catholics and Protestants together soon followed. Notably, Catholic historian Joseph Lortz reimagined the Reformation sympathetically, and added a series of ecumenical pamphlets and discussion guides, too. Greenberg observes that these interconfessional advocates were mostly not fanatical Nazis, but adds that they were profoundly anti-liberal and opposed to universal equality. As examples of ecumenically-minded antisemites, Greenberg offers names like Catholics Albert Mirgeler and Otto Schilling, though there were surely many on the Protestant side as well.

In the postwar era, these same figures participated in the growing European ecumenical movement—a movement that almost never included Jewish participants and that pursued a largely anti-liberal agenda. Fixation on the threat of Communism was, rather, the animating issue bringing Catholics and Protestants together in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The formation of the Christian Democratic Union, under Catholic politician Konrad Adenauer, is perhaps the most notable example of this collaboration, but leaders from across the continent “shared Adenauer’s clamor that Marxism’s ‘materialist philosophy’ was a ‘moral disease’ and ‘the root of all disorder,’ and the era’s principal task was ‘saving Occidental Christian Europe’” (525).

That said, Protestant leaders remained antipathetic to Catholicism. For example, the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948 launched a decade of studies on religious freedom, which routinely blamed Catholic-led countries as oppressors. Similarly, the fact that Catholics led in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community aroused grave suspicions among Protestant politicians (526).

The dynamic that changed all this was decolonization. As European countries abandoned their formal empires, both Catholic and Protestant elites worried that the loss of imperial protection, the rise of anti-Western sentiments in Asia and Africa, and the surge of nationalisms, pan-Islam, and Communism would potentially eradicate Christianity in large parts of the world. In response, “leading writers proclaimed that Europe still had a Christian civilizing mission,” which could now “be achieved only through confessional collaboration, which would inspire appropriate religious behavior for the rest of the world” (527).

For these European Christians, the Chinese Cultural Revolution was but one example of the disaster that could befall the Church. People like Joseph Blomjous, the Dutch Catholic bishop of Mwanza, Tanzania; Hans Burgman, a German missionary in Uganda; and John Jordan, a British missionary writer in Nigeria, called for interconfessional schools and medical facilities, along with other forms of ecumenical cooperation. Scottish Presbyterian bishop Lesslie Newbigin, General Secretary of the International Missionary Council, also called for overcoming confessional obstacles in his 1961 work Is Christ Divided? A Plea for Christian Unity in a Revolutionary Age. He was only one of many such voices. Indeed, Blomjous and Newbigin led a Vatican-WCC study of European mission work, then established the Committee on Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX) to support a wide range of interconfessional collaboration.

Greenberg shows how these 1960s ecumenists drew on the work of their 1930s predecessors, thus blending “talk of diversity and tolerance with an overwhelming sense of conflict” with Communism and Islam. Examples include the work of French Dominican writer Marie-Joseph Le Guillou and Fridtjor Birkeli, the former director of the Norwegian missions and bishop of Stavanger, who feared for the extermination of European Christianity overseas. As he summed it up:

It was exactly this blend of forging peace between Christians while waging struggle with “anti-Christian” forces that made ecumenism an appealing response to decolonization even beyond missionary circles. For Christians ambivalent or even despondent about Europe’s collapsing political power, unity offered a new spiritual mission, a novel teaching for Europeans to take overseas. Indeed, for all their talk about the need to “indigenize” the churches, many European commentators continued to assume that it was Europe’s role to provide the template. Catholic and Protestant peace, they paternalistically proclaimed, was Europe’s new global “responsibility,” which would show Africans and Asians the direction of the future. (532)

Ecumenism thus became a new kind of civilizing mission, linking European Catholics and Protestants in a shared global project. This trend culminated in the Second Vatican Council, which reimagined Protestants as brethren in the faith rather than heretics—a sentiment reciprocated by the WCC. The result was an expansion of Protestant rights in Catholic countries. As in the 1930s, however, while interconfessional collaboration in the 1950s and 1960s overcame historic conflicts that had divided European Christians since the Reformation, it produced less a liberal vision of universal equality than an exclusivist version of religious liberty in which Christian unity was marked by antisemitic, anti-Communist, and anti-Islamic sentiments. Ironically, while a newly ecumenical Christianity in Europe soon declined sharply, Christianity exploded in the former colonial world. Still, in an increasingly secular twenty-first-century Europe, political and legal privileges for Christianity are coupled with ongoing limits to the religious freedom of non-Christians.

Letter from the Editors (Spring 2024)

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 1 (Spring 2024)

Letter from the Editors (Spring 2024)

By Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Simon Fraser University

Dear Friends,

As winter turns to spring, we at the CCHQ are thrilled to bring you the first installment of our 2024 newsletter. I want to start by thanking editor Sarah Thieme for her time on our editorial board, and to wish her all the best as she steps down from duties to the CCHQ and engages in new professional challenges.

Pope Pius XII, in a September 1945 audience. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Infallible_(Pope_Pius_XII)_%E2%80%93_Sept._1945.jpg

In this issue we have a conference report from Martin R. Menke from the American Historical Association’s annual meeting, in January. Martin was a panelist on the roundtable that featured a critical exchange of views about David Kertzer’s recent monograph The Pope at War, about the pontificate of Pius XII during the Second World War using documentation from the recently-opened Vatican archive. Kyle Jantzen provides a thoughtful chapter note about Susannah Heschel’s 2022 chapter, “Sacrament Versus Racism: Converted Jews in Nazi Germany,” which appeared in On Being Adjacent to Historical Violence, edited by Irene Kacandes. Recent doctoral graduate Rob Thompson has shared a research note on his dissertation, successfully defended late last year, on Christian relief workers in post-war Germany and their encounters with Holocaust survivors. Finally, I have translated a report from a September 2023 conference held in Hamburg, Germany, about historiographical research on attitudes (in relation to but not synonymous with mindsets, or mentalities) vis-à-vis Nazism during the Third Reich.

Looking ahead, I am excited that the next several issues are taking shape; they will feature a dynamic array of book and film reviews as well as chapter and research notes as well as relevant conference reports.

On behalf of my associate editors and the editorial board,

Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Simon Fraser University

Kindly note: the editorial board of the CCHQ reserves the right to consider requests for translations of articles by contributors. Please direct your request to Lauren Faulkner Rossi at lnf@sfu.ca.

Conference Report: Panel Discussion on David Kertzer, The Pope at War, ACHA/AHA

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 1 (Spring 2024)

Conference Report: Panel Discussion on David Kertzer, The Pope at War, ACHA/AHA

By Martin Menke, Rivier University

At this year’s American Catholic Historical Association conference, held in conjunction with the American Historical Association’s 2024 Annual Meeting, four colleagues in twentieth-century Italian and German history – Mark Ruff, Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Martin Menke, and Roy Domenico – met to offer a panel discussion of David Kertzer’s latest work, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler (Random House, 2022). Kertzer then offered a response to their comments. The discussion built on a review forum of his work, to which the panelists contributed, that had appeared in the summer 2023 issue of the Catholic Historical Review (Vol. 109 (2023): 752-767). The in-person conversation proved fruitful by adding new insights and perhaps a more nuanced understanding of this complicated topic.

The first to speak was Mark Ruff of Saint Louis University. He succinctly summarized the book’s topic, what he described as the cause of the “sullied reputation” of Pius XII, which was his action, or lack thereof, to protect or at least protest against the persecution of Europe’s Jews during the war. Ruff noted that Kertzer shows, relying on the papers of Angelo Roncalli (the later Pope John XXIII), that Pius XII was well aware of the damage that his silence might do to his reputation, which meant he was aware he was being perceived to be silent. Ruff notes that Kertzer distinguishes between the early years of the war, when a German victory seemed possible, and the later years when an Allied victory became much more likely. During the earlier period, Vatican officials considered the need to arrange itself with a victorious National Socialist German regime in Europe. Kertzer also showed how well Pius XII was informed of Jewish suffering throughout Europe, especially in his beloved Rome. While the pope did not clearly condemn Jewish persecution, he did vehemently decry Allied bombings of Rome and personally visited the affected areas. Ruff pointed to Kertzer’s explanation for this papal reticence, which was the pope’s “personal weakness, not ideological affinity.” This is an essential break with earlier scholars who argued that Pope Pius XII preferred authoritarian fascism to liberal democracy. Kertzer notes that, in the safety of June 1945, Pius XII described National Socialism as a “satanic ghost.” Ruff emphasized Kertzer’s “unsparing judgment” that this pontificate was a moral failure.

Ruff’s most significant contribution to the discussion is related to the historiographical context of Kertzer’s work. Ruff notes that while Kertzer refuted the pope’s apologists, his critique of Pius differs from that of previous critics. Pius XII had no affinity for fascism, nor is there evidence that, in contrast with leading papal officials, he was an antisemite. Ruff also noted that Church history has become increasingly globalized. Since the pontificate of Pius XII extended another thirteen years, was he, as Kertzer’s title suggests, always a “pope at war?” What about his public interventions in the Middle Eastern question, in defense of Christians in Communist China, or his criticisms of Cold War communism in Eastern Europe? Ruff’s concluding questions suggest that a better understanding of the remainder of Pius XII’s pontificate might contribute by extension to a better understanding of his wartime behavior.

Next, Suzanne Brown-Fleming from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum offered comments. She expanded on Kertzer’s argument that, until 1943, the pope had to expect a future Europe dominated by National Socialist Germany, in which the Church would need to find ways to survive. Brown-Fleming argued that the necessary proof of the importance of Kertzer’s work lies in the many responses to the book and related articles in The Atlantic First, “What the Vatican’s Secret Archives are about to Reveal” (March 2, 2020), “The Pope, the Jews, and the Secret of the Archives” (July 27, 2020), “The Pope’s Secret Back Channel to Hitler,” (May 31, 2022). Perhaps the most robust rejoinder appeared in a full-page article in L’Osservatore Romano (20 June 2022). Given the depth of Kertzer’s archival research, Brown-Fleming found the resistance to his findings surprising. She voiced hope for a new manner of historical scholarship and dialogue that is open-minded and evidence-based rather than a continuation of the type of conjecture typical of much of the scholarship produced before the recent opening of the relevant archival materials in the Vatican archives, both supportive and critical of the pope.

Martin Menke of Rivier University noted that, while defenders of Pius XII have pointed to particular statements that can be interpreted as statements of concern for persecuted Jews, Kertzer emphasized that the pope’s contemporaries considered the statements weak. Menke pointed out that the chair of the Fulda bishops’ conference, Cardinal Adolf Bertram of Breslau, similarly refrained from public pronouncement but relied instead on private petitions out of fear that public opposition would yield further repression of Catholics. Kertzer shows that, in the pope’s private encounters with German diplomats, he was at times more candid than in his public pronouncements. Menke noted that Pius XII’s greatest fears were for the survival of both the Church in Europe, as much as the Vatican State. Menke said, “Ultimately, the pope’s fear of jeopardizing the sacramental life and the integrity of the institutional church led to his reticence.” Pius XII did not realize how fascist forces had already compromised this integrity. Menke also compared Pius XII’s criticism of moral decay in Allied-occupied Rome with Bishop Clemens Graf von Galen’s criticism of the British treatment of Germans in occupied Westphalia, which reflected willful blindness to German crimes. One doubts whether Italian fascists or German National Socialists would have been as tolerant of criticism of the pope’s criticism as were the Allied powers.

Menke asked if Kertzer might have shown greater understanding of the pope’s humanity, in all its weakness, or if one might consider the Catholic teaching of accidentalism, that governments are to be obeyed as long as they defend Catholic moral teaching. Finally, Menke pointed out that Pius XII privately resented the silence of many German bishops, such as Cardinal Bertram, and applauded the more confrontational stand of Berlin’s Bishop Konrad von Preysing. In the end, Menke agreed with Kertzer that timidity prevented Pius XII from being a great, forceful leader of the Church and instead led to his failing as Pontifex Maximus.

In his remarks, panel chair Roy Domenico of the University of Scranton contributed a critical Italian historical perspective to the discussion. He emphasized the romanitá of Pius XII, which eventually made him an alternative authority figure to fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Domenico shows that the pope’s popularity rose as that of Mussolini and, eventually, the king declined. He also discussed the pope’s significance in promoting the postwar idea of Italians as brava gente, hardly responsible for the regime’s collaboration with the National Socialists and the Italian fascist regime’s atrocities. Crucially, Domenico reminded those present that the Church cannot be reduced to one man, even one as necessary as the pope. Many Catholics in Italy and elsewhere did do much to save persecuted Jews. He stressed that at no time did the moral authority of the Italian fascists outweigh that of the Church. One might add that, in Germany, too, most of the bishops proved weak, but their priests and laypeople often risked their lives to help those persecuted by the regime.

The author of The Pope at War, David Kertzer of Brown University, responded to the other panelists. Despite his profound archival research and his kind acknowledgment of the other panelists’ comments, his response reflected the fundamental confusion or astonishment at the moral failure of Pius XII by all those who expect the Church, and especially the pope as its head, to live up to the higher moral calling they claim to embody. Many scholars and laypeople share in this confusion about the poor record of the Christian churches during this time. In the end, Kertzer argued that the Church perhaps needed a two-fold leadership: the pope as a moral leader and some other administrator of the Holy See and its interests worldwide, since someone tasked with moral leadership, as history shows, is easily compromised by diplomatic and other political considerations.

Conference Report: “Convinced by National Socialism? Political attitudes of religious groups and individuals in the Nazi and post-war period”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 1 (Spring 2024)

Conference Report: “Convinced by National Socialism? Political attitudes of religious groups and individuals in the Nazi and post-war period,” Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg (FZH); University of Münster; Schleswig-Holstein State Archives; Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, September 14-15, 2023, in Hamburg, Germany

By Marvin Becker, Research Institute for Contemporary History Hamburg; Helge-Fabien Hertz, Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute for German-Jewish History at the University of Duisburg-Essen; Lisa Klagges, Institute for Political and Communication Science, University of Greifswald

Translation by Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Simon Fraser University, with the assistance of DEEPL (text translation only)

What attitudes did representatives of the two mainstream Christian churches hold towards National Socialism? In sociology, social psychology, and pedagogical diagnostics, the latent construct of “attitudes” is surveyed through items and operationalized using indicators. This interdisciplinary conference in Hamburg focused on the question of how past political attitudes of people who can no longer be interviewed can be captured. Representatives from the fields of history, social science, political science, the sociology of religion, and church history explored this question on all three societal levels within their different methodological challenges: the micro level (individuals); the meso level (specific study groups); and the macro level (the German population).

In two keynote speeches, OLAF BLASCHKE (Münster) and PETER GRAEFF (Kiel) approached the question methodologically. Blaschke built on a previous conference, “Was glaubten die Deutschen 1933-1945?”,[1] on the hybrid or dual faith of Protestants and Catholics under the Nazi regime, and discussed various methods and sources for recording attitudes at the micro, meso and macro levels. Precise findings on the attitudes of religious groups and individuals towards National Socialism could be obtained based on positive and negative “attitude objects.” Graeff described the development and status quo of methods of attitude research in sociology. Attitudes can also be derived from historical biographical material using the tools of modern empirical social research.

In the conference’s first panel on the micro level (individual actors), NORA ANDREA SCHULZE (Munich) and MANFRED GAILUS (Berlin) showed how much attitude research is embedded in classical biographical studies. Schulze used the personal history of the former Bavarian state bishop Hans Meiser to illustrate the long-lasting impact of his monarchist-nationalist and authoritarian socialization under the Kaiserreich, but also his slowly evolving change of mind towards the Nazi regime, whose church policy he strongly rejected. She stressed oral history interviews in combination with a broad range of source studies as an effective means of ascertaining attitudes. In his lecture on the later EKD Council chairman Otto Dibelius, Gailus focused on Dibelius’s publicized attitudes towards National Socialism in the years 1932 to 1934. The rapid change from joyful expectation to fulfillment and then disappointment to partial rejection illustrated the temporal instability of attitudes, especially in the turbulent times of a system change. The third speaker, KLAUS GROSSE KRACHT (Hamburg), used the Catholic laymen Erich Klausener and Walter Dirks to discuss irritatingly positive statements on the new regime from 1933, which should be understood as an expression of a search for meaning [Suchbewegung] within the Catholic religious field, which changed rapidly during the negotiation and implementation of the Reich concordat (of 1933). In this time of upheaval, the two committed and decidedly anti-clerical laymen had longed for a convergence, i.e. a future rapprochement between the Catholic milieu and National Socialism. At the end of the panel, DETLEF POLLACK (Münster) and MARVIN BECKER (Hamburg) added an interdisciplinary accent. Using the example of national Protestantism, they explored the question of the extent to which the attitudes of individual actors can be used to draw conclusions about the collective convictions of their milieu. Pollack began by explaining his theory of “broken lines of continuity” in Protestantism after 1945, where previous nationalist attitudes had been shaken by the caesura of 1945. He substantiated this theory based on both the admission of guilt by church leaders and committees in the post-war period as well as interviews that he conducted with East German Protestant church leaders in the 1990s. Becker then discussed the extent to which the analysis of statements by German Protestants and Catholics on National Socialism in the post-war period could provide insight into Protestant thinking. He drew on the model of social networks as carrier groups of discourses (Sabrina Hoppe) and attempted to reconstruct the rules at that time of what could be said that regulated the verbalization of inner attitudes. Becker achieved this by comparing internal and external communications in German-Christian networks. This discourse regulation refers to the underlying collective convictions of the network and at the same time contributes to their change in a process of mutual influence.

The meso level then focused on specific research groups. LUCIA SCHERZBERG (Saarbrücken) shed light on the political position of the members of the “Working Group for Religious Peace” and its antecedent and successor organizations. She highlighted party books and files, self- representations, foreign expressions, and greetings as important sources for the formation of indicators; she also found more remote access to be productive in relation to role theory or the concept of the “national community (Volksgemeinschaft).” MARKUS RAASCH (Mainz) also focused on the Volksgemeinschaft in his presentation on the relationship of Eichstätt’s Catholic milieu to National Socialism. Using a mixture of top-down and bottom-up access allows for a differentiated examination of semantics, practices, and emotions, thus enabling the detection of political attitudes. With the “Nazi conviction score,” HELGE-FABIEN HERTZ (Essen) then provided a further interdisciplinary impulse. He presented thirty-six attitude indicators based on Schleswig-Holstein’s pastors during the Nazi era, as well as the method of their generation and validation. According to his argument, such indicators always increased the probability of the occurrence of approval or rejection of National Socialism, but without being able to denote it with certainty. Only on the basis of their processing in a measurement model, the core of which is the score, can the set of indicators be used to draw conclusions about the attitude of the person in question and, in this way, also analyze large groups of people.

At the macro level, the focus was on attitudes towards National Socialism within German society, which even during the Nazi period was shaped by Christianity. THOMAS BRECHENMACHER (Potsdam) provided insights into a research project that sought to capture public opinion in pre-demoscopic periods through a quantitative analysis of first names. Statistical clusters of first names such as Adolf (Hitler), Horst (Wessel) or Germanic first names, in combination with other indicators, certainly allowed conclusions to be drawn about the acceptance of National Socialism among the population, whereby one might ask whether the first-name indicator also applies to groups particularly close to the church, such as pastors. JANOSCH STEUWER (Halle) took up the argument that there was no collective opinion of the German population about National Socialism (Peter Longerich). Based on 140 diaries from the Nazi era, he pointed out that communication structures had led to the perception of collective approval, while at the same time a multitude of opinions remained hidden. To make visible divergent thoughts behind the binary concept of approval-disapproval, qualitative measurement methods should not be ignored. In a quantitative content analysis, JÜRGEN W. FALTER (Mainz) and LISA KLAGGES (Greifswald) provided a further interdisciplinary impulse by analyzing reports from NSDAP members regarding their motives for joining the party. The decision to join was generally the result of a complex interplay of various factors, of which one component was ideological attitude. By comparing statements made by these same individuals in their later denazification files, conclusions could also be drawn regarding the argumentation strategies used during the denazification process.

In the closing discussion, the potential of the concept of attitude for historiographical research held firm, because such a concept accentuates the need for sensitization to the question of the inner life of historical persons. This inner life cannot be equated simply with levels of behaviour directly accessible in sources. The basic prerequisite of historiographical research on attitudes is, on the one hand, a clarification of the category “attitude” in conceptual distinction to terms such as “mentality” and, on the other hand, stronger methodological and source-critical reflections on one’s own cognitive process.[2] The research approaches amassed from various disciplines at the conference will be presented in a conference volume as a — by no means exhaustive — “methodological toolbox” for historiographical research on attitudes vis-à-vis the Third Reich, which includes both quantitative approaches (indicator research) and hermeneutic approaches. It aims to provide pragmatic suggestions for the micro, meso and macro levels, from whose arsenal future research projects can draw on the political attitudes of religious groups and individuals under National Socialism, and which can also provide incentives for historical research.

Conference Overview

Moderators: Thomas Großbölting (Hamburg), Rainer Hering (Schleswig)

Keynote Speeches

Olaf Blaschke (Münster): Introductory reflections on “attitudes” as a category of analysis for research on churches and National Socialism

Peter Graeff (Kiel): Attitude research in sociology

Panel I: The Micro Level

Nora Andrea Schulze (Munich): Politically neutral? Bishop Hans Meiser in the change of political systems

Manfred Gailus (Berlin): Otto Dibelius and the Third Reich

Klaus Große Kracht (Hamburg): Borders and convergences. Biographical approaches to the relationship between Catholicism and National Socialism

Interdisciplinary Impulse

Detlef Pollack (Münster), Marvin Becker (Hamburg): From the particular to the general. On the changing attitudes of individual Protestants and the breakdown of national Protestant mentalities after 1945

Panel II: The Meso Level

Lucia Scherzberg (Saarbrücken): The “Working Community for Religious Peace”, its predecessor and successor organizations

Markus Raasch (Mainz): Volksgemeinschaft und Katholischsein in Eichstätt. Theoretical and methodological considerations on a confessional history of everyday life under National Socialism

Interdisciplinary Impulse

Helge-Fabien Hertz (Essen): The “Nazi conviction score”. Indicator-based measurement of political attitudes of Schleswig-Holstein pastors during the Nazi era

Panel III: The Macro Level

Janosch Steuwer (Cologne): A phantom and how to grasp it. “Popular opinion” and the formation of political opinion under the Nazi dictatorship

Thomas Brechenmacher (Potsdam): First names as demoscopic indicator? A research project in retrospect

Interdisciplinary Impulse

Jürgen W. Falter (Mainz), Lisa Klagges (Greifswald): Motives for joining the NSDAP

Closing Discussion

Notes:

[1] Conference report via H-Soz-uKult, “What did the Germans believe 1933-1945? A New Perspective on the Relationship Between Religion and Politics under National Socialism”, 15 February 2019.

[2] The original conference report authors noted in an email exchange with the translator that there has to be an accurate distinction between the term “attitude” and similar concepts such as “mentality” as characterized by Annales School, to avoid misunderstandings in future surveys.

Chapter Note: Susannah Heschel, “Sacrament versus Racism: Converted Jews in Nazi Germany”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 1 (Spring 2024)

Chapter Note: Susannah Heschel, “Sacrament versus Racism: Converted Jews in Nazi Germany,” in: On Being Adjacent to Historical Violence, ed. Irene Kacandes (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 136-172.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University

In this chapter, Susannah Heschel tackles a challenging question: in Hitler’s Germany, how were Christians of Jewish descent treated by their fellow parishioners, their brothers and sisters in Christ? More particularly, whether Protestant or Catholic, how were they treated after 15 September 1941, the date on which Germans identified by the Nazi regime as racially Jewish were required to wear the Judenstern, the yellow Star of David, in public—irrespective of religious affiliation? In the contest between sacrament and racism, which won out?

Heschel identifies the implementation of this mandate that publicly marked Jews as a watershed for relations within local church congregations, surmising that before that date, fellow parishioners would not have known who had been baptized as Christians from infancy and who had converted as adults. Whether or not that was the case, there is little question that the mandate shone a spotlight on race within the church, making the prospect of “Aryan” and “non-Aryan” Christians worshipping together much more challenging.

Heschel enters into her question through the story of Erna Becker-Kohen, a German Jew baptized as a Catholic in 1936. By all indications a devout believer and faithful choir member, she was shunned by her congregation, who didn’t want a Jew participating in worship with them. Her story is a complex one, however, as “some priests tried to help and console her.” (90) Even then, though, out of consideration for the other parishioners, she was asked to sit in the choir loft, so as not to be seen. She was not invited into the homes of fellow parishioners, and eventually she couldn’t attend her own parish church because of all the harassment she received whenever she went out in her neighbourhood. (99-100)

If marriage to an Aryan German spouse offered a limited measure of protection for a German Jew—there were 20,454 such marriages in existence in 1939—conversion and baptism offered little beyond the hope of comfort and occasional kindnesses from priests and pastors. (90) Still, assimilation through conversion and baptism was common. Estimates are that there were about 300,000 “non-Aryan” Christians in Germany in mid-1933. This meant, according to Nazi racial definitions, having at least one Jewish grandparent (i.e. either “Mischlinge” status or “full Jews”). How many emigrated and how many died at the hands of Nazis is unclear, though Heschel explains that there were only about 164,000 Jews of any kind left in Germany in October 1941, and by April 1943, there remained only 31,910 Jews wearing the Star of David and another 17,375 Jews in “privileged” marriages to Aryans, and who thus did not have to wear a star. (91)

In the subsequent section, Heschel explains the relationship between baptism and race prior to 1941, noting how Nazi propaganda help race to be more significant than baptism, and how the regime prohibited the baptism of Jews after the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. Protestant theologians debated whether Christians of Jewish descent could be ordained and serve in pastoral ministry. The clearest answer to that question came from Karl Barth, who argued that the German Protestant Church would cease to be a Christian church if it failed to baptize Jewish Christians. (94) And yet, as various other anecdotes from the German churches suggest, it would seem that Christians of Jewish descent were rejected at least as much as they were accepted, and probably more. One thought-provoking observation of Heschel’s is that trams and churches were probably the only enclosed spaces in which “Aryan” and “non-Aryan” Germans might mingle in Nazi Germany, such was the effect of the social isolation of Jews after 1938. (97)

Heschel offers three possible interpretations through which we might understand the history of Christians of Jewish descent in Nazi Germany: first, that Jews baptized as Christians existed in a kind of borderland between Christian and Jewish communities, not really members of either; second, that Jews baptized as Christians functioned as “uncanny” intruders, arousing “suspicion, anxiety, and disgust” among Christians; and third, that Jews baptized as Christians evoked a kind of horror, in part because they reminded “Aryan” Christians that Christianity itself was grafted onto Judaism (Romans 11)—the two faiths were forever closely interconnected. (104-109)

Heschel raises an important and uncomfortable question, highlighting the relative weakness of Christian community to stand up against state-sponsored racism and persecution. It will not be surprising that she makes unsettling comparisons to twentieth- and twenty-first century American religion and politics.

Research Report: British and American Christians in the Aftermath of the Holocaust and their Encounters with Survivors

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 1 (Spring 2024)

Research Report: British and American Christians in the Aftermath of the Holocaust and their Encounters with Survivors

By Robert Thompson, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

‘What I have written is true—so witness me God’, wrote an army chaplain following the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. My PhD research brought together the experiences of army chaplains, with other British and American Christians, including relief workers, interfaith activists, and government officials, and reconsidered their experiences as amongst the first expressions of post-Holocaust Christianity. In the five years following the liberation of Belsen and other camps, they encountered survivors of the Holocaust. They listened to testimony, confronted the post-war challenges facing Jews, and reapproached their Christian faith as a consequence. These case-studies reveal previously untold human stories in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and they encourage reflection on the unique implications of these ‘ordinary’ personal experiences for understanding post-Holocaust Christianity.

My research journey began when I was working for the British Council of Christians and Jews. In this role I worked closely with colleagues at Yad Vashem to organise an annual seminar for Christian clergy at the International School of Holocaust Studies. In encouraging Christians to consider how we could respond, as Christians in our contemporary situation, to knowledge of the Holocaust, I was drawn to also ask: how did Christians respond? In particular, how did Christians in my own, British, context first respond to what they learned of the Nazi persecution of the Jews?

For my Master’s thesis, I conducted a study of British Christian army chaplains who participated in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. I published an article based on this aspect of my research in The English Historical Review.[1] I argued that, in being present at Belsen for prolonged periods, and working face-to-face with survivors, chaplains were distinct amongst the liberators for being more likely to recognise the Jewish identities of the majority of the camp’s victims. In responding to what they experienced at Belsen, chaplains often articulated an understanding, to an extent, of the particular experiences of Jews under Nazism.

Developing this approach during my PhD, I considered British and American Christians who encountered Holocaust survivors in four formative contexts in Jews’ post-war lives: liberation, relief, occupation, and exodus. In the process of liberation, burying the dead and caring for the living, army chaplains largely came to recognise survivors, not as they first appeared—as anonymous, mass victims—but eventually as Jews with particular experiences of persecution and loss. Relief workers worked as Christians, and as women, and learned about the displacement, repatriation, and antisemitism that continued to face Jews as they looked to the future. Occupation officials initiated meetings between German Christians and remaining Jewish communities. In this work, the future Holocaust theologian Franklin Littell began to consider how far Christianity must change in response to the Holocaust. In the journey of Jews to Mandate Palestine, the only Christian crew member on the symbolic Exodus ship adopted the role of spokesperson for its refugees, influencing emerging memory of the Exodus and of the Holocaust.

As individuals, chaplains and relief workers within these cases-studies were distinct in their experiences, but in studying them together, what unites them is the way in which their practical experiences with survivors in post-war occupied Germany impacted their own Christianity. My approach builds on work by historians and sociologists of religion and their study of so-called ‘lived religion’, defined by Meredith McGuire as religion ‘experienced and expressed by ordinary people in the context of their everyday lives’.[2]

Using neglected archival sources, the previously ignored private correspondence of women relief workers for example, as well my own interviews with subjects’ surviving relatives, I traced the Christian reflections that these individuals engaged in. One key source was a previously unknown pamphlet by a Church of England chaplain, which was printed just weeks after Belsen’s liberation and published what were possibly the first camp survivor testimonies to appear in English, alongside photographs of survivors. One of my case studies conducted Bible study with a Jewish colleague in a DP camp. Another summed up his arrival at Belsen with a single scripture reference. Franklin Littell found in his day-to-day work in Germany inspiration for his developing belief that Christianity must change in order to directly confront its own antisemitism.

Making visible and taking seriously these grassroots experiences suggests that post-Holocaust Christianity first emerged, not in the theological Academy or the institutions of the Church, but experientially, in the personal and the everyday, and especially in encounters between Christians and survivors in the aftermath of liberation.

As I revise this research into a book manuscript, I am giving further thought to the theme of witnessing which was claimed after the camp’s liberation by the Belsen chaplain I quoted at the beginning of this piece. After His resurrection, Jesus said to the disciples, invoking Isaiah, ‘You are witnesses of these things’ (Luke 24:48). If Christianity is at its heart a way of witness to the presence of God in the world, what did the confrontation with evil in the Holocaust do to that responsibility to be a witness?

In Bible study, interfaith activism, writing letters and distributing reports, giving public talks, or reminiscing in oral history interviews, all these individuals reflected on the impact their experiences in Germany had in clarifying, challenging, and changing their Christian viewpoints. They did so not as lone voices but in dialogue and relationship with other people. Their responses were complicated, and there were aspects of the Holocaust and its aftereffects that they overlooked or misunderstood. Nevertheless, they took on a responsibility to witness. When he returned to his English parish after the war, the chaplain found himself a long way from Belsen. But he continued to tell his parishioners about his experiences. As a result, because of his experiences and his ongoing reflections, more Christians could learn about the Jewish experience he witnessed, and, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, they too could begin to respond.

Robert Thompson was awarded his PhD in 2023 from University College London. He is currently Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow in the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (1 January-31 August 2024). Before beginning his PhD he was Senior Programme Manager for the Council of Christians and Jews (UK).

[1] Robert Thompson, ‘“The True Physicians Here are the Padres”: British Christian Army Chaplains and the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen’, The English Historical Review 138: 593 (2023), 841–70.

[2] Merdith B. McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (Oxford, 2008), 3.

Letter from the Editors (Fall 2023)

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 3/4 (Fall 2023)

Letter from the Editors (Fall 2023)

By Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Simon Fraser University

Dear Friends,

A very happy new year’s greeting to all readers of Contemporary Church History Quarterly! I am excited to write to you in my new capacity as managing editor of CCHQ. I have been involved as an active reader and contributor to CCHQ since my graduate student years at Brown University, and have served as a member of the editorial board for the past ten years. Since 2016 I have taught history at Simon Fraser University, where I focus on modern European history, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. While my current research focuses on Holocaust child survivors and the impact of trauma on survival and memory, I continue to remain engaged with and interested in church-state relations in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century and intend to return in the near future to the inspiring story of Franz Stock. I am conscious of the role I am taking on with CCHQ, as successor most immediately to Kyle Jantzen and to the Quarterly’s first and founding managing editor, John Conway.

I am thrilled to announce a team of editors who will assist me with the collation and release of CCHQ issues, each of whom provides their own separate introduction as part of this issue. Kyle Jantzen will continue as associate technical editor. Long-time editorial board members Rebecca Charter-Chand and Mark Ruff join me as acting CCHQ associate editors.

We apologize for releasing the final issue of 2023 a month late, but we are pleased to bring you a variety of pieces. Martin R. Menke has provided an updated translation of a conference report first published by the CCHQ last summer. Michael Heymel (independent scholar) shared a report detailing the October 2022 conference in Germany dedicated to the life and legacy of Otto Dibelius. Menke has also reviewed Doris Bergen’s highly anticipated book, Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany. Ion Popa (University of Manchester/Gerda Henkel Stiftung) has written a report about the October 2023 conference hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome that explores the impact of the newly-opened pontifical archives on Pope Pius XII and its impact on Jewish-Christian relations. Kyle Jantzen includes an article note about Gordon Keith’s review of Canadian Presbyterians and pacifism in the interwar period. Finally, Recent MA graduate Madison Barben (Washington State University) has provided a short overview of her Master’s thesis about the German Methodist Episcopal Church, as its members were caught between the Nazi regime and the American Methodist Church in the 1930s.

We are excited to step into 2024 with a dedicated and dynamic team of editors and contributors, and anticipate a sequence of full quarterly issues through the year and into next year. We fervently hope you find the December 2023 issue a welcome and stimulating conclusion to a busy year.

On behalf of my associate editors and the editorial board,

Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Simon Fraser University

Rebecca Carter-Chand

I am the director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I have been a longtime reader of CCHQ; even before I joined the editorial team in 2019, I contributed occasional pieces while I was a PhD student in history at the University of Toronto. I wrote a dissertation on the Salvation Army in modern Germany, analyzing how this British Protestant social welfare organization navigated its international relationships and national loyalties in Germany. I came to this research through a broader interest in Germany’s Free Churches and other Anglo-American religious groups in the 1930s and 40s. When I was beginning my PhD studies, scholarship on the Protestant and Catholic German churches under Nazism was well developed and sophisticated — much of it produced by current and former CCHQ editors. It’s been exciting to see this field develop further and also inspire new approaches to studying Christianity in Germany and beyond, such as transnational approaches to religious communities, ecumenical and comparative methodologies, the study of lay people and women religious in church hierarchies, Christian-Jewish interactions in European countries beyond Germany, and a nuanced approach to analyzing different types of complicity and their implications. In my role at the USHMM, I sit at the crossroads of Holocaust studies, religious studies, and the history of Christianity. I am very pleased to take on a greater role on the CCHQ editorial team and contribute to providing timely book reviews, conference reports, and notes on new research, and opportunities for scholars.

Mark Ruff

It is my pleasure to continue to serve in a leadership role in the Contemporary Church History Quarterly. I am a Professor of History at Saint Louis University, where I am currently serving as Interim Chair for the department. My connection to the journal goes back to my years in graduate school at Brown University in the 1990s. Because of my interest in postwar German Catholicism and the erosion of what has often been called the Catholic milieu, I sought out John Conway, who was still teaching at the University of British Columbia. Our scholarly contacts developed into a close friendship that lasted until his death in 2017. For my book, The Battle for the Catholic Past in Germany, 1945-1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2017), I interviewed John extensively, since he crossed paths in Germany with other leading scholars like Klaus Scholder and Konrad Repgen examining the conduct of the German churches during the years of National Socialism.

In 2013, I helped organize a conference in his honor at UBC and Regent College, a conference which also brought together many of the board members of the journal. I continue to make 20^th century religious history in both Germany and increasingly Europe writ large the focus of my scholarship. I am currently working on multiple research projects, including an edited volume looking at the rise, fall, and transformation of Christian Democratic parties across western and southern Europe.

Review of Doris L. Bergen, Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 3/4 (Fall 2023)

Review of Doris L. Bergen, Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

By Martin Menke, Rivier University (mmenke@rivier.edu)

Doris Bergen is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at Toronto. Her works on the Holocaust, War, and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust and Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich are standard works in the field. In her most recent work, she studies the one thousand Christian chaplains in the Wehrmacht during World War II. (2) Specifically, she asks whom chaplains served during the war. Her answer is a few chaplains served the regime, most served the soldiers in their care, and virtually none served the victims of Germany’s wartime atrocities.

Bergen first asks what chaplains knew about the annihilation of the Jews and whether or not they sought to intervene. Working with letters individual chaplains sent to their bishops, friends, and family, official Wehrmacht reports on the chaplaincy, and more, Bergen paints an expected but devastating picture. Bergen demonstrates that the chaplains she studied were committed to their pastoral duties as they understood them. The chaplains celebrated religious services, counseled individual soldiers, and accompanied soldiers sentenced to death by a German court-martial on their final way. Before the war, Bergen shows, the chaplains continuously sought to prove their relevance to the soldiers in the field, both to prove their Germanic manliness and to prove themselves worthy of serving at the front. As Lauren Faulkner Rossi showed in her work Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the War of Annihilation, the chaplains were constantly fighting efforts by the national socialist regime to curtail their activities, including the wartime decision not to replace chaplains killed or wounded in action with other chaplains and appoint Nationalsozialistische Führungsoffiziere (NSFO), national socialist leadership officers, instead. (Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the War of Annihilation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015)). Beyond the fear of the NSFO, Bergen shows the chaplains continuously sought to prove their relevance to the soldiers in the field, both to prove their Germanic manliness and to prove themselves worthy of serving at the front.

At the heart of the study lies the chaplains’ response to the antisemitic atrocities occurring around them. Bergen shows that chaplains hardly ever wrote or spoke about massacres observed near their positions. Instead, Bergen convincingly argues, the chaplains focused their pastoral care on both active duty and wounded soldiers, often more intensely than the regime desired. Soldiers perceived the chaplains’ presence and pastoral to absolve the soldiers from any guilt incurred during combat but also in measures against the civilian population. (8, 10, 20) Bergen asks, “Were the chaplains Nazis? A more fruitful question asks how people who were not fervent Nazis or eager killers ended up playing an essential role in atrocity?” (15)

Bergen’s work contributes to current scholarly inquiry into the behavior of Christian clergy during the national socialist era. How did Christian clergy respond to national socialist persecution of minorities such as Jews and individuals with disabilities? One must find the military chaplains essentially wanting by today’s standards. Just as clergy in the Altreich, with exceptions, failed to protect Jews, military chaplains closed their eyes to the atrocities committed by the German armed forces. Already in 1933, the might be said about Christian leaders in general, such as Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich, who in 1933 argued that “Jew-Christians” (Judenchristen) could take care of themselves. (Ludwig Volk, Der Bayerische Episkopat und der Nationalsozialismus 1930-1934. Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, series B, vol. 1 (Mainz, 1965), 78: Nachlaß Faulhaber)) In addition to the concerns Bergen mentioned about manliness and loyalty, Faulhaber mentioned the fear that defending Jews might lead to the persecution of Catholics. The desire to avoid opposing national socialist policy prevailed among military chaplains as it did among most civilian clergy. See, in exemplary fashion, the work of Kevin Spicer. (Kevin Spicer, C.S.C., Resisting the Third Reich: Catholic Clergy in Hitler’s Berlin (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004) and Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, 2008)). Also, military chaplains faced the additional burden of supporting troops on the front lines. She argues, “The Wehrmacht chaplaincy acted as an insulating layer, protecting German soldiers from listening to their consciences or reflecting on Christian teachings. The buffer also covered the chaplains themselves and absorbed objections they may have had. The chaplaincy became a cone of silence, a tunnel.” (20) It would have been challenging to warn those involved in atrocities of the sinful nature of their acts.

While Bergen’s argument makes sense, one wishes she had done more to explore subjects that might weaken her argument. Most importantly, putting pen to paper during the national socialist era was perilous. It would have been helpful to understand the chaplains’ reports and letters home in the context of military censorship of the mail from the front. Given the regime’s hostility to the chaplaincy, might the chaplains have been particularly concerned their mail would be intercepted and exploited? Bergen herself notes that clergy who contradicted the regime’s official line on the Kristallnacht pogrom found themselves barred from service as chaplains. (74) Bergen shows that the vetting process for chaplains sought to weed out any individual previously critical of the regime. As Bergen notes, this kept principled clergy from becoming chaplains, which led to a chaplain’s corps being more inclined to support the regime. Bergen might have displayed more understanding of the pressure chaplains felt to care for their assigned flock against the scrutiny of the regime. They focused on the soldiers in their units, to support them and provide them with solace, which they could not have done had they remonstrated with them about the atrocities German forces were committing.

Furthermore, with few exceptions, Bergen does not show direct awareness by chaplains of atrocities committed by German forces. “Many chaplains’ activity reports situate individual clergy squarely in the areas of major massacres of Jews, although they do not explicitly mention these events.” (123) A more detailed analysis of the stations at which Christian chaplains served at any given point during the war about the occurrence of atrocities would have been helpful. Beyond the data provided, a more detailed analysis of the distribution of Christian chaplains among Wehrmacht units would have been helpful.

Nonetheless, Bergen’s fundamental question remains valid: “Whom or what does a chaplain serve?” (2) A Christian clergy should first serve God and God’s commandments, regardless of nationality, ideology, etc. Seeing evil, or at least the evidence of evil, clergy should have interceded for the victims. Instead, and this Bergen might have emphasized further, the chaplains considered their mission limited to the welfare of German soldiers, not to all those they encountered. As a result, “In the Nazi empire, Christianity and Christian chaplains were essential components in a system of ideas, structures, and narratives that protected and rewarded the perpetrators of genocide and their communities even as it erased their victims and denied their crimes.” (232)

Conference Report: New Documents from the Pontificate of Pope Pius XII and their Meaning for Jewish-Christian Relations: A Dialogue between Historians and Theologians

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 3/4 (Fall 2023)

Conference Report: “New Documents from the Pontificate of Pope Pius XII and their Meaning for Jewish-Christian Relations: A Dialogue between Historians and Theologians,” Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, October 9-11, 2023

By Ion Popa, University of Manchester/Gerda Henkel Stiftung.

The Conference “New Documents from the Pontificate of Pope Pius XII” was the largest and most significant gathering of international scholars working on the Catholic Church and the Holocaust since the March 2020 opening of the Pope Pius XII collections. Organised by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research, the Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies (CBCJS) at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Centre for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, and the Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea, the conference provided the first significant insight into the new documents.

As noted by Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Director of International Academic Programs, USHMM, and Fr. Etienne Vetö, Auxiliary Bishop, Reims (France), formerly Director of CBCJS, in their opening remarks, the new archives, estimated to be at least 16 million pages, will, for years to come, shed light on historical and theological debates over Pope Pius XII and the Holy See during the Holocaust, and on Jewish-Christian relations at multiple levels – from ordinary people to authority figures in Jewish and Catholic milieus, institutions, and power structures. The long-overdue decision of the Vatican to open these wartime era documents and Pope Francis’s words “The Church is not afraid of history” were referred to many times during the event.

The conference started on October 9^th, two days after the Hamas terror attack, when the magnitude of atrocities was becoming clearer. This was mentioned in the address of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, who expressed his and Pope Francis’s “sorrow at what is happening in Israel.” He condemned “the despicable attack” against “many Israeli brothers and sisters,” and highlighted the plight of innocent Palestinian civilians. Most conference participants, having relatives and friends in Israel, followed the news with anxiety throughout the proceedings. The US and Israeli ambassadors to the Holy See and Rabbi Noam Marans, American Jewish Committee, also issued, in their remarks, strong condemnations of Hamas murders. Due to these extreme circumstances, the Yad Vashem delegation, including Dr. Iael Nidam-Orvieto, Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, one of the main organizers, could not participate in the conference.

Debates on Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust have, for decades, navigated between the apologetic and the more critical approaches. These sides were present at the “New Documents from the Pontificate of Pope Pius XII” conference too. In fact, before the beginning of the announced proceedings, the Pontifical Gregorian University advertised a pre-conference session titled “Jews Rescued in Ecclesial Houses During the Nazi Occupation of Rome: A Documentation Discovered at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.” This idea of Catholic/Holy See help for or rescue of Jews appeared in many talks, some speakers trying to present local, exceptional, limited cases of Catholic aid as the general attitude of the Church; see, for instance, the presentations by, amongst others, Dr. Grazia Loparco FMA, Pontificia Facoltà di Scienze dell’Educazione Auxilium, Rome, or Dr. Annalisa Capristo, Center for American Studies, Rome. Another example of this tendency was the presentation of Dr. Johan Ickx, Archive for Section for Relations with States, Secretariat of State, Vatican, who based most of his argument about the intervention of papal nuncios and the Vatican on only one archival example, a Jewish woman originally from Romania, who was in Rome in 1938, and asked for Holy See assistance. He, as others, tried to extrapolate such cases and argue that Pope Pius XII himself was behind these interventions, but there was no clear evidence in this sense in any of the conference presentations.

Several papers, including those of Dr. Giovanni Coco, Vatican Apostolic Archive, or Professor David Kertzer, Brown University, examined the role of Angelo Dell’Acqua in shaping Vatican policy towards Jews during the Holocaust. Dell’Acqua was a lower-level assistant in the Holy See Secretariat of State during WWII, but he was seen, it was argued, as a main adviser on Jewish matters. His wartime scepticism over reports about the mass-murder of Jews was often infused with vile antisemitic tropes. Later, he would climb the ladder of ecclesiastical career, becoming a deputy Vatican Secretary of State (1954), Archbishop of Chalcedon (1958), Cardinal President of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See and vicar general of Rome (1967). The question of duplicity regarding his wartime antisemitism and contribution to the Vatican’s policy of silence vs his post-war successful ecclesiastical career was asked, but easily dismissed. The focus on Dell’Acqua, including by prominent scholars from the Vatican, marks a step forward in acknowledging that the Holy See did not do enough in speaking out against the murder of European Jews. However, the suggestion, implicit in some presentations, that he was the main responsible for the Vatican and Pope Pius XII’s inactions is misleading. The tendency to shift the blame away from the Pope and other major figures in the Vatican apparatus to this low-rank assistant is historically inaccurate, and the question of his influence on the Holy See’s policy on Jews will need more polished examination in the future.

More evidence from Pope Pius XII collections was presented, during the conference, on Holy See real-time knowledge about the murder of European Jews (such as the papers of Dr. Michele Sarfatti and Dr. Monika Stolarczyk-Bilardie), antisemitism in interwar Italian Catholic society and universities (Dr. Tommaso Dell’Era and Dr. Raffaella Perin), Pius XII and Vatican responses to requests for help (Prof. Dr. Hubert Wolf and his team at the University of Münster), the duplicitous attitude of papal nuncios in France or Romania (Dr. Nina Valbousquet and Dr. Ion Popa), the limits of Vatican humanitarianism (Dr. Robert Ventresca), Catholic contribution to escape of war criminals from Allied justice (Dr. Gerald Steinacher and Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming), or the theological issues raised by returning baptised children to their Jewish families (Dr. Matthew Tapie). The case of Romania was mentioned several times. Monsignor Andrea Cassulo, Holy See ambassador to Bucharest from 1936 to 1947, has often been praised and used as a good example of Catholic interventions in favour of Jews. While this is not under question, more evidence started to emerge about his own antisemitism, or about the duplicitous diplomatic attitude of the Vatican. In January 1938, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then Vatican Secretary of State, expressed open desire to collaborate with the heavily antisemitic Romanian National Christian Party cabinet, and in July 1943 Mihai Antonescu, one of the most important actors in the murder of up to 380,000 Jews during the Holocaust in Romania, had an audience with Pope Pius XII.

Particularly interesting was the paper of Professor Philip Cunningham, Saint Joseph’s University, who examined the draft 1938 encyclical Humani Generis Unitas, and its possible adverse impact on later Catholic theological documents. Seen by some historians as Pope Pius XI’s laudable intention to condemn antisemitism, the proposed encyclical still maintained the distinction between “good” and “bad” antisemitism and continued to promote conspiracies about a Jewish plot to control the world. As Cunningham concluded, had the encyclical been promulgated, it would have in fact “raised the notion of divine malediction against Jews to the status of formal Catholic doctrine” and it would have created serious obstacles for the later Noastra Aetate declaration (1965), which repudiated antisemitism altogether.

Last, but not least, although the conference gathered a great number of excellent historians and theologians, some countries/regions were missing. There were no papers on/from Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia/Czechoslovakia, Belgium or the Netherlands. This is very likely because no scholars working on these countries have started to look at the new Pope Pius XII documentation yet. Nevertheless, this geographical gap seen at the October 2023 conference is an invitation for a re-union, in a not-so-distant future, where more insight and new updates can be shared by those researching these incredibly rich and meaningful archives.

The full conference is available to view on the Pontifical Gregorian University’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unigregoriana

Article Note: Gordon L. Heath, “Canadian Presbyterians and the Rejection of Pacifism in the Interwar Years, 1919-1939”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 3/4 (Fall 2023)

Article Note: Gordon L. Heath, “Canadian Presbyterians and the Rejection of Pacifism in the Interwar Years, 1919-1939,” Journal of Presbyterian History, 98, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2020), 66-77.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University

In this article, Gordon Heath of McMaster Divinity College has analyzed diverse forms of pacifism within the Presbyterian Church of Canada (PCC) during the 1920s and 1930s. He argues that support for internationalist pacifism—a “liberal reformist” movement committed to “international developments for peace” but “willing to support the use of force as a last resort” (68)—was strong among Presbyterians, but that support for absolute pacifism—the refusal “to support the use of force for any reason” (68)—waned in the later 1920s and 1930s. This was in large part because the minority of Presbyterians who remained with the PCC after most chose to join the new United Church of Canada (UCC) were largely committed to the Just War tradition, a core Presbyterian conviction (67).

In the first section, “Shifting Views and Rising Pacifism,” Heath explains Canadian enthusiasm for the First World War in 1914 aimed initially at “saving civilization from German militarism,” then also putting a halt to the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey and more generally creating a world without war. Though postwar Presbyterians went on to commemorate the Great War, Canadians as a whole began to embrace pacifism, because of the costs of the war—both human and material. Among Christians, one evidence of this surge in pacifism was “A Creed for Believers in a Warless World” (1921), which articulated “belief” in arms reductions, international law, “a worldwide association of nations for world peace,” racial equality, good will between nations, “just dealing and unselfish service,” Christian brotherhood, and a “warless world” (66, 69). A wave of internationalism swept through the churches, just as it had the wider society. The influence of the social gospel was important for pacifism, as was the formation of the League of Nations, which the Presbyterian press supported, and a series of international agreements which suggested the possibility of arms reduction, normalization of relations with Germany, and the elevation of diplomacy over war (70).

Among Canadian Presbyterians, however, support for pacifism was limited to these hopes for stable international relations marked by bilateral and multilateral agreements, which would render war less likely. Absolute pacifism convictions were rejected. As one Presbyterian writer put it, while war was “contrary to the will of Christ and foreign to His spirit” as well as “not Christ’s method of bringing in His Kingdom” and “fundamentally alien to the spirit of brotherhood which he came to establish on earth,” it should be emphasized that “the Church does not take the position that no circumstances can justify armed resistance to unlawful aggression or inaction in the face of wrong and suffering inflicted upon the weak and defenseless” (71). Another writer asserted that German aggression in the First World War had demonstrated that “sometimes war was needed to stop bellicose nations.”

Still, Heath argues that 1920s Presbyterians believed that international organizations and the churches could partner to make peace, foster “universal brotherhood,” and usher in the Kingdom of God. The Christian contribution would be to invest in global Christian mission. By the 1930s, however, these hopes were challenged by the increasing aggression of dictatorships in Japan, Italy, and Germany. Presbyterians referred to a “Dark Valley” of international tensions that made pacifism seem more and more untenable (71).

The second section of Heath’s article (“Just War (Redux)”) illustrates the growing division among pacifists and the fact that PCC convictions were primarily internationalist and not those of the “absolute pacifists” (72). In 1934, for instance, the Canadian editor of the Presbyterian Record quoted his US counterpart (from the Presbyterian Banner) stating that any Presbyterians who support resolutions opposed to the use of any force to defend the country “should remember that they subscribed to a different doctrine when they accepted our Confession of Faith” (72) The magistrate still exercised the sword in the “Just War” tradition. Heath references other similar PCC statements to illustrate the limits of Presbyterian pacifism, while also noting that there were still some scattered Presbyterian statements renouncing war entirely. Overall, though, a new realism took hold.

Here Heath enters into historical debates about 1) the relative importance of the social gospel within Presbyterianism, 2) the level of preoccupation with survival and reconstruction of Canadian Presbyterianism after the departure of most Presbyterians for the UCC, 3) the extent to which Presbyterians had any energy at all for theological innovation, and 4) the level of conservatism within the (now much smaller and more homogenous) PCC. Above all, Heath argues,

Presbyterian identity was under duress due to the recent formation of the UCC. Despite the optimism for peace, it is not entirely surprising that absolute pacifism did not take root in the PCC. There was no significant pacifist movement in the Reformed tradition, and thus the surging peace movement did not resonate strongly with a pre-existing body of pacifist Presbyterians. More importantly, absolute pacifism directly contradicted the creeds of the church… (74).

As a result, when German Führer Adolf Hitler launch the world into war once again in 1939, “the PCC remained faithful to the Just War tradition, and the war against Hitler was deemed to be a Just War” (74). Moreover, commentary in the Presbyterian Record and resolutions from the General Assembly both maintained strong support for the war against Hitler and Nazism. What the pacifist influence had done, though, was to temper the enthusiasm with which the PCC endorsed the Second World War as compared to the First.

Conference Report: Otto Dibelius. New Research on a Protestant Figure of the Century

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 3/4 (Fall 2023)

Conference Report: Otto Dibelius. New Research on a Protestant Figure of the Century

By Michael Heymel, Independent Scholar and Central Archives of the Protestant Church in Hessen and Nassau (retired)

Translated from the German by Martin R. Menke

Editor’s note: the translation has hewed closely to the original German of the conference report. In a few instances some linguistic liberties were taken to ensure readability in English, but we have tried to minimize these. On occasion the original German terms are retained in square brackets to clarify a translation.

From October 5 to 7, 2022, an international conference on [Otto] Dibelius took place in Marburg. LUKAS BORMANN of the Phillips University Marburg and MANFRED GAILUS of the Technical University Berlin organized the event. The organizers selected talks by sixteen scholars active in Protestant theology and historical, cultural, and religious scholarship on Otto Dibelius (1886-1967). The conference’s purpose was to develop a new understanding of this extraordinary personality in German Protestantism for the first time since the publication of his first and, so far, only biography thirty years ago.

The conference program consisted of seven thematic sessions. The first session featured contributions to the historiography concerning Dibelius. MARTIN STUPPERICH (Hannover) reported as a witness to the creation of the Dibelius biography written by his father, Robert Stupperich. In 1967, a group around Kurt Scharf had tasked the elder Stupperich with writing a biography to honor their esteemed teacher. The publisher, however, rejected the first draft. Subsequently, the son, Martin, took on the difficult task of revising the first draft with his father. Working with his wife, the doctorally qualified historian Amrei Stupperich, Martin Stupperich claimed to have composed a significant part of the [published] manuscript. He centered the biography on the theme of the church’s independence after 1919, one of Dibelius’s most important concerns. Martin Stupperich sought to mention the persecution of the Jews because originally Robert Stupperich had not focused on accusations of antisemitism against Dibelius. When the biography appeared in 1989, Dibelius was not perceived as an antisemite.

The two following presentations were dedicated to the intellectual formation of Dibelius in late Imperial Germany. ALBRECHT BEUTEL (Münster) traced Dibelius’ development before the First World War and described him as an ambitious church reformer who oriented his thinking about parishes and parish activities on the work of Emil Sulze. Pleading for a form of preaching easily understood by the people, which Dibelius connected to a differentiated parish organizational program, he engaged the ideas of Calvin and his experience gained while studying abroad in the Church of Scotland and its small parishes. Dibelius sought to encourage parishes actively to participate in the life of the church. In his work, Dibelius considered himself a modern Lutheran and kept his distance from pietism. Dibelius embraced much of the Prussian tradition from Queen Louise to Bismarck, which to him embodied Germany. While he interpreted the outbreak of war in 1914 as a divine epiphany, his writing from the period reveals no trace of antisemitism.

WOLF-DIETRICH SCHÄUFFELE (Marburg) analyzed Dibelius’ activities during the First World War. Schäuffele concluded that his wartime sermons concerned pastoral concerns but were influenced by nationalist phraseology and far removed from the reality of the front. As a superior pastor in Lauenburg, he served soldiers’ needs. A year later, he conducted patriotic rallies in the Protestant Berlin parish of Heilsbronnen. The Christian state was his ideal, whose morality should be guaranteed by the church and Christianity. He also considered Germany’s status as a world power to be essential. Dibelius believed in a Christian German mission, and he understood the war as a just and holy war in which God, as the Lord of history, was continuing his work of creation. It seemed incredible to him that God should permit the political might of Germans to break. In 1918, Dibelius joined the DNVP.[1] At war’s end, he advocated the stab-in-the-back legend and decried the Treaty of Versailles as a satanic construct.

In the next session, which concerned itself with the church as guardian after 1919, BENEDIKT BRUNNER (Mainz) presented a talk online in which he analyzed the public and publishing activity of Dibelius in the Weimar Republic. For more than fifty years, Dibelius called for a people’s church (Volkskirche). In 1919, he considered it time for a free, strong people’s church. Dibelius claimed he was the best-informed man of the Prussian Church, who published until 1933 in seven journals. Furthermore, he supported religious instruction in public schools and called upon the people to gather around the Protestant church to resist secularization. In 1925, Dibelius became General Superintendent of the Kurmark and assumed the leadership of the Prussian church. In a much discussed and observed debate with Karl Barth, Dibelius used triumphalist language to defend the imperial church and its responsibility for the people.

TODD H. WEIR (Groningen), whose presentation had been prepared in part and translated by MAURICE BACKSCHAT (Münster), addressed the work of Dibelius at the Apologetical Center, founded in Berlin Spandau in 1921. From a Protestant perspective, the center engaged with secularization and the German atheist [Gottlosen] movement. It advocated a Christian worldview. Karl Barth considered the language of apologetics dangerous. Dibelius saw in Barth a dogmatic, disconnected from the world’s reality, who hardly understood the church’s mission. After 1945, Dibelius continued his apologetic work during the Cold War. Dibelius conceived the people’s church [Volkskirche] as a counterpoint to secular culture, which the church should engage. Dibelius recognized positive religious energies in nationalism but envisioned himself on the apologetic front against National Socialism and the German Christian movement. Until 1933, he found it increasingly difficult to delimit the boundary between his apologetics and the right-wing margins.

The fourth session analyzed Dibelius’ engagement in public debate. LUKAS BORMANN (Marburg) opened the session with a presentation about Dibelius’ most influential work, The Century of the Church, which was first published in 1926 and appeared in six further editions. Dibelius addressed his work to the educated reading middle class. Dibelius’ thesis held that the Lutheran Reformation had eliminated the church. He saw a wave of churches on a global scale and developed a Protestant cultural program that employed racial and national socialist terminology.[2] He identified freethinkers, Jews, and Catholics as demons. He argued that, while sects and the German free churches formed distinct groups, the church aimed to include everyone. At the time, Dibelius claimed that the Protestant church could co-exist with any form of government; later faced with the GDR, he relativized that position. More recent research (for example, from Wolfgang Huber, Hartmut Fritz, and Benedikt Brunner) is more critical of Dibelius’ program. He did not reach the broader masses. Instead of recognizing the church as polysemous, he polarized it and thus found himself between the fronts of a diverse Protestantism.

BRANDON BLOCK (Wisconsin) gave a virtual presentation in which he concentrated on the West German reception of Dibelius’ work Authority [Obrigkeit], published in 1959. As bishop and chairman of the Council of the Protestant Churches (EKD) in Germany, Dibelius took a traditional anti-communist position. At the same time, the Councils of Brethren sought a new role for the church. In 1958, the East German bishops professed their loyalty to the GDR. Given the situation, Dibelius wanted to make a statement about the nature of state authority. The term “authority” [Obrigkeit] (Romans 13) no longer seemed to be an adequate interpretation. Dibelius’ new work sparked a debate in which conservative Lutherans recognized an analogy between the GDR and the Third Reich. The circle around Karl Barth and the Councils of Brethren rejected Dibelius’ text. They claimed that, with his reactionary conservatism, Dibelius may have strengthened counter-reactions, which encouraged the transformation of the Protestant church into a church open to democracy and society.

JOLANDA GRÄSSEL-FARNBAUER (Marburg) addressed Dibelius’ position on women’s issues. She analyzed the work We Call Germany to God [Wir rufen Deutschland zu Gott] (1937), published by Dibelius and Martin Niemöller. She also studied critical reactions by contemporary female readers. We Call Germany responded to National Socialist church politics and criticized the German Christian movement. In the last chapter, the authors explained their view of the women’s movement. They thought women had contravened their destiny when they went to work for pay and sought education and public works. First and foremost, they were to be wives and mothers. Agnes von Zahn-Harnack contradicted this view, and theologians Meta Eyl and Gertrud Eitner identified an affinity of the text with National Socialist ideology. Although many women were active in the Confessing Church, it remained ambivalent on the question of women’s roles. Dibelius conceded to theologically educated women a role of service in the church but not the proclamation [of the gospel] in religious worship. Until the end, he refused to ordain women.

The fifth session focused on National Socialism and the church struggle [Kirchenkampf]. According to MANFRED GAILUS (Berlin), at the opening of Parliament in Potsdam (March 21, 1933), Dibelius welcomed the National Socialist regime’s initial antisemitic policies. Using racist rhetoric, he [claimed] he had expected the “inflow of fresh blood” [“das Einströmen frischen Blutes”] as early as April 1932 and believed in a resurgence of faith. For him, the solution to the Jewish question was to prevent immigration from Eastern Europe. Dibelius’ antisemitic attitude, Gailus claimed, was amply documented. He did not encounter problems with the German Christian movement until he lost his administrative power. As an advisor to the regional Confessing Church of Brandenburg, he remained a man in the middle. He was never a Confessing Church pastor in a Confessing Church parish. Dibelius desired a large, strong, autocratically governed Germany but rejected the hierarchy of the German Christians. After 1945, a negative understanding of Dibelius developed in East Germany; in West Germany, he was seen more positively.

ANDREAS PANGRITZ (Osnabrück) studied the poorly-explored relationship of Dibelius to Jews. Pangritz considered him an antisemite with a clear conscience. After 1945, Dibelius sought to relativize his views. In an article published in 1948, in a retrospective on the Reichspogrom,[3] he did not explain why the church had remained silent. Still, he did emphasize that it was a duty of honor for the Confessing Church to help persecuted Jews. He also claimed that, after euthanasia,[4] he could no longer acknowledge the National Socialist state as an authority. He declared that he had employed two non-Aryans. Since 1934, he had employed a “half-Jew” as a secretary. Already in 1928, Dibelius confessed that he had always been an antisemite. Regarding the boycott of Jewish stores in 1933, Dibelius wrote on April 9 in the Protestant Sunday newspaper of Berlin [Evangelischen Sonntagsblatt Berlin] that the international economy and the international press were in Jewish hands. He continued that Jews abroad were rallying against Germany. He concluded that Jews were a foreign race and Eastern Jews were of questionable moral character.

TETYANA PAVLUSH (Cardiff) had been scheduled to speak on Dibelius’s attitude towards denazification. Because she canceled her talk, MICHAEL HEYMEL (Limburg) presented a talk on the relationship between Dibelius and Martin Niemöller. In a sketch of their personalities, he pointed out that there had been no conflict of authority until both occupied high leadership posts in the church. Both were Prussians, convinced monarchists, and homeless [heimatlose] national Protestants. They welcomed Hitler’s seizure of power but found themselves in ecclesiastical opposition to the German Christians. During the Kirchenkampf, they acted as allies for a time. Dibelius was initially only an observer of the Confessing Church and began his full cooperation only in June 1934. The opposition position that Niemöller assumed after the war’s end originated in the Confessing Churches’ internal fissures. This is evident in the differing evaluations of the church conference at Treysa. Niemöller considered Dibelius the bureaucratic leader of an ecclesiastical administration, while Dibelius considered Niemöller the representative of a superseded ecclesiastical minority.

The three papers of the following session were devoted to the post-war era. CLAUDIA LEPP (München) analyzed the work of Dibelius as a bishop of Berlin (1945-1966) under four aspects. First, in 1945, when he resumed his office in the Prussian Council of Brethren, Dibelius acted as a strongman, solidified old structures, and prevented a reorganization as the Council of Elders around Niemöller intended. In his work, he included both German Christian and National Socialist pastors. Second, in his sermons and pastoral letters, he assumed the position of someone who could analyze and interpret contemporary affairs, in order to frame and structure the life of the people. He also compared the Federal Republic with the Weimar Republic and the GDR with the National Socialist state. Thirdly, he acted as an anti-communist engaged in a church struggle, insisting on the rule of law and freedom of opinion in the GDR. At the time, ninety percent of the GDR’s population belonged to a Christian church. Dibelius struggled in vain against the Socialist Youth Ceremony of Jugendweihe, since most Protestants were unwilling to resist the government’s ritual. Fourth, he acted as a national Protestant activist for the reunification of Germany. By 1957, he was banned from entering the GDR but formally remained a bishop of East and West Berlin until 1966.

HANSJÖRG BUSS (Siegen) focused on the East German political and ecclesiastical opponents of Dibelius as bishop of Berlin. He was the only East German representative on the Council of the Lutheran Church of Germany and, during the 1950s, he was the face of the Protestant church. During this time, the Protestant church in the GDR lost public support. In a film produced by East German television, Dibelius was portrayed as a cold warrior based on his notorious sermon at Potsdam in 1933. This reflected the East German regime’s tendency to see him as an ideological opponent. In East German media, he was portrayed in caricatures as a NATO bishop and purveyor of the hydrogen bomb. While the East German polemic against Dibelius included antisemitic overtones, it increased his support in the West. In 1958, opposition among the pastors of Berlin-Brandenburg increased. Günter Jacob, Superintendent of the Neumark since 1946, became his primary opponent. Jacob did not insist on a unified Protestant church in Germany and, after 1960, turned against the structure of the Church of Berlin-Brandenburg, which was tailored to Dibelius and the office of the bishop.

SIEGFRIED HERMLE (München) used the annual reports written by Dibelius to analyze his tenure in office as chair of the Council of the Lutheran Church in Germany [Rat der evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland] (1949-1961). The council consisted of eleven members and was intended to lead and administer. Eleven individuals ran for the chair’s position in the 1949 elections. A clear majority voted for Dibelius and Lilje as his deputy. Niemöller was no longer capable of gaining a majority. For Dibelius, the churches in the German states represented the central points of German Protestantism. The individual churches did not want a strong central leadership. The Council of the Lutheran Church in Germany should only occasionally speak publicly in the name of the individual churches. In the eight annual reports filed by Dibelius, relations between church and state took up much space. He believed Bonn protected the church while, in the GDR, the church was increasingly exposed to propaganda. He argued that the Church should not let itself be abused in the competition of political forces. He acknowledged differences of opinion in military matters but disagreed with the Councils of Brethren. This was a contrast that influences debates concerning peace to this day. The conservative majority of the Councils of Brethren agreed with him.

The last session concerned Dibelius on the international stage. THEA SULMAVICO (Halle) characterized Dibelius’ position in the rearmament debate as ambivalent. The GDR press responded with polemics when he signed the agreement on pastoral care in the military (1957). Dibelius, in The Boundaries of the State [Die Grenzen des Staates] of 1949, criticized modern war. His criticism of the secular state was aimed only at the GDR, not against the Federal Republic. For Dibelius, the Fatherland had a higher priority than the state. It was a matter of national honor to provide for the defense of one’s own country. He warned against the great danger from the East. After atomic and hydrogen bomb tests, he believed the Soviet Union to possess superiority over the West. He accused Niemöller and Heinemann[5] of political propaganda. He claimed Lutherans were better than the followers of Barth in keeping separate political questions and questions of faith. Neither side ever entirely accepted Dibelius’ claim that he was unpolitical.

BERND KREBS (Berlin) discussed Dibelius’ relationship with Poland. In the 1920s, the primary focus was on Germans under Polish rule. Two-thirds of these Germans left Poland. General Superintendent Juliusz Barsche advocated the integration of all Protestants in the Polish state. Dibelius was convinced of a German mission in the East. Using strongly nationalist tones, he represented the interests of German Protestants in Poland. Before 1914, the region included a million Protestant Christians; after the war, only 350,000 remained. German pastors [in Poland] followed the DNVP party line and were considered leaders in ethnic German circles. In the mid-1920s, tensions worsened. National Socialist policies exerted massive pressure on the Protestant church in Posen. German Protestants in Poland were disappointed by National Socialism. Poland remained a realm of different cultures, in which the desired Germanification failed. After 1945, Dibelius concerned himself with the Lutherans in Poland.

A promised presentation on Dibelius’ active participation in the Ecumenical Movement had to be canceled because KATHARINA KUNTER (Helsinki) could not attend. HARTMUT LEHMANN (Kiel) summarized the conference and asked if anyone actually knew who Dibelius was. Did the presentations together constitute a new understanding of Dibelius? Three facets, Lehmann argued, were recognizable: 1. Dibelius was a prince of the church who always claimed leadership roles. 2. He was a man of the political right who consistently combated the left. Like the average German Protestant of his age, he supported antisemitism and initially also National Socialism. He integrated individuals from different backgrounds into the Council of the Protestant Churches of Germany. 3. After 1945, Dibelius missed the opportunity for a new orientation of the Protestant Church. One could at least imagine an alternative behavior marked by repentance and reversal. The question of what might have happened if Dibelius, as leader of the church, had acted differently before and after National Socialism would go beyond historical scholarship. LEPP and HERMLE remarked that, in such an instance, Dibelius would not have been himself and would not have risen to the church leadership positions he held.

The conference took place with relatively good participation by female scholars within a mixture of several generations of scholars and a constructive atmosphere. Nonetheless, in evaluating the work of Robert Stupperich’s discussion of antisemitism, tensions became evident. Relating to ecumenicism and denazification, gaps in the scholarship were regrettably noticed. New were the investigations of Dibelius during the Kaiserzeit[6] and his relationship to the Weimar era. On the question of antisemitism and Dibelius’ “tragic” post-war role between polemics and his slow distancing from them, the final word has not been spoken. The contributions to the conference are to be published in an edited volume.

[1] Editor’s note: German National People’s Party, a right-wing conservative nationalist party.

[2] Translator’s note: the preceding two sentences are contradictory in the original German.

[3] Editor’s note: the pogrom of November 9, 1938.

[4] Editor’s note: the Nazis’ T-4 “euthanasia” program.

[5] Editor’s note: Gustav Heinemann, at the time President of the Synod of German Churches and Minister of the Interior under Konrad Adenauer.

[6] Editor’s note: refers to the period 1871-1918.

Research Report: Madison Barben on German and American Methodists and Nazi Germany

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 3/4 (Fall 2023)

Research Report: Madison Barben on German and American Methodists and Nazi Germany

By Madison Barben, Washington State University

My master’s thesis, “Between Brethren and Fatherland: German Methodist Relations with Nazi Germany and American Methodism, 1933-1939,” (Department of History, Washington State University, 2023) explores conflicts of religion, politics, and international relations between Nazi Germany and the United States by focusing on the German Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). As the Nazis rose to power, they worked furiously to bring all aspects of Germany society, including churches under their control. The Nazis’ consolidation efforts affected not only the larger official state-recognized churches like the German Evangelical and the Catholic Churches, but also the Free Churches. Due to their independent status and foreign ties, the German Methodists and other Free Churches were in a precarious position. While the German Methodists feared their Anglo-American ties jeopardized their Free Church status, Nazi officials saw their connections as a means to influence American public opinion. In the thesis, I examine the German Methodist bishops’ international visits to analyze their changing relationship with the Nazi state and their American church brethren. To explore these ideas, I used Methodist periodicals The Christian Advocate and as well as the German Methodist bishops’ writing, speeches, and correspondence to church leadership in the United States.[1]

Recently, the Free Churches and German Protestants’ transnational ties have received specific attention. Historians Kyle Jantzen, Rebecca Carter-Chand, and Blake McKinney’s research stress the transnational scope of the Kirchenkampf with Carter-Chand and McKinney specifically examining the Free Churches.[2] I focused on the Methodists as a case study to examine how one Free Church navigated its place amidst Nazi control and conflicts amongst the German churches. With my thesis, I aim to contribute to scholarship on the Free Churches and the Kirchenkampf’s transnational influence. Also, my thesis builds on prior scholarship into Methodism in the Third Reich by emphasizing the church’s transnational connections through the bishops’ international tours.[3]

From 1933-1939, Bishops John L. Nuelsen (1912-1936) and F. H. Otto Melle (1936-1946) completed multiple propaganda tours in the United States and England on behalf on the Nazis. Their international visits illustrate the extent to which the German Methodist leaders went to preserve their church, even if it meant complying with an oppressive regime. The first bishop, Nuelsen, complied with Nazi orders as means for the MEC to survive, fearing opposition would destroy the MEC’s existence in Germany and connections to international Methodism. In 1933 and 1935, he completed propaganda tours in the United States supporting the Nazi’s positive influence over German society. While he showed early public support, he privately criticized the Nazis and later, when Germany was no longer part of his episcopal jurisdiction, ceased explicitly defending the Reich.

While Nuelsen cooperated with the Nazis for the church to survive, his successor, Melle, did so for it to thrive. In contrast to his predecessor, Melle, a self-described German national, was more opportunistic and eager to cooperate with the Nazi state. This is most evident in his controversial attendance and statements defending the Third Reich while dismissing the Confessing Church at the 1937 Life and Work “Oxford Conference.” Through his willingness to collaborate, Melle received political and material favor for the German Methodists, much to the dismay of Nuelsen and international Methodists.

My thesis only touched the surface of German Methodists and other Free Churches in the Third Reich. My project ends at the outbreak of World War II and does not cover wartime, the Holocaust, and post war.[4] While my thesis focuses on an individual Free Church, there is value in examining them collectively to highlight their parallel experiences and ecumenical relationships.[5] Finally, there can be more research into the Free Churches’ transnational relationships, specifically examining how their connections were used to influence opinions and politics on both sides of the Atlantic.

Biographical Note

Madison Barben recently graduated with a master’s degree in history from Washington State University. She is an Assistant Content Creator for the United Methodist Church’s General Commission on Archives and History and an Assistant Archivist at the Nebraska United Methodist Historical Center and Archive. She is currently applying to Ph.D. programs and intends to continue researching intersections of religion and politics in German-American international relations.

[1] I specifically researched at the United Methodist Archives at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey and The Interchurch Center in New York City.

[2] Blake McKinney, “Conference Report: “Nazi Germany, International Protestantism, and the German Churches,” Contemporary Church History Quarterly, 27, no. 4 (December 2021), https://contemporarychurchhistory.org/2021/12/conference-report-nazi-germany-international-protestantism-and-the-german-churches/; Rebecca Carter-Chand, “Nationalism and Religious Bonds: Transatlantic Religious Communities in Nazi Germany and the United States,” in Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars, eds. Kevin P. Spicer and Rebecca Carter-Chand (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022); Blake McKinney, “The National and International Church: National Socialism, German Protestantism, and the Watching World” (PhD diss., University of Alabama, 2021)

[3] James A. Dwyer, “The Methodist Episcopal Church in Germany, 1933-1945: Development of Semi-
Autonomy and Maintenance of International Ties in the Face of National Socialism and the German Church Struggle,” PhD diss., (Northwestern University, 1978); Herbert Strahm, Die Bischöfliche Methodistenkirche im Dritten Reich, (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1989); Roland Blaich, “A Tale of Two Leaders: German Methodists and the Nazi State,” Church History 70, no. 2 (2001); Daniel, W. Harrison, “To Strengthen the Ties That Bind: Bishop John L. Nuelsen and German-Connectionalism in the Methodist Episcopal Church Mission in Europe, 1912-1940.” Methodist History 38, no. 3 (April 2000); Ulrike Schuler, “Crisis, Collapse, and Hope: Methodism in 1945 Europe,” Methodist History, 51 no. 1&2 (2012); Helmut Nausner, “Tracing Reconciliation: Post 1945,” Methodist History, 51 no. 1&2 (2012); Karl Heinz Voigt, “Melle, Friedrich Heinrich Otto,” Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, 1993, https://www.bbkl.de/index.php/frontend/lexicon/M/Mc-Me/melle-friedrich-heinrich-otto-63151.

[4] There has not been much scholarship into German Methodist responses to the Holocaust besides Karl Voigt’s chapter in Daniel Heinz’s edited volume. Daniel Heinz, ed., Freikirchen und Juden im “Dritten Reich”: Instrumentalisierte Heilsgeschichte, antisemitische Vorurteile und verdrängte Schuld (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011).

[5] Carter-Chand and McKinney’s recent research examine the Anglo-American Free Churches as a collective unit, but there is still room to expand on these ideas.

Letter from the Editors (Summer 2023)

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 1/2 (Summer 2023)

Letter from the Editors (Summer 2023)

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University

Dear Friends,

I must begin this Letter from the Editors with an apology for the long delay between issues of Contemporary Church History Quarterly, which is due to the recent increase in the demands of my university position. While it has been my pleasure to have led a group of scholars in transforming the late John Conway’s monthly newsletter into a quarterly journal starting back in March 2010, it is time to pass on my Managing Editor responsibilities. I am pleased to announce that Dr. Lauren Faulkner Rossi of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, will be stepping into the lead role as of the next issue. I am delighted that she is willing to take on the responsibility and look forward to supporting her as she and her colleagues on the editorial board carry the CCHQ forward.

In this issue, we are pleased to present an article by Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming on a series of lectures by Father Marie-Benoît at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion in Rome, in November 1944. In the lectures, he tried to bring together Jews and Christians by discussing topics such as the creation of the universe, man formed in the image of God, monogamy, the sanctity of marriage, the unity of the human family, and other topics common to both Christianity and Judaism. His lectures came to the attention of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, the office within the Roman Curia that ruled on matters of faith and morals. The essay describes the tug-of-war between various authority figures, congregations within the Curia, and religious Orders that ensued, ultimately foreshadowing the sea changes of the Second Vatican Council.

We are also pleased to present a series of book reviews by Rebecca Carter-Chand, Martin Menke, Dirk Schuster, and Kyle Jantzen on the Vatican and Evangelical Christians in Fascist Italy, Archbishops Conrad Gröber and Lorenz Jaeger, Christianity and Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism, and British Christian engagement with Nazi Germany, respectively. Several news and notes round out this issue.

We hope you find these contributions both interesting and enlightening.

On behalf of the editorial team,

Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University

The Rome Lectures: Father Marie-Benoît and the Path to Jewish-Christian Rapprochement

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 1/2 (Summer 2023)

Article: The Rome Lectures: Father Marie-Benoît and the Path to Jewish-Christian Rapprochement

Suzanne Brown-Fleming, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Georgetown University

This essay was originally published in Holocaust Education Today: Confronting Extremism, Hate, and Mass Atrocity Crimes. The Ethel Lefrak Holocaust Education Conference Proceedings. Carol Rittner, ed. (Greensburg, PA: Seton Hill University, 2023), pp. 137-145. We are grateful for the permission of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education to reprint it here.

Abstract

In November 1944, with deportations to Auschwitz only having ceased the month prior, Father Marie-Benoît gave a series of lectures at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion in Rome. In the lectures, he tried to bring together Jews and Christians by discussing topics such as the creation of the universe, man formed in the image of God, monogamy, the sanctity of marriage, the unity of the human family, and other topics common to both Christianity and Judaism. His lectures came to the attention of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, the office within the Roman Curia that ruled on matters of faith and morals. This essay describes the tug-of-war between various authority figures, congregations within the Curia, and religious Orders that ensued, ultimately foreshadowing the sea changes of the Second Vatican Council.

Essay

On November 29, 1944, His Eminence Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani (1871-1951), Secretary of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office,[2] wrote to Father Donatus von Welle, Minister General of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor (Capuchin Franciscans/O.F.M. Cap). Cardinal Selvaggiani was puzzled by an announcement he read in L’Osservatore Romano:[3] “on Sunday, November 5, at the Sisters of [our Lady of] Sion (Via Garibaldi 28) at 3:00 p.m., Fr. Benedict of Bourg d’Iré, O.M. Cap., will give the second lecture on Christian-Jewish friendship,” stated the small and inconspicuous passage.[4]

“As has been announced in the newspapers,” Cardinal Selvaggiani wrote to Father von Welle, “Father Benedict of Bourg d’Ire [Père Marie-Benoît/Father Mary Benedict/Padre Maria Benedetto; hereafter Father Benoît], of this Religious Order, is holding a course of conferences ‘to maintain and spiritually consolidate the rapprochement between Israelites and Christians during the period of the recent persecution.’”[5]

This, wrote Cardinal Selvaggiani, was not in keeping with the Acta Apostolique Sedis,[6] and the cardinal wished for an explanation from the minister general of the Capuchin Franciscans. “May Your Reverend Fatherhood provide this Supreme Congregation with detailed information concerning the above-mentioned initiative, bearing in mind the dispositions given by this Supreme with the Decree of March 25, 1928, published in the Acta Ap. Sedis, edition of April 2, 1928, page 103, regarding the Amici Israel,’” the cardinal wrote.[7]

Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel, or the Clerical Association of Friends of Israel, was a controversial and short-lived international organization founded in February 1926. Conceived of as both a bridge between Jews and Catholics and a tool for conversion, it briefly enjoyed broad support. By the end of 1926, its membership included 18 cardinals, 200 bishops and about 2,000 priests. The association’s proposal to amend the Good Friday Prayer that used the word “perfidis” (perfidious) to describe Jews surfaced internal power struggles and sharp disagreements between the Congregation of Rites,[8] the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, and Pope Pius XI (1922-1939). The Holy Office did not approve the change, and Pope Pius XI ordered that Amici Israel be dissolved in 1928.[9] This was the controversy and resulting ruling that Cardinal Selvaggiani referenced in his 1944 letter, one he likely remembered well.

Few new more intimately the “recent persecutions” of the “Israelites” than did Father Benoît, the organizer of the conferences in question. The French Capuchin was one of the few Roman Catholic priests to be named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem[10] in April 1966.[11] He was atypical in his herculean efforts on behalf of Jews trying to survive under Nazi and Axis onslaught. In 1940, he left the Capuchin monastery on the Via Boncompagni 71 in Rome to return to France, specifically to the Capuchin monastery in Marseilles, where he was active in rescue activities that included false baptismal certificates for Jews. Forced to return to Rome in 1943, he was elected acting president of Delasem (Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei), an Italian and Jewish resistance organization that worked in Italy between 1939 and 1947.[12]

In November 1944, Rome was only six months into recovering from Nazi occupation (September 1943 – June 1944). World War II still raged. Deportations to the Nazi death Camp Auschwitz in Poland had only ceased in late October 1944. Father von Welle replied quickly to Cardinal Selvaggiani’s letter.[13] On December 5, 1944, he wrote a long explanatory letter emphasizing that Father Benoît could be relied on to carry out what the Holy Office would consider an appropriate approach to Jews, explaining:

Father Maria Benedetto of Bourg d’ Iré, from 1940 to 1943, was in temporary residence, for reasons of the war, in our convent of Marseilles, where, with the permission of the Most Rev. Ordinary of the place, he instructed in the Catholic faith and baptized a good number of Jews. This spiritual ministry gave him the opportunity to help also materially the converted and non-converted Jews, and so for three years he collaborated with the Jewish committees of Marseilles, Cannes and Nice in France, to protect the persecuted Jews, in agreement with the Italian Authorities in the French area they then occupied.[14]

Furthermore, the Holy Father himself approved – for in July 1943, Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) received Father Benoît and approved of the priest’s work, asserted Father von Welle. In fact, Father von Welle had been the one to present Father Benoît to the pope. In early September 1943, “hundreds of foreign Jews from France poured into Rome,” according to Father von Welle. Surely one could not expect Father Benoît to ignore their plight, for when visiting these new refugees, Father Benoît “recognized among them a good number of his assistants from Marseilles and Nice.” This meant he was “not able to avoid the duty of resuming his assistance,” and in answer to their plight, began his work with Delasem.[15]

Father von Welle argued Father Benoît’s work was “known to the Secretary of State [Cardinal Luigi Maglione] and to the Vicariate of Rome.” It was work to be praised, implied Father von Welle, for “it put Father Maria Benedetto in serious danger several times and required intense and continuous energy.” This was important work. According to his knowledge at that time, “on June 4, 1944,[16] there were 4,000 subsidized people in Rome, of whom 1,500 were foreigners and 2,500 Italians.” During the Nazi occupation of Rome, “about 25,000,000 Italian liras were spent,” wrote Father von Welle.[17] Father Benoît’s work was a point of pride for the pope, argued Father von Welle:

Once the persecution had passed, at least for Rome, the Jews immediately asked Fr. Maria Benedetto if they could express their gratitude to the Supreme Pontiff. The Chief Rabbi of Rome, [Israel] Zolli, accompanied by lawyer [Carlo Alberto] Ottolenghi, was received in private audience by His Holiness. The Holy Father received them very paternally, and also accepted the proposal of a public audience for all the Jews of Rome, but for later, when circumstances permit.[18]

As to the immediate November 5 conference that had already taken place on the Via Garibaldi 28, Father von Welle responded by quoting a letter from Father Benoît, produced upon the request of his superior. The lengthy passage is fascinating for the window it gives us into the manner in which Father Benoît understood his work:

I thought it was opportune to maintain and spiritually consolidate the rapprochement that took place between Israelites and Christians during the period of the recent persecution. To this end, taking advantage of the great popularity I enjoy among the Jews of Rome, I invited Jews and Catholics to listen to lectures given by me on the Old Testament, beginning at the very beginning with Genesis. It is a common ground on which we can meet and meditate together on the great religious teachings of the Word of God. My method is neither scientific nor polemical, but based […] on the Italian version of the Vulgate,[19] it is expository-educational. The immediate fruit of this should be, as I said in the first conference, a greater union between Jews and Christians, to fight every form of anti-Semitism, to arrive at a better understanding between all and to promote every good work. In the first three lectures I was already able to speak of the creation of the universe, of man formed in the image of God, of monogamy, of the sanctity of marriage, of the unity of the species, or rather of the human family, and thus of universal brotherhood, all matters that have pleased and made a salutary impression, as I was able to judge from the conversations that followed. Being a graduate of Theology from the [Pontifical] Gregorian University and a teacher of Theology in our International College for nearly twenty years, I believe I am able to give these lectures from the doctrinal point of view. I am familiar with the condemnation of the “Friends of Israel” because I used to be a member, but I believe I avoid the drawbacks of this association. I endeavor to conform my lectures to the spirit of the Church and the teaching of the Holy Fathers. I make use of the best commentators on the Bible such as Father [Francis de] Sales. I do not intend in any way to propose modifications in the Sacred Liturgy such as the Oremus “pro perfidis Iudaeis” on Good Friday; nor to attenuate the responsibilities of the Jewish people in the trial of Jesus or other similar things; on the contrary, I take advantage of every opportunity to make Christian doctrine known as it is, as I have already done once for the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.[20]

It is a remarkable “defense” from a man who risked much to offer aid to persecuted Jewry during the Holocaust. It also speaks to the degree that both Fathers von Welle and Benoît knew that any rapprochement with Judaism – or any other tradition – was deeply frowned upon as Indifferentism.[21] Christian charity toward the suffering was one thing, but words and deeds that could be construed as approval of another faith tradition -especially Judaism -was quite another. And once again, as had been the case in 1928, the Congregation of Rites became involved.

In a long memorandum dated 18 December 1944, canon law jurist Vigilio Dalpiaz of the Congregation of Rites condemned Father Benoît’s lectures, using as a reference point the 1928 dissolution of Amici Israel. After summarizing the main points of the 1928 decree of the Holy Office, published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, issue of April 2, 1928, the memo noted an earlier announcement in L’Osservatore Romano, dated October 18, 1944 and more fleshed out than the subsequent November 4 version. In the memorandum, the entire premise of Father Benoît was rejected:

But can Fr. Benedict of Bourg be allowed to give to Catholics and Jews the conferences of which he speaks, and with the method he followed, that is, dealing with religious themes of common interest, but basing himself exclusively on the Old Testament? The Old Testament is only a prelude, a preparation for the New Testament, according to which the plan of universal salvation of souls is now based exclusively on faith in Christian revelation, on belonging to the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, on participation in the Sacraments, etc. […] The Church and her ministers have the right and the duty to preach, but to preach the Gospel […] If Fr. Benedict of Bourg de Iré had conceived and enunciated his course of lectures on the Old Testament, so as to present them to his Catholic and Jewish listeners as a necessary premise for a further exposition of Christian faith and morals according to the New Testament, he would have done praiseworthy work, and would have been well-deserving before the Church, as well as before souls. But he has stopped, and intends to remain, halfway, taking care not to make that move towards Christianity in general and towards the Church in particular: and this, evidently so as not to upset his Jewish hearers, who could in turn repeat the gesture of their ancestors when they left the synagogue of Capernaum, protesting against the “durus sermo” [intense speech] of Jesus.[22] In fact, the subjects he [Benoît] deals with must completely disregard the revelation of the New Testament, and form a “common ground” on which Catholics and Jews can meet, such as the Creation of the Universe and man, the unity of the human species, the institution and sanctity of Marriage, etc… Even the Messianic question, which, reflected in innumerable prophecies, forms the most vibrant chord of the Old Testament, and touched with a gentle hand, finds the most harmonious echo in the pages of the New Testament, converging irresistibly the eye and the heart if the divine figure of Jesus, is left completely aside. And what is the fruit intended by Fr. Benedict with these lectures? “A greater union with God,” he replies, “and a greater union between Jews, and Christians, in order to combat every form of anti-Semitism to arrive at a better understanding between all, and to promote every good work.” Without wishing to discuss that mysterious “union with God” especially for Catholics, it is clear, however, that the purpose of such conferences is purely philanthropic and humanitarian, i.e. such as even a simple rabbi, or any layman, could propose and achieve. But, then, why should Fr. Benedict set himself to work in his capacity as a Religious, that is, as a Minister of the Catholic Religion, and, even while dealing with religious matters, absolutely disassociate himself from the New Testament, that is, from the foundation of the Catholic Religion, the only true one? Certainly, his expostulation cannot but produce a sense of disorientation in the Catholics already used to considering the most serious problems of the spirit in the light of the New Testament, and not inject as a sweet soporific into the Jews, to whom it will not seem even true that now finally the Catholic Church resigns itself to accept as definitive the conceptions of the Old Testament, at least concerning the most fundamental religious questions. In order to achieve a greater union between Jews and Christians, which is a natural end, Fr. Benedict compromises the supernatural field of faith: in order to materially and morally favor the Jews he endangers the spiritual good of both Jews and Catholics: because both Jews and Catholics, seeing religious problems of such gravity treated by a Catholic priest exclusively according to the Old Testament, they will easily think that one Testament is worth the other, and the Jews will feel the impulse that perhaps pushed them towards the Christian Religion failing: while the Catholics will fall into the religious indifferentism that necessarily accompanies the fall of the Christian religion. Benedict of Bourg d’Iré should be enjoined to use the New Testament as the basis of his lectures, revealing its differences and superiority over the Old Testament through its points of contact and harmonies. If, as is foreseeable, this were not possible given the nature of the audience, he should be forbidden to hold these lectures.[23]

As was the case in 1928, opinion remained divided. HE Pietro Cardinal Fumasoni Biondi (1872-1960), Prefect of the Congregation for the Propaganda of Faith[24] from 1933 until his death, wrote,

Benedict of Bourg d’Iré seems commendable for his science and piety. Doctor of Theology, Professor of Dogmatics, Spiritual Director of the International College. Here in Rome he has given three lectures so far, and these on the Old Testament. Of course, it begins there, but it is not said that it ends there. This is demonstrated by the fact of the conversion of the Rabbi-Chief of Rome and the other fact that in Marseilles he has instructed in the Catholic Faith and baptized a good number of Jews. So let us leave him to it, and at the most, on the part of Monsignor Assessore or others, a word of praise and wise direction for the future.[25]

Discussions about the case continued into 1946, and the ACDF is a treasure trove for the continued wrestling between different congregations and authority figures within the Roman curia.

To conclude, in the midst of the Holocaust, efforts at rapprochement with Judaism were still met with a mixture of dear, defensiveness, and even hostility. Even figures like Father Benoît knew they needed to choose their words carefully when justifying such efforts. Aid to suffering Jews was tolerated, and some argue encouraged, by the pope and his closest advisors and disciplinary bodies. Acceptance of Judaism as a religious tradition was still rejected, and would only change with the Second Vatican Council. It would take 35 years after the Holocaust for Pope John Paul II to tell his Jewish audience in Berlin that God’s covenant with the Jewish people was never revoked. It is fascinating to consider the sea change that occurred between Cardinal Selvaggiani’s November 1944 inquiry and Pope John Paul II’s November 1980 address. It is sure that pioneers like Father Benoît contributed to the Church’s journey.

Further Reading

Hubert Wolf, Pope and Devil: The Vatican’s Archives during the Third Reich, translated by Kenneth Kronenberg (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.

Susan Zuccotti, Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Discussion Questions

What are the main themes and arguments stressed by Father Benoît as included in the 1944 letter from Father von Welle to Cardinal Selvaggiani?
What are the main themes and arguments made in the judgement of canon lawyer Vigilio Dalpiaz?
Compare and contrast these arguments. Which do you find more convincing?

Video/Film Resources

The Assisi Underground [DVD]. New York, N.Y.: MGM/UA Home Video; Distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2011.

My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes of the Holocaust (2014). Available on Netflix. See https://myitaliansecret.com/.

Notes

[1] The views as expressed are the author’s alone and no not necessarily represent those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or any other organization.

[2] This congregation, renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in 1965, promotes and safeguards the doctrine on faith and morals in the whole Catholic world. See https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_14071997_en.html, accessed 3/30/2022.

[3] L’Osservatore Romano is the daily newspaper of the Vatican City State. It reports on the activities of the Holy See and events taking place in the Church and the world. It is owned by the Holy See. For a description see https://www.osservatoreromano.va/en.html, accessed 3/30/2022.

[4] L’Osservatore Romano, 4 November 1944 – N.259 (25.676) page 2. Short announcement under the heading “Nostra Signora di Sion.” The text read: Domenica 5 novembre, presso le Suore di Sion (via Garibaldi 28) alle ore 15 il P. Benedetto da Bourg d’Iré, O.M. Cap. Terrà la seconda conferenza sull’amicizia cristiano-ebraica.

[5] Letter from HE Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani to Father Donatus von Welle, 29 November 1944, 125/28. Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede (Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, hereafter ACDF), Vatican City: 00161 – 2 c. 206 227: Circa le conferenze del P. Benedetto.

[6] The Acta Apostolique Sedis is the official gazette of the Holy See containing all the principal decrees, encyclical letters, decisions of Roman congregations, and notices of ecclesiastical appointments. See https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/index_ge.htm, accessed 3/30/2022.

[7] Letter from HE Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani to Father Donatus von Welle, 29 November 1944, 125/28. Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede (Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, hereafter ACDF), Vatican City: 161 – 2 c. 206 227: Circa le conferenze del P. Benedetto.

[8] At the turn of the 20^th century, the Congregation of Rites dealt with matters directly related to sacred worship as well as matters relating to saints. By 1928, the Congregation consisted of two sections: one for beatification and canonization, the other for sacred rites. In 1969, the Congregation of Rites was divided into two separate entities: the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. See https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/index.htm, accessed 3/30/2022.

[9] See Hubert Wolf, Pope and Devil: The Vatican’s Archives during the Third Reich, translated by Kenneth Kronenberg (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010; and Emma Fattorini, Hitler, Mussolini and the Vatican: Pope Pius XI and the Speech That was Never Made, translated by Karl Ispen (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2011).

[10] Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is the national Holocaust memorial of the state of Israel.

[11] See https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/benoit.html, accessed 3/30/2022.

[12] See Gérard Cholvy, Marie-Benoît de Bourg d’Iré (1895-1990): Itinéraire d’un fils de Saint François, Juste des Nations (Paris : Les Editions du Cerf, 2010); and Susan Zuccotti, Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), among others.

[13] Letter from Father Donatus von Welle to HE Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani, 5 December 1944, 125/28. ACDF, Vatican City: 161 – 2 c. 206 227: Circa le conferenze del P. Benedetto.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Date of the liberation of Rome from Nazi control by the Allied powers.

[17] Letter from Father Donatus von Welle to HE Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani, 5 December 1944.

[18] Susan Zuccotti describes this event through the eyes of Father Benoît in her book Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue, p.196-198. With full access to the ACDF archive since early 2020, scholars can now better understand the context for Father Benoît’s 4 December 1944 letter – to whom he was writing, and why. Father von Welle relied heavily on Father Benoît’s text in his response to Cardinal Selvaggiani, dated the very next day.

[19] The Vulgate is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.

[20] Letter from Father Donatus von Welle to HE Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani, 5 December 1944.

[21] Indifferentism is the belief that no one religion is superior to another.

[22] According to the gospels of Luke (4:31–36) and Mark (1:21–28), Jesus of Nazareth taught in the synagogue in Capernaum and healed a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit.

[23] ACDF, Vatican City: 161 – 2 c. 206 227: Circa le conferenze del P. Benedetto, pp.223-228 and 65/1-65/6. On December 18, 1944, Dalpiaz rendered the decision of the judicial system of the Vatican City State seated in Piazza Santa Marta.

[24] Now called the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, this congregation of the Roman Curia is responsible for missionary work and related activities. See https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cevang/index.htm, accessed 3/30/2022.

[25] Ibid. N.125/28; 66/3 and p.233 in the file.

Review of Kevin Madigan, The Popes Against the Protestants: The Vatican and Evangelical Christianity in Fascist Italy

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 1/2 (Summer 2023)

Review of Kevin Madigan, The Popes Against the Protestants: The Vatican and Evangelical Christianity in Fascist Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021). 368 Pp. ISBN: 9780300215861.

By Rebecca Carter-Chand, US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Readers familiar with the historiography of the Vatican in the first half of the twentieth century may recognize the reference in Kevin Madigan’s newest title, The Popes Against the Protestants. Madigan intentionally echoes David Kertzer’s 2002 book, The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism, signaling the intensity with which the Vatican pursued a campaign to suppress Italian Protestantism in a sustained manner for decades. In fact, from the period of Italian unification in the second half of the nineteenth century until well beyond the fascist period, these anti-Protestant efforts consumed more of the Vatican’s attention than its battle against Italy’s Jews. But while the Church’s antisemitism is well known, it’s antipathy toward the so-called “Protestant danger” has been unexplored in English-language scholarship until now. Madigan explains the Vatican’s outsized response to Protestant activity, which, by any measure, remained miniscule, by showing that Protestants posed an existential threat to Catholic hegemony and the pope’s ambitions to establish a confessional state.

The main source material that Madigan draws upon comes from the pontificate of Pius XI (1922-1939), the records of which only became available in 2006. But the story begins in the Risorgimento in the mid-nineteenth century and the triumph of a new liberal order that brought religious tolerance in the form of openness to non-Catholic religious confessions. Into this environment emerged evangelical Protestant missionaries from England and America, many of whom were Italian immigrants who had converted to a form of Protestantism in their new country and later returned to Italy. Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Adventists brought with them an evangelical style of preaching that emphasized conversion and an array of educational, medical, and social programs that benefited the Italian lower classes and peasantry. The fact that this Protestant missionary activity mapped onto a global trend of Protestant expansion in this period was all the more concerning for the Vatican, especially after World War I and the growth of Anglo-American power.

The first significant Vatican official to spill much ink on the dangers of Protestantism was Pietro Tacchi Venturi, a Jesuit who served in an incredibly powerful position as intermediary between the pope and Mussolini. Venturi succeeded in portraying Protestants not only as heretics but also as enemies of the fascist state by linking Protestantism to a long list of political and social movements that the Church opposed. Despite sounding dissonant to a twenty-first century ear, Italian evangelicals in the 1920s were associated with socialism, Freemasonry, Judaism, and women’s rights. Madigan tells us that Pope Pius XI was gravely concerned about the reported growth of these Protestant groups but that Mussolini was less convinced that their tiny numbers would pose a threat to his power. In the 1920s, only 1 in 10,000 Italians were Protestant. Moreover, he was cognizant of international public opinion and did not want to unnecessarily antagonize the Anglo world. In this dynamic, as in so many other parts of this story, we see clear parallels between the treatment of religious minorities in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

A major turning point came in 1929, when the Lateran Pacts recognized papal sovereignty over Vatican City and made Roman Catholicism the official religion of the state. Immediately following the Lateran Pacts, the government passed a law guaranteeing rights of free speech on religious matters to non-Catholic groups. With this law, Mussolini was showing the world that he was not bowing to Catholic aims to make Italy a confessional state. Protestants were initially encouraged by the new law, but it soon became clear that the Catholic hierarchy found plenty of room for interpretation about what the law covered.

The key figure in interpreting and enforcing the law in the 1930s was the papal nuncio to Italy, Francesco Borgongini-Duca. It was Borgongini who argued that proselytizing should not be considered protected speech. According to his logic, potentially any activity enacted by the Protestant groups could be considered to include proselytizing, even meetings held in private homes. Borgongini also clamped down on the sale or distribution of Bibles, when they were discovered to be Protestant Bibles. An interesting side note we learn from Madigan’s sources is that often ordinary Catholics were so poorly catechized that they could not distinguish a Protestant from a Catholic Bible or even know that different versions existed.

For all of these efforts, Tacchi Venturi, Borgongini, and Pius XI found only limited success in suppressing Protestant growth. Pentecostalism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses were criminalized in 1935, although local government authorities did not always enforce it. In the end, none of the evangelical groups were eliminated from Italian society but instead they proved resilient, if still small in number.

This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the symbiotic yet competitive relationship between the Vatican and the Italian fascist state. The parallel narratives of Catholic persecution of Jews and Catholic suppression of Protestants shows not that they were equal in measure or in consequence, but that they both represented an outsider status that was not compatible with Catholic aims of religious purity or fascist aims of ethnic purity.