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Review of Giuliana Chamedes, A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 3 (Fall 2024)

Review of Giuliana Chamedes, A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019). ISBN 978-0-674-98342-7.

By Martin Menke, Rivier University

In this useful volume, Giuliana Chamedes describes the Catholic Church’s efforts to resist what it considered the dangerous ideologies of the modern world.  She presents not only communism and National Socialism as the enemies of faith, but in the most crucial contribution of the work, she demonstrates that the Church resisted and rejected what it perceived to be American liberalism and materialism. She argues that, to oppose liberalism and especially communism, the Church made common cause with fascist regimes. She describes these efforts as a crusade, which is an unusual choice of word, laden with historical and also contradictory meaning. Using the term “crusade” to refer to the attempted conquests of the Holy Land several centuries ago is problematic. The term is more appropriate if one defines a crusade as an organized effort by the Church to regain influence on the European continent. Chamades’ interpretation of the Vatican’s efforts to combat modern ideologies ever since Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum as part of an organized campaign to regain political and moral influence justifies the term “crusade.” Chamades, however, goes beyond the broad term “crusade” to argue for the existence of a Catholic “International,” a term suggesting a centrally-organized, conscious effort with national and regional branches. Instead, the sources indicate an effort that might better be described as a theme or leitmotif rather than an organized campaign. Thus, while Chamades demonstrates consistent anti-communist efforts by various Vatican offices, these efforts fall short of an institutionalized and centrally organized campaign. There is no evidence of an organized or institutionalized Catholic “International.” Nonetheless, the work has some interesting points to offer.

Chamedes summarizes the existing scholarship concerning the Church’s fight against communism and its willingness to collaborate with fascism. However, her insights about the fear of Western liberalism and materialism are novel and worth exploring further.  For example, she cites Vatican archival records in which editor of the Code of Canon Law Eugenio Pacelli, future nuncio to Germany, Cardinal Secretary of State, and Pope, stated his fear that the U.S. entry into World War I was part of the campaign to secularize Europe. [2] The author argues that the Church perceived President Woodrow Wilson as determined to destroy the Church. As Chamades shows, the Church’s fear of liberalism lasted well beyond World War II. After World War I, the Church saw itself engaged in an existential struggle with liberalism, which explains its willingness to work with fascist regimes that opposed both liberalism as well as socialism.

The author suggests that the papal peace plan of 1917 and the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law that same year constituted efforts to gain influence in international relations by reviving papal diplomacy.  The Church sought to promote its values by integrating provisions of the new Code of Canon Law into concordats to curb the influences of socialism and liberalism.  The church sought to retain legal control over marriages and education. Chamedes shows that this new papal diplomacy by concordat succeeded only when the country in question also considered such agreements advantageous. For example, the Baltic Republics and Poland believed the concordats affirmed their national sovereignty. The Church also usually conceded to the state some influence over appointing influential national church leaders. [44] When in 1925, the Vatican established a Polish metropolitan see at Vilnius, however, Lithuania broke off concordat negotiations before an authoritarian regime concluded a concordat in 1927. [62-63]

Chamedes discusses scholarly literature and sources referring to the “Catholic International” compared to the Communist International and similar organizations, but she does not fully define the term, nor does she provide evidence of a Catholic International. [6, 86] While the term “Catholic internationalism” describes the Church’s universalist claims well, the term “International,” especially when capitalized, suggests something much more formal and suggests a structure comparable to the Communist “International.” That idea suggests more centralized power over national churches than the papacy ever possessed. Also, the fascist regimes with which the Church cooperated – never unconditionally and rarely wholeheartedly – rejected internationalism, a contradiction that Chamedes does not address. In fact, in its propaganda, the National Socialist regime told a tale of secret Catholic ambitions to control the world. The closest the Church came to an open claim to world leadership was its vehement rejection of the League of Nations, another Wilsonian idea. Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, declared the League superfluous since the Church was the one true global league. [55] With some justification, other Church officials denounced the League as a tool of the war’s victors to control international affairs.

Between the end of World War I and the early Cold War, Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli played an essential role in Vatican diplomacy, first as one of the editors of the Code of Canon Law, then as nuncio to Bavaria and Germany, then as Cardinal Secretary of State, and finally as Pope Pius XII. Chamades accurately narrates Pacelli’s turn to a fiercely anti-communist and more antisemitic position based on his experiences as nuncio in Munich during the revolutionary period 1918-1919. (80) Chamades suggests Pacelli embraced the popular notion of Judeo-Bolshevism and encouraged the Bavarian People’s Party, which had broken away from the (Catholic) German Center Party, to establish Bavaria as a base against the perils of communism [90]. Chamades stresses that Pacelli adopted this stance well before the Vatican relinquished hopes of achieving a modus operandi with the Soviet government in the later 1920s. Chamades argues that Pacelli urged his predecessor as Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Gasparri, to pursue an aggressive anti-communist agenda. [104]

While increasingly the Church focused on anti-communism, anti-liberalism remained a common denominator between the Church and fascist regimes. Chamades explains how Italian fascism, initially anti-clerical, changed course out of consideration that the Church was an enemy of communism. [96] Chamades emphasizes Mussolini’s early anti-liberal turn, which the anti-communist campaign later superseded. According to Chamades, the Church responded to communism and liberalism by promoting its model of an ideal civil society, organized around “Catholic Action,” a renewed attempt to tie Catholics to civic organizations arranged within a parochial, diocesan, and universal Catholic hierarchy. [112] Of all the early twentieth-century Vatican initiatives, Catholic Action was the most organized and institutional, though still largely ineffective in rallying the faithful. Catholic Action’s aims to organize all Catholics led to the Church’s first open conflict with Italian fascism, a conflict then repeated with all other authoritarian regimes.

Intending to resolve such differences, the Vatican began negotiating a concordat with fascist Italy. Pope and Duce each intended the subsequent Lateran Agreements of 1929, ostensibly concluded to resolve their conflicts, to advance their own interests, which led to continued tension. [117] Concordats were no longer measures to impose Catholic Canon Law and Catholic moral teaching on the state, but rather defensive agreements to secure existing rights. The Lateran Agreements gravely disappointed anti-fascist Catholic politicians such as Luigi Sturzo and Alcide de Gasperi. Chamades demonstrates that the financial terms of the Lateran Agreements, primarily their financial and bond payments by Italy to the Holy See, exposed the Vatican to global economic turmoil in new and devastating ways. [122] To put the Catholic social teaching of Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum in the context of the post-war world and the Great Depression, Pope Pius XI again related liberalism and socialism to one another as erroneous ideologies destined to lead the faithful astray. Discussing the aftermath of Quadragesimo Anno, Chamades again refers to a Vatican anti-communist “campaign.” The term “campaign” denotes organized and coordinated efforts. While Chamades cites the most relevant scholarly works before the establishment of the Secretariat for Atheism in the later 1930s, the argument lacks a smoking gun. She does not mention a meeting, correspondence, or institution that launched such a campaign. Yes, the Vatican’s efforts after Quadragesimo Anno no longer sought any accommodation with communist regimes, but there is no evidence of a campaign against communism. Instead, it seems as if an anti-communist Zeitgeist might be a better term than “campaign.” According to Vatican archival documents cited by Chamades,  by 1931, Pope Pius XI determined that communism was the most dangerous enemy of the hour, but he did not launch an anti-communist campaign. [125] Chamades points out that Pacelli was the driving force behind the pope’s anti-communism, which by April 1932 had come to dominate the Holy See’s ideological concerns. [134] According to Chamades, a 1932 circular by Pacelli, now Cardinal Secretary of State, “proposed to launch an anticommunist campaign.” [125] Since the document is crucial to Chamades’ arguments, one wishes she had discussed it in more detail, especially regarding its consequences. What did Pacelli mean by the term “anti-communist campaign?” Again, a campaign requires organization and leadership. Did this ever come to be? Did Pacelli intend something like the creation of the Secretariat of Atheism? A later discussion of the “anti-communist campaign” provides no further explanation except to equate Catholic internationalism with the media “campaigns” of the 1930s. Missing is proof of any organized campaign. (132)

While Chamades correctly identifies anti-communism as the European hierarchy’s primary concern, she underestimates the Church’s continuing wariness of fascism, as for example with the German episcopate’s 1931 condemnation of fascism, to which she does not give sufficient attention. (138) Until the late 1920s, the Vatican had sought some accommodation with the Soviet regime and had devoted charitable aid to the regions stricken by the Russian Civil War. It is essential, however, to consider the Church’s growing anti-communism in connection with the Vatican’s increasing concern with Mussolini’s fascism and German National Socialism. Neither ideology developed in ways compatible with Catholic teaching. Furthermore, concerning the National Socialist rise to power, Chamades follows a familiar but deeply flawed argument when she claims it was an easy path from the March 1933 Enabling Act to the Concordat signed that July. All evidence, much of it available since the 1960s, proves how tortuous the negotiations were, and how the Vatican sought to gain every possible advantage. Chamades herself relies heavily on Vatican records, but not on all of them. Her use of the Vatican correspondence with papal nuncio in Berlin Cesare Orsenigo and the correspondence between Jesuit Superior General Wlodimir Ledochowski and the Vatican is beneficial. Still, she ignores other Vatican archival records relating to such processes as the Reich concordat negotiations. In particular, it would have been useful had she used the documents published by Father Ludwig Volk, SJ, and Alfons Kuppers. (Ludwig Volk, Kirchliche Akten über die Reichskonkordatsverhandlungen 1933. Mainz: Mathias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1969. Alfons Kupper, Staatliche Akten über die Reichskonkordatsverhandlungen 1933. Mainz: Mathias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1969).

While the fascist governments in Berlin and Rome violated the concordats as much as they observed them, Chamades shows that forces in the Vatican now called for a single-minded focus on anti-communism. In late 1933, Jesuit Superior General Wlodimir Ledochowski convinced Pius XI to establish a “Secretariat on Atheism.” [146] Chamades explains the considerable public relations activity of the Secretariat across Europe; one wonders how effective the Secretariat was in influencing not only members of the hierarchy but also the faithful. How much was the average Catholic aware of this centrally coordinated campaign? Furthermore, while Chamades convincingly shows the extent of the Vatican’s anti-communist “campaign” across the continent, one has to wonder how much fascist regimes desired to encourage widespread media work by the Church. Furthermore, the question again arises of how organized and centralized efforts must be to qualify as a campaign. It seems as if different Vatican offices pursued anti-communist efforts because they knew these were in line with the leitmotif of anti-communism, not because someone centrally coordinated their efforts.

While one might think that the establishment of the Secretariat marked the end of anti-fascist concerns, Chamades acknowledges that the Church in the early 1930s was preparing a new Syllabus of Errors to condemn both communism as well as fascism. The Church abandoned this thrust not only because of the opposition of Ledochowski, but also under the influence of the Popular Front victory in Spanish elections. [172-173] Alongside many scholars, Chamades criticizes the relatively weak language in the 1937 encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge and notes, in contrast, that in the anti-communist encyclical Divini Redemptoris released five days later, the Vatican pulled no punches. Following the condemnation of communism in Mexico in Firmissimam Constantiam, these three encyclicals made clear that the Church now considered communism, not totalitarianism, to be the greatest threat of the twentieth century. While much of the narrative recounted here is well known, Chamades provides a useful summary and some helpful distinctions. Her global perspective is helpful.

Once the newly elected Pius XII and those around him suppressed the draft of Pius XI’s encyclical condemning racism outright and when, a year later, World War Two broke out, the Church seemed firmly on the side of all anti-communist forces. Comparing the Church’s position in World War II to that in World War I, Chamades notes that the Church had virtually no allies in the second war and that the Vatican developed no significant diplomatic activity, an assessment surprising to any historian familiar with the Vatican during that time. Faced with Pius XII’s supposed inaction, Chamades argues an internal opposition arose within the Church. When Cardinal Pacelli became Pope Pius XII, however, the Vatican reaffirmed its centralizing and hierarchical approach to church leadership, in which there was little room for dissent. The outbreak of war, however, limited the ability to engage in any efforts to combat communism and subjected the Church to an increasingly assault by National Socialism. Both to those hoping for a pontiff more critical of fascism as well as for the Catholic leaders of newly invaded Poland, the first encyclical of Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, proved a disappointment because it lacked a clear condemnation of the German invasion and its consequences. Those Catholics whom the Vatican’s inaction disappointed began to demand greater Catholic engagement for peace. Men like Don Luigi Sturzo, Jacques Maritain, and Henri de Lubac forcefully made their case in whatever press would publish their work. Additional efforts by Sturzo and Maritain, whom Chamades calls Catholic internationalists, to convince Pius XII to take a more active stand failed. This inspired a new type of Catholic activist, those committed to a peace based on Christian democracy.

Chamades demonstrates that Vatican attitudes shifted after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the U.S. entry into the war. [220-222] The pope did not endorse the German invasion. Furthermore, he agreed to urge the American bishops to support the lend-lease agreement. Her discussion of the papacy’s response to the Shoah is limited to a few pages in which she notes that bishops informed the Vatican of the deportations of Jews and that the Vatican could have done far more to help Jews. On the one hand, this brevity is a wise choice, given the vast and contradictory scholarly literature on the subject. Chamades could have developed the complexity of her argument. Does she consider national socialist antisemitism an instance of concurrence between longstanding Catholic antisemitism and a modern ideology? On the other hand, given the German promotion of a “crusade against Bolshevism” and the thesis she is trying to prove, a more detailed discussion of the Catholic response to the Shoah would have been helpful. Chamades points out, that the Vatican did not welcome the public appeals for an outspoken condemnation of National Socialist atrocities. [228] Nonetheless, Catholic dissidents, as Chamades calls them, continued to speak up and began to organize to create a post-war world based on Christian principles, especially on a commitment to freedom and peace. Eventually, these would become the post-war Christian Democrats. She points out that “after the war, the papacy also agreed to work with Europe’s new Christian Democratic parties” [236] and even endorsed the United Nations, part of the Vatican’s general shift to greater cooperation and engagement with other civil society organizations. And yet, the Vatican’s new understanding of democracy was not one of total liberty but of freedom based on Catholic moral teaching.  A more probing analysis of how, why, and with what consequences the war transformed the Vatican’s values would have enriched the work.

Beginning in 1945, the Vatican feared that the Western allies were too accommodating of the Soviet Union and were willing to hand over Eastern Europe. Chamades points out that, in contrast to the Church’s wartime failure to share information about atrocities in Eastern Europe, it now broadly shared all news of communist persecution of the Church and the faithful. [245] Furthermore, Pope Pius XII sought the aid of the United States to combat the growth of communist parties in Western Europe, which represented an abandonment of the Church’s interwar anti-liberal criticism of the United States. Despite these tactical changes, the Church envisioned a Europe formed of Christian states. It became suspicious of Christian Democratic movements when these, building on the wartime criticism within the Church, insisted on their independence from the Catholic hierarchy. [250] Chamades might have noted that the interwar Catholic parties also jealously guarded their independence from the Vatican. She claims that a new Christian Democratic International arose from the discussions of post-war Christian Democratic groups, but again, there was no such organization.

Chamades shows that, in the postwar era, the Vatican could not exercise the influence which it had expected in a post-war world. A brief period of goodwill towards the United States and the new Christian Democrats soon gave way to criticism and mistrust of both as too independent in the case of the Christian Democrats and too rooted in anti-Catholicism in the case of the United States. As Chamedes herself shows, the Vatican feared that Christian Democracy was insufficiently immune to communist. Also, Christian Democratic political parties and actors proved increasingly independent of the Vatican. The Vatican again became critical of the United States. [282] According to Chamedes, the resurgence of American Protestant anti-Catholicism and the break in U.S. diplomatic representation to the Vatican contributed to a revival of Vatican anti-Americanism, expressed as fears of American hegemony and materialism.  This seemingly left the Vatican without political allies.

In the 1950s, new criticisms arose against the Vatican. The Church’s failure to side with anti-imperialist movements in the developing world led to further alienation. [286] Another challenge to Church authority and legitimacy arose via the accusations by journalists, scholars, and others of Church complicity with the National Socialist regime. In many ways, the 1950s marked the nadir of Church influence in Europe. Chamades argues that the Second Vatican Council represented Pope John XXIII’s recognition that the influence of the Vatican and of the broader over the faithful in private and public life was waning, and that the policies of his predecessors had led the Church to a dead-end.

Consequently, as Chamades convincingly explains, the Second Vatican Council overthrew much of what the Vatican leadership had considered self-evident about Church-state relations and about Church power and authority. She argues that the new Apostolic Constitutions, such as Lumen Gentium and Dignitatis Humanae, on the one hand, attempted to meet the expectations of many who demanded change in the post-war Church while at the same time proving unable to relinquish dogmatic claims to represent the one true path to salvation. Chamedes argues that Gaudium et Spes, the constitution explaining how Catholics and their Church should function in a modern, pluralistic society, constituted a rejection of the concordat strategy employed during the first half of the twentieth century. [301] Instead, the Second Vatican Council suggested a way forward in cooperation with other faiths and other ideologies as long as they authentically promoted human welfare.

In the conclusion, Chamedes argues that the Vatican’s policies of the 1930s sowed the seeds for the demand for reform that became vocal after 1945. The Church’s reform efforts of the 1960s came too late; too many Catholics were already heading out the door. [312] Chamades argues that Humanae Vitae accelerated the exodus. In contrast, Pope John Paul II promoted Church leaders who were critical of the Second Vatican Council and more comfortable with cold-war anti-communism. Despite this decline in Vatican authority over the faithful, Chamedes argues that the Church remains a powerful actor on the world stage thanks to its moral pulpit.

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Article Note: Giuliana Chamedes, “The Vatican, Nazi-Fascism, and the Making of Transnational Anti-Communism in the 1930s”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Article Note: Giuliana Chamedes, “The Vatican, Nazi-Fascism, and the Making of Transnational Anti-Communism in the 1930s,” Journal of Contemporary History 51, no. 2 (April 2016): 261-290.

By Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University

Giuliana Chamedes’ article addresses the intersection of Soviet, Vatican, and German policies through an examination of the Vatican’s Secretariat on Atheism and its transnational campaign to fight the spread of international Communism. In the early 1930s, the Vatican launched the Secretariat on Atheism as a branch of its foreign policy apparatus. The Secretariat led the anti-communist campaign by publishing monthly journals, creating traveling exhibitions, and sponsoring radio programs, writing contests, and even film propaganda. Although the Secretariat was deeply engaged in the fight against the spread of communism, Chamedes argues that the Secretariat’s success was due in part to its willingness to work with pre-existing networks of anti-communists, including the Nazis, Fascists, and others in Europe and in the Americas.

The creation of the Secretariat was part of the Vatican’s determination to re-assert Rome as the center of global Catholic life while simultaneously underscoring the Catholic Church’s ongoing prominence in international affairs. It was also part of an effort to protect the Church against threats that seemed to challenge the very existence of the Church. By revealing more information about the under-studied Secretariat on Atheism, Chamedes’ article expands on the history of transnational anti-communism. In addition, Chamedes’ research helps us to understand how Catholic Church leaders got involved with Fascists and Nazis in the Vatican’s quest to gain control over the multitude of anti-communist organizations.

Chamedes notes that Vatican-Soviet relations were carried on diplomatically throughout the 1920s and that a change in the relationship came about in the early 1930s. For Chamedes, the Vatican’s “crusade of prayer” played only a small role in the changing dynamics of Vatican-Soviet relations. Rather, she cites the years 1932-1933 as the moment when mild protests against Soviet policy were replaced with a transnational campaign, aiming to vilify communism “as the greatest existing threat to the survival of Catholicism and the Catholic Church” (266). She connects this sea change to several factors, including the outbreaks of anticlerical violence in Spain and Mexico and the emergence of a new cadre of Vatican insiders such as Eugenio Pacelli, who functioned as the Secretary of State at the Vatican. By 1931, Pacelli was obsessed with the rise of the Spanish Republic and its attempts to separate Church and State. He was convinced that the Spanish Republic was part of a communist plot to destroy Catholic Spain. He took a similar approach when examining events in Mexico. By early 1932, Pacelli revealed in a circular letter sent to Vatican officials in 39 countries that a new campaign was going to be launched from Rome to fight against the existential threat of communism against Catholicism and the Church.

1932 was also the year in which the Vatican developed the anti-communist encyclical, Divinum Mandatum. Pacelli was once again involved in this project as well and the encyclical argued that the international Catholic Church could weaken international communism. The encyclical, however, was never published and the reasons remain somewhat unclear. This did not stop Pacelli. In January 1933, a group of officials at the Vatican agreed to form the Secretariat on Atheism. The organization would be run by the Jesuits, who would keep in continual contact with the Secretary of State, and Rome would serve as the organization’s home base. Its purpose would be to launch an international counter-revolution in an attempt to defeat the aims of the Soviet Union. The new organization began by coordinating itself with anti-communist activists in Europe, the Americas, and in countries in Asia and Africa.

The Secretariat argued that it was uniquely qualified to lead the charge against communists, asserting that “the Vatican was the only ‘dynamic and truly global organization’ that stood ‘above all nations and nationalities’, and was capable of competing with international communism…” (271). Unlike Fascist and Nazi propaganda, the Secretariat did focus on communism as being essentially atheistic and godless, therefore avoiding the anti-Semitic tropes employed by men such as Hitler. Despite the struggle between the Secretariat and Nazi-Fascist forces for leadership in the charge against communism, Chamedes argues that cooperation between the competitors actually increased when one examines the case studies of traveling exhibitions and a writing competition.

With the urging and support of Pope Pius XI, the Secretariat on Atheism was charged with overseeing an international writing competition (although the role of the Secretariat was to be kept secret). The judges for the competition were known for their fascist and proto-fascist sympathies. Over 500 novels were submitted, and a Russian émigré to Vienna, Alja Rachmanova, won first place. Her novel represented the triumph of Christianity over an immoral and extremely violent Bolshevism. While Rachmanova’s novel did not employ Nazi-Fascist motifs, the second-place novel, written by Erik Maria Ritter von Kühnelt-Leddihn, told the story of a Jesuit and two other men who traveled around Europe beating up communists. Further book prizes were awarded in ways which underscored the growing interconnectedness between the Secretariat and radical right-wing political movements. For instance, when writing to the judges of the competition, Pius XI noted that book awards should go to authors who stressed themes that were anti-democratic, authoritarian, and rooted in religious political thinking (275). The Pope also warned that the novels should not stress extreme nationalism as that would threaten the role of the Catholic Church as an international organization capable of leading the fight against communism.

By the spring of 1936, as the Spanish Civil War was close to erupting, the Secretariat released a traveling exhibit meant to re-affirm that the Vatican was the leader in the fight against Communism. The thrust of the exhibit stressed that the Soviet Union and its nefarious influence could only be defeated with the collaboration of state powers with the Vatican. Using many types of modern staging techniques, visitors would encounter the growing threat of international communism. The final room in the exhibit, however, showed the Secretariat’s brochures, posters, and related material, leaving visitors with a feeling of hope that the Catholic Church was capable of defeating communism. The exhibition traveled to many different European cities and was followed up by two other exhibitions in 1938 and in 1939. In the case of these exhibitions, the Vatican did not shy away from working with Nazi and Fascist governments, as their anti-communist agenda was a shared one. This common cause also led to agreements with the Gestapo that allowed previously banned publications to be brought into Nazi Germany, showing the work of the Secretariat in its battle with the Soviet Union.

In March 1937 the Vatican released three encyclicals, one of which addressed the growing Soviet threat. Divini Redemptoris revealed the influence of the Secretariat on Atheism in its emphasis that the power and resources of the Catholic Church would be the only effective means of maintaining world peace. This encyclical was followed by Firmissimam Constantiam, which argued that violent action was needed in response to threats against Catholicism in Mexico. Using the theory of just war, the encyclical allowed and even encouraged the use of force in the fight against communism. The final encyclical of 1937, Mit brennender Sorge, addressed the rise of racist ideology. Though it avoided naming Nazi Germany specifically, it nonetheless clarified some of the Church’s position regarding Nazism.

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, many European nations and the United States of America courted the Vatican to support the fight against the spread of communism. However, once the war began in 1939, the Secretariat on Atheism was shut down. Chamedes suggests that because of Vatican cooperation with Nazi-Fascist forces during the interwar years, the Secretariat was never reopened. Chamedes concludes: “In order to weaken the Soviet Union and the global appeal of communism, the Vatican agreed to a tactical cooperation with Nazi-Fascist forces in a number of on-the-ground campaigns. The Vatican often took the initiative in doing so, even as it increasingly distanced itself in doctrinal terms from the Fascist and Nazi project” (289-290).

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Article Note: Todd H. Weir, “A European Culture War in the Twentieth Century? Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Bolshevism between Moscow, Berlin, and the Vatican 1922-1933”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Article Note: Todd H. Weir, “A European Culture War in the Twentieth Century? Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Bolshevism between Moscow, Berlin, and the Vatican 1922-1933,” Journal of Religious History 39, no. 2 (June 2015): 280-306.

By Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University

Todd H. Weir’s article is a transnational account of the anti-Catholicism gripping Europe in the interwar years. Between 1927-1939, thousands of Catholic clerics and lay people suffered persecution, torture, and murder in places such as Mexico, Spain, and Russia.  Weir addresses an interesting aspect of the ‘culture wars’ by examining the role that religion plays in relation to political ideologies in an age of extremes. The focus is on Germany as the site of a contested ideological and religious struggle between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. The work is divided into two phases of the relationship, covering the 1920s through 1930 as a time when Germany played the role of diplomatic mediator between the Soviet Union and the Vatican via the German Communist Party and the Catholic Center Party. Beginning in 1930, however, Germany became the chief battle arena for an ever-increasing transnational propaganda war between Catholics and communists.

In the first phase, Weir offers explanations as to why both the Vatican and the Soviet Union were open to negotiations. For Vatican officials, the communist takeover meant that there was a need to ensure access to the sacraments for the more than two million Catholics in Russia. It also offered an opportunity for the Church to seek converts from Orthodox Christianity to Catholicism. For Soviet officials, the need to secure diplomatic recognition from powerful entities and to avoid offending countries with substantial Catholic populations were reasons enough to enter into diplomatic talks. Throughout these discussions, Germany emerged as the chief negotiator, particularly since Germany and the Soviet Union had reached a diplomatic agreement in the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.

During the 1920s, influenced by the Rapallo Treaty, the German Foreign Office refused to do more than mention religious persecution within the Soviet Union. To increase the pressure on the Soviets, Vatican Officials, including Eugenio Pacelli, began using their connections to German Catholic newspapers such as Germania to insert demands for an end to religious persecution. In response, the Bolsheviks issued an April 1929 decree making it possible for the state to persecute religious associations even more. The April decree also placed greater burdens on congregations to maintain the upkeep and taxes on their churches. The persecution and targeting of church leaders also proved to be an effective way of destroying village solidarity and ridding the areas of local elites. The Soviet clamp-down on Catholic priests induced German Catholics, including Friedrich Muckermann, to place still more articles attacking the Soviet authorities for attempting to rid their country of religion.

By 1929, Pope Pius XI had given up hope that diplomacy would win the day. Now, the Vatican would launch a “crusade of prayer” (which opened publicly on March 19, 1930) attacking the persecution of Catholic priests inside the Soviet Union, but the crusade also sought to counter the growing promotion of anticlericalism—especially in Germany. The German Freethinkers, under the influence of Soviet examples, urged Germans to leave the churches through public demonstrations, agitprop theater, and graphic propaganda. Both sides now squared off: the Soviets proclaimed that the Pope was the ringleader of Western powers seeking the destruction of the Soviet Union while the Vatican argued that communists were seeking to spread atheism and anti-clericalism throughout Europe. In Germany, Catholic priests followed the pope’s lead in the “crusade of prayer” and organized marches and demonstrations in which thousands protested the spread of anticlericalism. Priests in Germany were trained to combat atheism largely through the People’s Association for Catholic Germany. Through lectures, demonstrations, conference meetings and brochures, priests were instructed to take positive steps in the fight against the spread of atheism and godlessness. These efforts were transnational when some German priests went as a delegation to Mexico to address uprisings against the Cristero movement.

Weir tracks the divisions among German Social Democrats, German Communists, and Catholic Center Party members, revealing the strains of anticlericalism, fears about secularization, and the rising tide of groups such as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party with its promise to end secularism in Germany. The author concludes his article by suggesting that the study of political ideas “should investigate Christian apology as a crucible in which a number of religious-social discourses and theological-political strategies were forged. Although most succumbed to the more powerful political ideologies and are now largely forgotten, these Christian strategies and discourses represent signature elements of the political culture of the period” (305).

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Article Note: New Research on Cold War Catholicism

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2012

Article Note: New Research on Cold War Catholicism

Karim Schelkens, “Vatican Diplomacy after the Cuban Missile Crisis: New Light on the Release of Josyf Slipyj,” The Catholic Historical Review 97, no. 4 (October 2011): 679-712.

Marie Gayte, “The Vatican and the Reagan Administration: A Cold War Alliance?” The Catholic Historical Review 97, no. 4 (October 2011): 713-736.

By William Doino Jr., Contributing Editor, Inside the Vatican magazine

Few conflicts have been more intense, or protracted, than the Roman Catholic Church’s battle with Communism. Two years before Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto (1848), Pope Pius IX referred to “that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the Natural Law” and which “would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men.”

That is still, essentially, the Church’s teaching, though how it’s been expressed and applied over the years has varied, depending on historical circumstances, and the approaches of different popes.

Two articles on what might be called “Cold War Catholicism”­covering the immediate post-war era to the collapse of the Soviet Union have recently appeared in The Catholic Historical Review (October, 2011) and are worthy of note.

The first is “Vatican Diplomacy after the Cuban Missile Crisis: New Light on the Release of Josyf Slipyj,” by Karim Schelkens, Secretary of the Center for the Study of Vatican II at the Catholic University of Leuven.

The author draws on notes, diaries and specialized archives to describe the dramatic events leading up to the February 1963 release of Josyf Slipyj, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic archbishop who had been imprisoned by the Soviet Communists for almost twenty years.

Schelkens helpfully provides the historical background. In communion with the Holy See since the Union of Brest in 1595-96, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) had long been in tension with the Russian Orthodox Church, especially after the Communists took power and made the latter a virtual instrument of the state. That conflict—held at bay during the Second World War, when a temporary unity prevailed against the Germans—re-emerged with a vengeance as the war came to a close. Schelkens writes:

On April 11, 1945, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops, including Slipyj, were arrested. Most of them were accused of collaboration with Nazi rule and sentenced to forced labor and exile. These draconic measures prompted a strong reaction from Pius XII, expressed in his encyclical Orientales Omnes of December 23, 1945. In it, the Vatican did not only condemn Communism but also openly and specifically attacked Moscow Patriarch Alexis. The situation worsened when on March 8-10, 1946, some 200 Greek Catholic priests were forced to revoke formally their Union with Rome, declare the Brest Union annulled, and convert to Russian Orthodoxy in a sobor set up by the Kremlin­all without any say from the Ukrainian Catholic bishops. These dramatic events set the tone for decades to come, and the UGCC would become a “Church of Silence.”

The Church of “Silence” soon became a Church of Martyrs, as many Ukrainian Catholics who were interned by the Communists perished, ­if they were not tortured and killed beforehand. The full story of this brutal persecution has yet to be told, but to the extent it is remembered, Archbishop Slipyj is a large reason why.

Successor to the legendary Metropolitan Andrey Sheptystky, and a towering figure in his own right, Josyf Slipyj was the soul of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church, even as he languished in the Siberian Gulag. News of his courageous witness spread, especially after his prison writings managed to circulate. But when the Communist authorities found out, they cracked down even harder, re-sentencing him again.

The death of Stalin in 1953 did not ease the lot of Slipyj or the suppressed UGCC; nor even did Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschkev’s famous “de-Stalinizination” speech of 1956. A fortuitous combination of events, however, led to Slipyj’s release, and it is in recounting this that Schelken excels.

In October of 1962, Pope John XXIII, successor to Pius XII, opened the Second Vatican Council, and with it a new approach toward the world (“aggiornamento”). This included searching new avenues to ease the suffering of Christians under Communist rule, without withdrawing any of the Church’s warnings about Marxist-Leninist ideology. The new approach was described by Msgr. Igino Cardinale, chief of protocol at the Secretariat of the Holy See, as being “ready to engage in relations with any state,” as long as there was a reliable assurance that “freedom for the church and the sanctity of the moral and spiritual interests of its citizens” were respected. Given the deceptions and crimes of the Communists, that was asking a lot, but the Vatican was willing to take risks, in hopes of achieving a greater good.

It didn’t take long to test the new policy. Just a few days after Vatican II opened, the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out and the mediation of the Church was sought. President Kennedy—pulling out all stops to avert a catastrophe—contacted his friend, the author Norman Cousins, who believed the greatest independent force in the world was the papacy. Cousins in turn reached out to his friend, Belgian priest Father Felix Morlion, O.P., who contacted the Holy See, and was assured of the Pope’s willingness to help. The next day, October 24, 1962, John XXIII issued a dramatic appeal to the relevant leaders not to remain deaf to “the cry of humanity.” On October 28, Khrushchev told President Kennedy that the missiles would be withdrawn. Many historians believe Pope John’s public appeal provided Khrushchev with a face-saving way to change course, depicting himself as a savior of world peace, rather than an outfoxed aggressor who blinked. Kennedy explicitly thanked John XXIII for his help.

Many of these same players, as Schelkens reveals, also worked together to obtain the release of Archbishop Slipyj. Thanks to a private intervention by Fr. Morlion with Russian representatives, the indefatigable Cousins was able to interview Khrushchev directly, and serve as an intermediary for the Holy See on behalf of world peace, religious freedom, and Archbishop Slipyj. Dutch Monsignor Johannes Willebrands also took parallel measures with other key diplomatic and religious figures, and the Soviets were surprisingly—though note entirely—cooperative. By early 1963, a decision had been made to release Slipyj on the condition that he would remain in exile and that his freedom would not be exploited by the Church for “anti-Soviet” purposes. In fact, as Schelkens reveals, “the Soviets thought it crucial that it was not to be considered a rehabilitation…. The release was to be regarded as an amnesty and that Slipyj was still considered an enemy of the Soviet government.” The Holy See agreed not to exploit the matter but made no promises about restricting its admonitions against Communism. Willebrands traveled to Russia to receive the Ukrainian archbishop and accompanied him back to Rome, where he was able to participate in the Council. Slipyj’s long-won freedom was further complicated by the fact that Russian Orthodox observers had been invited to attend the Council, as an ecumenical gesture, and accepted. Their presence “deeply shocked” the Ukrainian diaspora bishops who thought that the Holy See had conceded far too much to prelates they considered accessories to the Soviet suppression of the UGCC. But in the large picture, and whatever internal debates remained, the Holy See believed that its strategy had succeeded in accomplishing its ecumenical and political goals, without sacrificing any of its genuine principles.

Schelken’s article is complemented by another essay, “The Vatican and the Reagan Administration: A Cold War Alliance?” by Dr. Marie Gayte, professor of U.S. history at Université du Sud Toulon-Var in France. Here, she examines relations between the Holy See and the United States in the post-war era, culminating with the friendly and often productive­ but not always unified­ dealings with the Reagan administration.

At the end of World War II, Gayte relates, there was a convergence of interests between Pope Pius XII and President Harry Truman. The pontiff “well understood the intensity of suffering and persecution inflicted on Catholics under the Soviet regime,” while the President “became convinced of the expansionist aspiration of Stalin’s regime.” Thus, in spite of certain reservations about dividing the world into two blocs, Pius XII “welcomed American aid to Turkey and Greece, as well as the Marshall Plan, granting numerous audiences to congressional representatives. According to J. Graham Parson, who was assistant to Myron Taylor, Truman’s personal representative to Pius XII, ‘it [was not] too far to go in saying that most probably all the top people in the Vatican saw the United States as the only possible salvation of the values which they fundamentally stood for.”

But while Pius XII welcomed American support for shared interests, a careful reading of his pronouncements reveals an independent voice, one that could challenge the assumptions of America’s policymakers. An example of this was Pius XII’s strong warnings against the arms race, and the grave evils that would ensue should war break out between the two superpowers (a theme that would be developed and promulgated at Vatican II, after Pius XII’s passing). Pius was a strenuous opponent of the Soviet empire, and thus longed for its ideological collapse; but he was not (as he has sometimes been portrayed) a reckless anti-Communist who believed in “brinksmanship.”

Neither, for that matter, did his successors, John XXIII and Paul VI. As the international situation grew more intense—with nuclear arms proliferating and Cold War conflicts erupting in the Third World—both maintained that dialogue, rather than warfare, was the best means for obtaining a sound peace and social justice. What emerges clearly from Gayte’s essay is the apprehension papal pronouncements like the encyclicals Pacem in Terris (John XXIII) and Populorum Progressio (Paul VI) caused a succession of American administrations. The tension reached its height during the Vietnam War, which the Holy See did not condemn outright but clearly wanted ended. “The United States,’ writes Gayte, “seems to have been keen to avoid a Vatican portrayal of the United States as morally equivalent to the other belligerents, lest such a representation benefit its opponents in the war and its critics at home. This led to U.S. efforts to influence Vatican pronouncements on several occasions, something of which there is ample evidence in the archives of the Johnson and Nixon administrations.”

When the Vietnam War finally did end, it was not on terms favorable to anyone—except, perhaps, the Communist despots who took over. Even those who strongly opposed the war, in conscience, and saw it as an immoral act of American imperialism, were forced to concede that America’s opponents were hardly the meek, agrarian reformers depicted in some dubious quarters. They were, in fact, ruthless totalitarians who silenced their opponents, often by mass murder. The result was not peace with honor, but “peace with horror,” as one author acidly remarked.

Communism’s brutal record in Southeast Asia created a new sobriety within the Vatican, about the limits of the Christian-Marxist dialogue, and this, in turn, set the stage for the rise of Communism’s ultimate spiritual nemesis, Pope John Paul II. Having lived in Poland under both the Nazis and Communists, he understood the totalitarian mind better than many world leaders, and demonstrated that knowledge in his successful combat with them. He was fortunate to have as an ally Ronald Reagan, whose conservative American presidency has grown more impressive (and popular) over the years. Gayte describes the many areas the two leaders saw eye to eye on—for example, the dangers of a Marxist-driven “liberation theology” and the naïvete of certain peace activists about unilateral disarmament. John Paul told Caspar Weinberger, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, “you know we are for peace, of course, but we are not for pacifists­—unilateral pacifists. We know that is not the way to keep the peace.” Such Christian realism was welcomed by the Reaganites.

At the same time, Gayte properly rejects the simplistic notion of a “holy alliance” conjured up by some journalists. Appreciative as he was toward President Reagan, John Paul II did not hesitate, anymore than previous popes, to distance himself from certain American attitudes and policies the Church found objectionable, particularly the frightful idea that a nuclear war could be fought and won. “Although the pope unambiguously opposed Communism,” writes Gayte, “his pontificate also was one of continuity with his predecessors as far as defense of the third world, peace and social justice were concerned.”

To the extent disagreements did arise, it was because of erroneous American ideas about the Holy See. To their credit, officials in the Reagan administration did eventually learn this, with one candidly admitting, “The Vatican has its own agenda which leads it to statements and actions not always compatible with our policies. …the Vatican’s activities are understandable and follow naturally from the position of the pope as the spiritual leader of the Catholic world. Automatic assumptions in Washington that the Vatican is always on our side are misplaced.” That said, there can be no doubt that the relationship, at its best, did much to bring the Cold War to a largely positive conclusion, even as other dangers have arisen in its wake.

One principle that John Paul II and Ronald Reagan did share was a resounding belief in religious liberty, and the rights of individual conscience—attacks against which continue to arise. Today, as we witness the persecution of minorities in many regions of the world, and see attempts to intimidate religious leaders even in self-proclaimed “free” democracies, a renewed spiritual and political witness in defense of both is needed, now more than ever.

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March 2009 Newsletter

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Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

March 2009 — Vol. XV, no. 3

 Dear Friends,

The approach of Lent is perhaps the appropriate time to reflect on issues in contemporary church history which still need to be addressed. Among these are the thorny and troubled problems of Christian-Jewish relations, on which topic there is all too little progress to be noted, and in which contemporary political factors clearly play a considerable role. But the collection of essays by both Jews and Christians, evaluating the twentieth century’s most significant document on this subject, Nostra Aetate, as reviewed below, will be of help. Intertwined is certainly the continuing controversy over the pontifical career of Pope Pius XII. There is still no agreement among scholars, and still less among lay people. In my view, this situation is unlikely to change, though it may possibly be helped as and when more documents from this Pope’s reign are finally revealed and new interpretations advanced. In the meantime new books continue to appear, some of which are less than helpful, being the product of preconceived opinions rather than accurate scholarship. Others however offer new insights.. One of the objects of this Newsletter has been to keep you advised of such publications, for better or for worse. So keep posted.

Finally I offer a few thoughts on the present controversy over Holocaust denial by a Catholic prelate who should know better, and the embarrassment he has caused for the Vatican at this touchy and delicate moment in Christian-Jewish relations.

Contents:

1) Book reviews:

a) Nostra Aetate. Origins, Promulgation, Impact 
b) R. Michael, Catholic Antisemitism
c) D. Kurzman, A Special Mission: Hitler’s plot to seize the Vatican and kidnap Pope Pius XII
d) G. Noel, Pius XII. The Hound of Hitler

2) Journal Article: Coppa, The Vatican’s Silence during the Holocaust

3) Editorial: Holocaust Heretic Disciplined

1a) Nostra Aetate. Origins, Promulgation, Impact on Jewish-Christian Relations
Ed. Neville Lamdan and A.Melloni. Munster: LIT Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-4825-80678-1
The Catholic Church and the Jewish People: Recent Reflections from Rome
Ed. P. Cunningham, N.Hofmann and J.Sievers. New York: Fordham University Press 2007
ISBN 978-0-823-22805-8
(This review appeared first in Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 95, no 1, January 2009, and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.)

These collections are the products of conferences held to observe the fortieth anniversary in 2005 of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, specifically its fourth section on the Church’s understanding of Jews and Judaism. Both volumes include Jewish and Catholic authors. Both have significance for historians not only of the Council but also of subsequent Jewish-Catholic relations up to the present. The books are complementary, and the student of this history should have both of them.

The volume edited by Neville Lamden and Alberto Melloni presents the proceedings of a conference held in Jerusalem from October 30 to November 1, 2005, at the Center for the Study of Christianity at Hebrew University. The book is not divided into sections, but the fifteen essays can be roughly divided into equal groups of studies of the history of the text, its impact in the short term, and reflections on it after forty years.

Melloni examines the history of the text and its significance for the Church’s reevaluation of its most ancient interreligious relationship. Marco Morselli presented the influence of Jewish historian Jules Isaac and the Amitie Judeo-Chretienne de France in framing the issues the Council would tackle. In what the editors call “the centerpiece” paper of the conference, Paulist Father Thomas Stransky, the last surviving staff member of the Pontifical Secretariat for Christian Unity that led the drafting of the declaration, presented his “Insider’s Story” of the draft’s many theological and political adventures before the world’s bishops finally enacted it by an overwhelming vote during the last session of the Council. Annarita Caponera presents the results of her two-year study of the Secretariat archives from 1962 to 1965. Uri Bialer narrates “the view from Jerusalem” during the Council and the activities of the Israeli government to influence the outcome.

Serge Ruzer discusses how the theological agenda of Nostra Aetate required and precipitated a close look at the Jewish origins of Christianity. Robert Bonfil suggests a hermeneutic of the text from a Jewish perspective that can at once acknowledge it as a “revolutionary” change of Catholic worldview while still affirming its continuity with Catholic theology over the ages. Hans Herman Henrix outlines the effects of the declaration on Catholic attitudes in Western and Eastern Europe. Didier Pollefeyt describes the state of Catholic theology that has replaced a presumption that Christianity has superseded Judaism with an affirmation of the ongoing validity of God’s covenant with the Jewish People. Mauro Velati notes the cross-fertilization between Protestant and Catholic thinking on these issues, before and after the Council. Petra Held gives a Protestant perspective on it after forty years, David Rosen provides Israeli perspectives, and Jerome Chanes shows its impact on Catholic-Jewish relations in the United States. Finally, Zwi Werblowski and Cardinal Walter Kasper, the latter president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, sum up Jewish and Catholic perspectives. The volume concludes with an index of names.

Kasper, whose essay was last in the Lamden and Melloni volume, appears first in the Cunningham, Hofmann, and Sievers volume. He discussed interfaith possibilities with Jews and Muslims in the former; in the latter, he narrates the thirty-year history of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Also providing histories of the commission are Cardinal Jorge Maria Meji­a, Father Pierfranceso Fumagalli, and Father Norbert Hofmann, all past secretaries of the commission.

This volume is divided into sections. In the first, Riccardo di Segni (the chief rabbi of Rome) and Giuseppe Laras (the chief rabbi of Milan) give Jewish perspectives on the relationship, while Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini provides a Catholic perspective. In the second, Massimo Giuliani deals with the memory of the Shoah as “a shadow upon and a stimulus to” dialogue, as his essay title expresses.

In the third section Archbishop Bruno Forte, Erich Zenger, and Peter Hunermann establish firm foundations for a Christian theology of Judaism. In the fourth section Alberto Melloni, along with the previously mentioned papers by Mejia, Fumagalli, and Hofmann, discusses developments in “the Post-Shoah Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.” Finally, Vatican diplomat Cardinal Achille Silvestrini and Israeli diplomat Oded Ben Hur discuss the relationship between the Holy See and the State of Israel.

A helpful set of appendices to this volume includes all six drafts of what became Nostra Aetate; Joint Declarations of the International Catholic Jewish Liaison Committee from 1970, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2006; Joint Statements of the Pontifical Commission and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s Delegation from 2003-06; and the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between Israel and the Holy See. The volume has a full index and an index of scriptural passages cited.

As someone who lived through much of the history narrated in these two volumes and participated in many of the theological dialogues reflected in their pages, I can only express my delight in and gratitude for them.

Eugene J. Fisher, Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs (Emeritus) United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

1b) Robert Michael, A History of Catholic Antisemitism: The Dark Side of the Church. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2008. Pp. ix, 282. NP. ISBN 978-0-230-60388-2.

This review appeared first in Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 95, no 1, January 2009, and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

This book lives up to its subtitle. It presents in detail “the dark side” of Christian attitudes toward Judaism and treatment of Jews over the centuries. It occasionally mentions mitigating factors, such as St. Augustine’s argument that the Jews witness to the validity of their bible, are thus necessary to the proclamation of the gospel, and should therefore, alone among all the non-Christian religions of the Roman empire, be allowed to worship freely. But such acknowledgements are overwhelmed with negative after negative examples, to the point that readers of this book may not be able to answer the simple question: So why did Jews choose to stay in Christendom, when they could have moved to Islamic or Asian countries? This is a question the author never asks, most likely because the answer would be an acknowledgement that a true presentation of Jewish-Christian relations over the centuries would have many more bright spots in many countries over many centuries in which Jews lived peacefully and relatively prosperously with their Christian neighbors. But this shades of gray reality is, I fear, beyond the author’s intent, which is to show only “the dark side of the Church.”

In the Introduction (p. 1), the author states that Catholic “as distinguished from ‘Orthodox‘ and ‘Protestant,’ refers to those Christians who are in communion with the Holy See of Rome.” And then he immediate includes the Eastern Church Fathers, such as Chrysostum, as purveyors of “Catholic antisemitism.” Martin Luther’s anti-Jewish screeds, which were if anything even more vitriolic than Chrysostum, become a key part of the history of “Catholic” antisemitism, since the author, before devoting several pages to him, describes him simply as a “former Augustinian.” The book consistently blames the Catholic Church for the anti-Jewishness and antisemitism of all baptized Christians. I am not sure why the author feels the need to do this. Catholic sins are quite enough. One does not have to blame the Catholic Church for the sins of others. Or, alternately, the author could have admitted that what he has really written is a history of Christian, not just Catholic antisemitism.

Chapter One, “Pagans and Early Catholics,” treats the New Testament, emphasizing, of course its later and more negative passages as what it means overall, and often interweaving what the New Testament actually said with what later generations of (gentile) Christians said it said, so that most readers will find it difficult to distinguish the New Testament from the later “teaching of contempt” of the Fathers of the Church (Augustine excepted) toward the Jews. Subsequent chapters (two through five) march chronologically through the centuries, carefully culling out everything negative and for the most part ignoring what happened positively. What the author says about the Crusades in Chapter Five is summarized in the Postscript (p. 195) as “Every Crusade started out murderously attacking European Jews.” Here, he cites the classic studies by Robert Chazan and others of the First Crusade, which was qualitatively different than subsequent Crusades in its massacres of Jews and attempts to force convert them, over the protests of the local bishops, as Chazan reports but Michael fails to mention.

Chapter Six (pp. 75-100) deals with medieval “Papal Policy” while the final chapter, Ten, treats “Modern Papal Policy,” especially with regard to the Holocaust. These chapters bracket three chapters which deal, respectively, with Germany and Austria-Hungary, France, and Poland. Throughout these presentations, one is presented with mounds of details but often enough with misleading generalizations based upon them. These are too numerous to go into here. To his credit, Michael does spend more time on and attempt a more balanced approach of the question of Pope Pius XII and the Jews than many of Pius’ detractors. In my opinion, however, he does not succeed in this attempt, allowing his vision of “the Dark Side” to predominate, even when he has no evidence to back up a given claim or, indeed when what he claims happened did not in fact happen, for example that the deportations of the Jews from Rome by the Germans continued unabated after Pius’ intervention with them when, in fact, they stopped and most of the remainder of the Jews of Rome were saved, to a great extent by hiding in Catholic convents and monasteries, which Michael again fails to deal with.

One of the themes of the book, made explicit in the Postscript, entitled, “Catholic Racism,” is that there is really no distinction to be made between Patristic and Medieval Catholic anti-Jewish theological polemics and modern, racial, genocidal anti-Semitism, because he can find some quotes from some Catholics over two millennia in which Jews were disparaged even after being baptized. The limpia de raza laws against converted Jews and their descendants in Spain and Portugal are, tendentiously, portrayed as universal Catholic policy and as being given the encouragement of the bishop of Rome who, inexplicably, did not adopt them in the papal states. Yes, these Iberian laws were forerunners of Nazi laws, but they were not enacted outside their particular time and place. Likewise, neither they nor any other of the extremely numerous and noxious things that Christians did to Jews (mostly after 1096 and the First Crusade) ever came anywhere near genocide. Telling Jews that they must convert in order to stay in a country, otherwise they will have to leave, is not anywhere near the same thing as undertaking to kill all Jews no matter what they do.

The Notes to this book, pp. 205-265 are extensive and show the breadth of the author’s reading in the field. The Index, pp. 267-282, is complete and serviceable.

The author dedicates his work to “my late friend,” Fr. Edward Flannery, of blessed memory. Fr. Flannery was also my friend, as well as my predecessor in Catholic-Jewish Relations, so Michael and I have something in common. I would, however, encourage readers of this journal to stick with Fr. Flannery’ classic study on this topic, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism, which remains the measure of the field.

Dr. Eugene J. Fisher, Retired Associate Director of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC

1c) Dan Kurzman, A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to seize the Vatican and kidnap Pope Pius XII. Cambridge, Mass: Da Capo Press 2007 ISBN 978–0-306-81617-8

(This review by David Alvarez of St Mary’s College, California appeared first in the Catholic Historical Review, January 2009, and is reprinted by kind permission of the author)

Dan Kurzman asserts that Adolf Hitler, convinced that the fall of Benito Mussolini and Italy’s subsequent armistice with the Allies could have occurred only with the connivance of Pope Pius XII, decided in September 1943 to send German forces into Vatican City to seize the pontiff and his attendant cardinals and remove them to the principality of Liechtenstein along with whatever archives, gold, paintings, and sculpture the kidnappers could cart away. Concerned that the abduction of the pope and the looting of the Vatican would outrage Catholics around the world, SS General Karl Wolff, the one-time chief of staff to Heinrich Himmler selected by the Fuehrer to lead the operation, sabotaged the plan, in part by claiming that it would take time to gather the trained linguists, art historians, and archivists necessary for the success of the plot. According to this account, Wolff also saw his resistance to Hitler’s directive as an insurance policy. Seriously compromised by his leadership position in the SS and his association with the war crimes, atrocities, and genocidal programs of that organization, the general believed that, by thwarting Hitler’s plans, he could make friends inside the Vatican and create some anti-Hitler credentials-useful achievements in the event of the Third Reich’s defeat. Wolff’s plans required the pope to be aware of the threat. How else could the general place the pontiff in his debt? Furthermore, the argument that Hitler’s wrath, now barely contained by the sensible SS general, would only be fuelled by any word or gesture that could be interpreted as anti-German could be used to convince (blackmail) Pius to resist pressure from the Allies to condemn the extermination of Jews.

Rumours of threats to the pope and the territorial integrity of Vatican City had circulated in diplomatic and ecclesiastical circles since the outbreak of the war. Given the explicit hostility of the Nazi regime toward the Catholic Church, these rumours were taken seriously inside the Vatican and, as early as spring 1941, papal officials were considering contingency plans. Not surprisingly, such rumours proliferated after the German occupation of Rome. Did Vatican circles believe the threat was credible? Yes. Allied diplomats inside Vatican City burned their confidential files in anticipation of a German entry into the papal enclave, and staffers in the papal Secretariat of State kept packed suitcases next to their desks. Was there actually a Nazi plan to kidnap the pope? Hitler occasionally ranted about seizing the pope, but hard evidence of an abduction plot has eluded historians. It has also eluded Dan Kurzman.

The author’s footnotes are useless (often a single, vague footnote will cover several pages of text), but it seems that he relies primarily upon the postwar recollections of individuals, including the now-deceased Wolff, who claimed to have been involved in the events. Not surprisingly, the witnesses portray themselves as good guys. All, particularly the Germans, seem to have been anti-Nazi and secretly working to confound Hitler’s plans even if they had to hide their political opposition beneath SS uniforms. The testimony of some of these witnesses is, to put it mildly, suspect. Wolff, whose recollections form the basis for the story, is especially untrustworthy since even the author acknowledges that the SS officer was an amoral opportunist who, after the war, consistently twisted the truth of his wartime career in order to avoid conviction as a war criminal. The reader might wonder if Wolff manipulated the story of an alleged plot against the pope to further his postwar political rehabilitation. Suspect testimony might have been buttressed by documentary evidence, but the author (accepting Wolff’s assertions) assures us that the plot was so secret that no records were kept. In fact, there are two documentary sources relevant to a kidnapping operation, a diary entry by Joseph Goebbels after Mussolini’s arrest in July 1943 and a directive circulated by Martin Bormann to Nazi Party Gauleiters in November 1943, both of which undermine the claim of a plot. Additionally, there is the postwar testimony of Wilhelm Hoettl, director of the Vatican desk in the foreign intelligence division of Himmler’s Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), who asserted on several occasions that there was never a plan to seize the pope. Father Robert Graham, the acknowledged authority on the wartime Vatican who interviewed and corresponded with all of the characters in the drama (including Wolff),was always sceptical about the existence of a serious plot. After completing Kurzman’s sensational story, this reviewer remains no less sceptical. David Alvarez, Saint Mary’s College of California

1d) Gerard Noel, Pius XII. The Hound of Hitler. London: Continuum 2008. Pp 220. ISBN 978-189-708-34537.

As a young man, sixty years ago, Gerard Noel was granted a private audience by Pope Pius XII at his summer castle, Castel Gandolfo. He was naturally greatly impressed. But in his subsequent career as a British Catholic journalist and author, he has become more sceptical, and has now published an account of Pius’ career which places him firmly in the camp of the pope’s detractors. Noel claims that this is not a conventional biography, but rather concentrates on those factors which throw light on Pius’ private character and personality. However, like all other such writers, Noel has not had access to the Vatican’s own documentary sources for Pius’ reign, which still await cataloguing before they can be made available to the public. Instead, he draws on other secondary sources such as the book by his fellow British journalist, John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope, even though this has by now been largely discredited, as Cornwell himself has acknowledged. On the more personal side of Pius’ life, Noel relies heavily on an even more dubious source. He makes much, for instance of the purported influence of the pope’s indomitable housekeeper, the German nun, Mother Pasqualina, who “looked after” him for over forty years. Noel’s reconstruction of personal conversations and exchanges between Pius and Pasqualina must at best be considered fictitious. In addition he claims he has received “insider” information from various Vatican habitués, now dead. The impact of these “revelations” is to stress the Pope’s physical ailments, particularly the increasingly frequent hallucinations from which Pius is supposed to have suffered in his final years. No corroborative evidence is produced for such suppositions.

At the same time, Noel goes out of his way to build up a case against both the political and personal attitudes of Eugenio Pacelli, whom he depicts as a narrowly self-interested ecclesiastic, who early on set himself a “Great Design” to strengthen and centralize the One True Church as the most powerful body in human society. This aim was systematically pursued, first through his work in revising the complete Code of Canon Law, and subsequently through his efforts to negotiate a whole series of Concordats between the Vatican and national governments. No less than 25 such Concordats were concluded between 1914 and 1958. These were all part of a triumphalist dream to enhance the power and influence of the Catholic Church.

Pacelli’s single-minded dedication to this ambitious programme, so Noel contends, led to disastrous political misjudgements. For example, the signing of a Concordat with Serbia in the summer of 1914 was, in Noel’s opinion, a slap in the face of the most important Catholic power, Austria-Hungary, and thus a significant factor leading to the outbreak of the first world war. The same misjudgements were to be repeated, largely due to similar reasons, when Pacelli, as Secretary of State, was responsible for the signing of the Concordat with Nazi Germany in 1933. Noel’s evaluation of this negotiation is invariably negative. He claims that Pacelli was misled by his deep-set hostility to Soviet Communism into being “flexible” towards the Nazi movement and its leaders. Indeed he even “invents” the myth, that, in earlier years, while Nuncio in Munich, Pacelli had actually encountered the young radical, Adolf Hitler, and had given him money while still down and out to support his budding anti-Communist movement. No evidence for such a slander is produced.

Likewise Noel’s setting up a scenario in which Mother Pasqualina is portrayed as a vigorous opponent of any concessions to the Nazis in contrast to Pacelli/Pius’ weak and vacillating attitudes, is a pure invention. His description of Pius’ war-time diplomacy is predictably critical, including his failure to condemn the Nazis’ most heinous crimes against the Jews. Noel’s stance on this issue is hardly original, including his belief that a more outspoken protest by the Pope would have mobilized the German Catholic population to oppose the killing and persecution of the Jews. He shares with others the same wishful thinking about the capacity of the Vatican to command the loyalty of its following in war-time, or about the supposed influence of the Pope to bring about any alteration in the power balances in strife-ridden Europe.

Admittedly, he acknowledges that Pius was a multi-layered personality with many contrasting facets, from urbane diplomat, to tortured neurotic, to silent ascetic. Towards the end of his life, Noel claims, he would become increasingly a despot, without the kind of human contact which might have saved him from the illusions of saintly dedication and devotion. This facet was enhanced by the fact that in the 1950s the revival of the Church in post-war Europe was remarkable. It resulted in a decade of seemingly positive advances. The public image of the Church was triumphant, omnipotent. But the private reality of the Pope’s immediate entourage was cold and authoritarian. Pius became more and more absorbed in writing speeches on all manner of subjects, which were delivered to the constant stream of visitors, especially of academics in a huge variety of intellectual fields. As well, Pius concentrated on more mystical topics and theological explorations where few could follow him, such as the enormous effort placed on the esoteric ceremonies during the Holy Year of 1950, when Pius formally defined the Catholic doctrine of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in both body and soul to heavenly glory which was to become regarded as an absolute and infallible belief of the Church. Such recondite speculations led him, in Noel’s view, to become a spiritual megalomaniac, all too conscious of his declining physical powers. On the other hand, Noel does have certain positive things to say about Pius’ personality.

He defends Pius against accusations that he was pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic, and asserts with conviction that he was definitely not a puppet or pawn to any man, especially not Hitler. On the other hand, he acknowledges the known facts about Pius’ hypochondria and depressions. In conclusion he readily admits that Pius’ character is endlessly intriguing. So something of his earlier captivation still remains. Curiously he provides no explanation as to why his book has been given the strange sub-title, The Hound of Hitler, which seems entirely inappropriate. In essence, this interpretation will convince few scholars who have done their homework, but may titillate those readers who are addicted to accounts of scandal and intrigue in high places.
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2) Journal Article: Frank J. Coppa, “Between Morality and Diplomacy: The Vatican’s silence during the Holocaust,” in Journal of Church and State, Vol. 50, no. 3, Summer 2008, p. 541-568.

In 2006 Frank Coppa published an excellent survey of The Papacy, the Jews and the Holocaust. Inevitably this new article covers the same ground as his book’s Chapter 6, but expands and updates the footnotes. Coppa adopts a moderate position, being fully aware of the arguments for and against the policies of Pope Pius XII. He rightly explains the inherent conflict over the Pope’s preference for a diplomatic approach to world events rather than any strident denunciation based on a purely moralistic stance. This debate, as readers of this Newsletter are surely aware, remains unresolved. Coppa shares the view of your editor that the comprehensive opening of the Vatican archives for the period of Pope Pius XII’s reign, which have only in part become available for public scrutiny, will not lead to any startling revelations Nor will it stop this continuing debate. As he rightly remarks: “both advocates and adversaries have explored the [already published] volumes selectively, often only to support their pre-established positions on religious, ideological, political and psychological considerations, transcending the thought and policies of Pius XII.” However, he concludes: “access to the archives should reinforce the objective studies of this Pope and the scholarly narratives of his pontificate over the expression of both adversarial and apologetic accounts, and so play a part in bringing the ”Pius War” to an end”. (P. 568) This would indeed be a consummation devoutly to be wished.
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3) Editorial: A Holocaust Heretic Disciplined

The present furore over the regrettable remarks about the Holocaust made by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X is doubly unfortunate. The Society of Saint Pius X consists of a dwindling group of ultra-conservative and elderly men who broke away from the Vatican’s authority forty years ago. They opposed the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, fearing that the Church was about to descend the slippery slope of capitulation to modern secular values, and to abandon the time-honoured and unchanging doctrines of earlier centuries. Thanks to the leadership of Pope John Paul II and the present Pope Benedict XVI, this danger has been averted. Benedict now wishes to heal this rift. He has already showed consideration by allowing the restoration of celebrating the Mass in Latin. But the provocative utterances of one obscure and obstinate hold-out now threaten to upset the Vatican’s strategy of reconciliation over a much more important issue, namely the future of Catholic-Jewish relations.

The reckless and clearly deliberate distortions of history by this cranky and irrelevant bishop, for which he has neither the competence let alone the authority to make, have re-awoken deeply-felt resentments among many prominent Jewish agencies and commentators in Israel, Germany and elsewhere. It is a sad fact that, despite the frequent and sincere engagement of Pope Benedict on this subject, his pilgrimage to Auschwitz, and his fervent desire to visit Israel in the near future, the suspicion still remains that such Vatican pronouncements are only skin-deep, and that underneath the Roman Catholic Church may still harbour the kind of anti-Semitism which was so disfiguring a characteristic over so many centuries.

Forty years ago the Second Vatican Council’s notable statement Nostra Aetate declared that the Jews were the Christians “older brothers in faith”. The Church’s teaching ever since has consistently adopted this new and much more positive tone, re-echoed in Pope Benedict’s recent pronouncements. But clearly much more needs to be done to overcome the legacy of past antagonisms, or to ward off the suspicions so vocally expressed about the genuineness of Christian repentance. Very much the same applies to the Protestant and Orthodox Churches. Any recurrence of Christian anti-Semitism has to be repudiated. All Christians are now called to adopt a more positive and constructive engagement with their local Jewish communities in a common stance against the kind of bigotry and intolerance here demonstrated.
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With all best wishes
John Conway

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