How Did the Experiences of World War II Influence the Second Vatican Council?

Today we will learn and reflect on how the wartime
experiences of Catholics and all Christians, and in
particular how the wartime experiences of the Vatican
officials and Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, led to the calling of
the Second Vatican Council and its decrees. Since many
Catholics had supported fascism, many felt that the
Catholic Church was on the wrong side of history, and
many traditionalists pined for the old days when Catholic
monarchies supported the Church, an age that was gone
forever.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video. Feel free to follow along in the
PowerPoint script we uploaded to SlideShare.
Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!

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How Did WWII Experiences Influence Decrees of Vatican II?

The memories of World War II are key to understanding
the teachings of Vatican II and the Catholic Catechism.
During the war years there were many brave bishops in
Germany and France, and the Pope, who took public and
private stands pushing back on the horrors of the
Holocaust and Nazi brutalities. However, the attitudes of
the clergy reflect the attitudes of the political culture in
general, most supported the political status quo, many
lived quiet lives of passive resistance, a precious minority
actively resisted the horrors of Nazi terror.

In contrast, in the early interwar years most Christians were
tolerant of fascist regimes because the fascists were the sworn
enemies of communism, and communism was the sworn enemy
of the church. After Lenin seized power in Soviet Russia, his
communists murdered millions of Orthodox believers and priests.
Likewise, the communists in the Spanish Civil War copied the
Russian communists by torturing and murdering thousands of
priests, monks and nuns.

Lenin speaking, Bolshevik Revolution, 1930

Just because Nazi Germany and fascist Italy were defeated in World War
II, there were still many in Europe who were sympathetic to the fascist
ideology. The defeat of the Axis powers and the publicity about the
concentration camps may have discredited anti-Semitism, but it did not
totally destroy such evil in the hearts of men. Few traditional Catholic
priests or bishops were anti-Semites, but the few that were anti-Semites
were all “traditional” Catholics.
Contrary to the impressions of many, Vatican II did not introduce any
theological reforms, Vatican II sought to share with the world the
theology of the original reform council, the Council of Trent. What
Vatican II changed was the ecclesiology and the political philosophy of
the Catholic Church.

Second Vatican Council, and Pope John XXIII, who called the council.
Democracy is the True Friend of the Church

Vatican II marks a shift in the Church's attitude towards the
modern secular world. Gone are the anathemas that
condemn those who may disagree with the teachings of
the church, instead Vatican II seeks dialogue with the
modern world in with a pastoral rather than a condemning
attitude. The Vatican II decree on religious freedom
announced that democracy and freedom of religion and
conscience were the friends of the church, that a
totalitarian form of government could never be a
trustworthy friend of the Catholic or Christian Church.

A procession of
Cardinals enters St.
Peter's in Rome,
opening the Second
Vatican Council.
Painting by Franklin
McMahon

The Church Fathers of Vatican II believed that the Catholic
guarantee of Religious Liberty was crucial for regaining the
respect of many believers and the modern world. History
had evolved so that the Catholic Church was not on the
side of truth regarding religious liberty. From ancient times
the Catholic Church was supported first by the Roman
emperors starting with Constantine, and then the royalty
of medieval Europe, but the absolute monarchies had all
disappeared, giving way to dictators and republics, some
of which were constitutional monarchies.

Council Fathers and secretaries leaving St. Peter's Basilica
Bishops at the Second Vatican Council

The Emblem of Christ
Appearing to
Constantine, by Peter
Paul Rubens, 1622

The Jacobism of the French Revolution and its
grandchild communism were the enemies of the
church, and the church supported fascism to combat
communism. World War II totally discredited fascism,
now the Catholic Church saw democracy as the
bulwark opposing communism and fascism, and
religious liberty was a cornerstone for democracy.

Storming the Bastille,
1789, anonymous
painter
This event truly
sparked the start of
the French Revolution

The Vatican II Declaration on Religious Freedom, or
Dignitatis Humanae, teaches us that just
governments should not only reluctantly tolerate
religious freedom, but should rather seek to
encourage a healthy civil environment in which
religious worship and institutions can thrive,
encouraging the religious and the whole society to
live a more moral life.

Church Should Dialogue with all Parties

LESSON: THE CHURCH MUST KEEP AN OPEN DIALOGUE WITH ALL POLITICAL PARTIES
IN A DEMOCRACY
The Catholic Church remembered how the Vatican spurned the Catholic Center
Parties, first in Italy when Mussolini gained power, then a decade later when Hitler
needed Catholic support to pass the Enabling Act declaring him as the absolute
Fuhrer over Germany. With this history in mind, in the spirit of Vatican II, we should
recognize that a striving democracy is essential to guarantee that the Church can
fulfill its mission, and that believers should never demonize any political party simply
because the church does not agree with all of their positions. We should especially
not demonize a political party that enthusiastically champions the doctrine of social
justice, that is central to so many papal decrees and encyclicals since Rerum
Novarum was issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. This decree explored the proper
relationships between capital and labor, the government and her citizens, and
addressed the need for humane living and working conditions for the working class.

Wartime Experiences, Leaders of Vatican II

We reviewed the role of the Vatican II leaders in David Kertzer’s two
books, The Pope and Mussolini, concentrating on the pontificate of Pope
Pius XI, and The Pope At War, consulting on the recently opened Vatican
archives of Pope Pius XII.
The two Vatican II popes, John XXIII and Paul VI, both had histories of
resisting Nazism and fascism. We distinguish between these similar
totalitarian ideologies because Nazism is an extreme fascist movement
that is violently anti-Semitic, while Spanish Franco fascism and per-1938
Italian Mussolini fascism were not blatantly anti-Semitic.
The two major popes after Pope Paul VI were leading theologians in the
Second Vatican Council, all had wartime experiences that influenced their
worldview. Pope Francis is the first post-Vatican II pope.

Their positions were influenced by their
wartime experiences, which include:
• Rejection of anti-Semitism and forced
baptism of Jews.
• Rejection of the long-standing view that
Jews were responsible for deicide, the
crucifixion of Christ.
• Embrace of religious liberty, influenced by
the American experience.
• Realization that totalitarian governments
are the long-term enemy of the church,
though they may be a short-term false
friend of the church.
• Realization that genuine democracy is the
long-term friend of the church, though in
the short-term they it may be secular and
skeptical of the church and her teachings.

When Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John
XXIII, reflected on Yves Congar’s book, True and False
Reform of the Church, intently writing notes in the margin,
he asked, “A reform of the church? Is such a thing really
possible?” When he decided to throw open the windows
of the Catholic Church to the modern world by calling the
Second Vatican Council, he did so not to denounce errors,
but to engage the world in a pastoral and loving manner,
mirroring much of what Yves Congar said in this book.

Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the
future Pope John XXIII, reflected
on Yves Congar’s book, True and
False Reform of the Church,
asking, “A reform of the church?
Is such a thing really possible?”

Early in his career as a priest, Roncalli’s sermons criticized the
Italian fascist regime Italy; some scholars believe that was part of
the reason why he was promoted to the diplomatic corps to
represent the Vatican in Orthodox Bulgaria. He later was also
appointed Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece and ordained
as archbishop of Bulgaria, he was fortunate that he was both
sufficiently removed from the Nazi powers to avoid persecution,
while being close enough to truly help what Jews he could.
Roncalli’s close relationship with Franz von Papen, German
ambassador to Turkey, helped save the lives of tens of thousands
of Jews, Dr Wikipedia lists how these Jews were saved.

Second Vatican Council, and Pope John XXIII, who called the council.

Roncalli’s many experiences with the Jewish,
Orthodox, Muslim, and secular French
communities gave Roncalli a broad-minded view
of the modern world. His broad-minded
experiences, and the sense that the Catholic
Church was out of step with the new world
dominated by liberal democracies, led him to call
for the Second Vatican Council.

Pope John XXIII, by Giuseppe Frascaroli, 2014

Pope Pius XII asked Bishop Roncalli whether silence on the Nazi
brutalities was a mistake. Roncalli’s concern with the plight of the
Jews conflicted with the Vatican policy of opposing the
emigration of Jews to their homeland in Palestine, as Archbishop
Roncalli unsuccessfully requested several times to permit Slovak
Jews to emigrate there.
Bishop Roncalli vigorously tried to save as many Jews as he could
from the death camps. Dr Wikipedia records many of his efforts
that saved the lives of thousands of Jews from Slovakia, Bulgaria,
Romania, Italy, Hungary, Transnistria, and other countries. These
efforts included baptism of convenience, diplomatic immigration
certificates, and other interventions.

Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial

Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, has a long history of opposing
fascism and anti-Semitism, though perhaps not as vigorously as critics of
church have judged. In 1932, Pope Pius XI dismissed him from his
position as chaplain of the Catholic Action university organization.
Mussolini had requested his dismissal since he was anti-fascist. He was
rehabilitated in 1938 when Pope Pius XI became disenchanted with
Mussolini, this was the year when Mussolini went full-Nazi and started
persecuting the Jews, aping Hitler. Pope Pius XI appointed him as an
undersecretary of the Vatican, he became a trusted confidant of the
pope. In an initial draft of a letter on the Jews to Mussolini, he was
somewhat ambivalent.

Montini continued to be a confidant to Pope Pius XII,
and is mentioned many times in the book, The Pope
At War. We noted his previous input early in the war
on what the Vatican Press should report on the
progress of the war, rather than have Mussolini
dictate that they print only news favorable to the
Nazis. They decided to have the Vatican newspaper
focus on church business and religious life.

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Montini was known for his quiet opposition to Mussolini
and Hitler. Princess Maria Jose of Italy suggested to him
that the Vatican communicate with the Americans that
Italians wanted out of the war and were willing to depose
Mussolini. When the Nazis occupied Rome directly near
the end of the war, Montini intervened with the Nazis to
save the lives of Jews who had converted to Catholicism.
This was all he could do, Hitler himself had ordered the
roundup of the Jews in Northern Italy to the death camps.

King Umberto II, king for a month in 1946, with Queen Maria Josè and
their daughter Princess Maria Pia of Italy. His father King Victor
Emmanuel III abdicated, and the Italians voted to abolish the
monarchy that had partnered with Mussolini, resulting in World War II.

David Kertzer, in an Atlantic article on the newly opened
Vatican archives for Pope Pius XII, which we discussed in
our video on Mussolini, relates a case where a Jewish boy
was orphaned when his parents were exterminated in the
death camps. They had placed their son in the care of a
devout Catholic woman who did what all good Catholics of
the day did, she baptized him! After the war, the boy’s
Jewish aunt thanked her for her kindness, but the good
Catholic woman refused to relinquish him to a Jew since
he was now Catholic!

.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/the-popes-jews/615736/
.
Mosaic depicting Pope Paul VI and Patriarch
Athenagoras I. The sacristy of the chapel Dominus
Flevit in Jerusalem.

Montini became involved in the case, the Jewish boy was
hidden in first one monastery then another, first in France,
then in Spain, the newspapers ran stories on the case,
French courts ordered that he be returned to his aunt, and
finally, Montini ordered that the Jewish boy be released to
his aunt, so he could be raised as a Jew. This case drug on
for years, at length he was released to live in Israel. No
doubt this case influenced the future Pope Paul VI’s and
Vatican II’s pronouncements concerning the Jews.

Pope Paul VI presiding over the introductory ingress
of the council, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (left)

Many of the other leading theologians of the Second
Vatican Council were either too young to be in
leadership roles during World War II or served in
Catholic nations outside of Italy. We asked Dr
Wikipedia for a summary of their wartime
experiences.

Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II, was a university student
when the Nazis invaded Poland, he became a laborer to minimize
the chances the Nazis would send him to a camp. His parents and
brother died during the war. Reassessing his life, he knocked on
the door of the archbishop, asking to be admitted to the
underground seminary, and was ordained a priest in 1946. He
helped several Jewish refugees. In particular, he refused to
baptize a Jewish orphan who had concerned Jewish relatives in
America. His parents, who died in the camps, had asked a
Catholic acquaintance to protect him.

Karol Wojtyła (second from right), future Pope John Paul II, in a Baudienst forced
labor work crew during the German occupation of Poland in WWII, circa 1941

John Paul II in front of Christ the King Cathedral in Reykjavík, Iceland, June 4th. 1989

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, also
suffered traumatic experiences during the war. He had registered
in a minor seminary when he was twelve, it was closed down due
to the war. His father and entire family bitterly resented the
Nazis, because of this his father was demoted and the family was
harassed. He had a retarded cousin who the Nazis murdered in
the Nazi eugenic Action T4 program. He was conscripted into the
Hitler youth when he turned fourteen in 1941, and was drafted
into the German infantry in 1943, but deserted when his unit
dissolved in 1945.

Propaganda for Nazi Germany's T-4 Euthanasia Program:
"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the
community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow
German, that is your money, too."
Collection bus for killing patients

Yves Congar, one of the leading theologians of Vatican II,
was ordained a priest in France in 1930. His PhD thesis was
on the Unity of the Church; he became a Catholic
professor. He was drafted into the French army, serving as
a chaplain. After the Nazi Blitzkrieg through France, he
spent the war in a POW camp, attempting to escape
several times. Quite likely he befriended both Catholics
and Protestants during his time in the camps, reinforcing
his ecumenicism.

Karl Rahner, another leading theologian of Vatican II,
was ordained as a priest in Austria in 1932, and also
pursued a doctorate, teaching in a Catholic seminary.
After the Nazis took over the university where he was
teaching, he transferred to the Pastoral Institute,
where he taught and was a pastor until 1949. He was
able to avoid active persecution by the Nazis.

Portrait of Karl Rahner, by Letizia Cremer, 2011

Wartime Experiences, Vatican II Opponents

Alfredo Ottaviani was ordained as a priest in Italy in 1916
and was appointed both as pro-Secretary of the Holy
Office in the Vatican and Cardinal in 1953 by Pope Pius XII.
He received doctorates in philosophy, theology, and canon
law, and was likely a professor. He is not mentioned in the
book, Pope At War, but the book, The Pope and Mussolini,
notes that he was an undersecretary of state at the
Vatican. He was the leader of the conservative faction both
before and during Vatican II.

Ottaviani, second from right, at signing of the Reichskonkordat, 1933

Marcel Lefebvre, the archbishop who formed the
breakaway Society of Pope Pius X (SSPX) when he rejected
the teachings of the Vatican II Decree of Religious Liberty,
was ordained a priest in 1929, then earned a doctorate in
theology. He was made rector of the seminary in Gabon,
Africa, returning to France after the war. In 1947 he was
appointed as a bishop in Africa, he was responsible for
building up the ecclesiastical structure in Africa. Often
missionary priests and priests from third-world countries
tend to be more conservative.

René Lefebvre and his family (including his wife Gabrielle Wattin and his son Marcel Lefebvre).

Marcel Lefebvre and the SSPX supported the policies of
the Vichy French government, which collaborated with the
Nazis in their persecution of the Jews, helping to send
French Jews to the death camps. The society has organized
pilgrimages to the tomb of the General Petain, leader of
the Vichy government, and Lefebvre has praised Petain for
“restoring France spiritually and morally.” Several SSPX
bishops are openly anti-Semitic, at least one is a Holocaust
denier. The SSPX in America has been accused of anti-
Semitism by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This story is complicated by the history of his father, Rene
Lefebvre, who died in the German concentration camp in
Sonnenberg, where he was condemned by the Gestapo for
his work for the French Resistance and British Intelligence.
In the French Resistance, he had smuggled soldiers and
escaped prisoners to Vichy France and London. He also
held conservative views; he was a die-hard monarchist. His
attitude toward the Jews was not mentioned by Dr
Wikipedia.

Victims of Sonnenburg concentration camp, where he died,1945

Many of the histories of Vatican II, including the excellent
history by William O’Malley, do not focus on the effect the
struggles of the Catholic Church under Nazism and fascism,
and how these struggles influenced the council decrees,
probably because the war was so recent it was in living
memory. We should be wary that if we reject the
principles of Vatican II, we run the risk of affirming anti-
Semitism, a triumphalist attitude of the Catholic Church, a
rejection of democracy and an affirmation of totalitarian
government.

We also have a video that explores how the World
War II experience of Nazism and Fascism affected our
view of the history of the Civil War and
Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights movement of the
Sixties, which happened in the same era as Vatican II.

SOURCES:
David Kertzer won the Pulitzer Prize for his book centering on Pope Pius
XI, The Pope and Mussolini, and his book on Pope Pius XII, The Pope At
War, which consults the newly opened Vatican archives, also opens
fascinating windows into this history, as if you were living in those times.
William O’Malley’s books on the Councils of Trent and Vatican II are
highly recommended. IMHO, you do not understand modern Catholicism
until you read these two ground-breaking books. He is one of the leading
scholars on Vatican II.
For our biography of Pope John XXIII, we listened to a series of lectures
by Learn25, formerly Now You Know Media.
We also have a video on the book reviews of the many books we will use
as sources for the decrees and history of the Second Vatican Council.

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
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