The Pope in WWII

The Catholic Church in WWII

The situation in WWII is far more complicated than even the word muddled gives it. The Pope does not seem to have been anti-Semitic but elements within the church hierarchy were. The nature of the church hierarchy is the element that adds the most to complexity. The Catholic Church is organized along national lines for administrative purposes. These divisions had great latitude on practical matters and could act for the most part autonomously.


Right-Ustashi posing with a Serb head. (Taken from Byzantinesacredart.com)


That autonomy gave the national branches of the common organization a different character than that in the Vatican. The preferences of the Pope often clashed with those of some advisors, the advisors with those of the local clergy, the local clergy with the local authorities and so on. One of the main concerns of the Pope and many other Catholic thinkers was the tendency of local authorities (governments) to attempt to subsume religion into their political apparatuses and the local clergy that sometimes viewed the totalitarian ideologies as an extension of their Catholic
faith.

The Italian Fascist state under Mussolini tried to co-opt church participation in his state by including clergy input on some small matters and praising the specific legacy the Catholic Church had on Italy. There is famous footage of nuns marching in a fascist parade. Such images are evocative and were intended to be. The Fascist state was attempting to give people the impression that the legitimacy of the Catholic Church was being extended to include the state.

The legacy of popular Catholic intolerance for religious minorities included anti-Semitism. Such sentiments tended to be more imbued in the national church structure than in the Vatican. The effort to unify all members of the Austrian Empire by using the Catholic Church as the tool also drew upon inspiring intolerance of non-Catholics.

The legacy of this was a degree of Clerical Fascism among all the states in the former Austrian Empire. The worst impacted were the Hungarians and Croats. The groups made the most uncomfortable by this were the Jews, Serbs, and Romanians. The Jews were Jewish (evidently) while the Serbs and Romanians were Orthodox. By the time that the Austrian Empire was broken up by the Allies, popular Catholic sentiment had accepted a considerable amount of hatred.

This hatred was easily transferred into fascist ideas with a slight clerical twist. In Austria, the country’s leadership did not give full reign to the urges. The government of Horthy in Hungary was less in control but also was not favorable to Fascism in any variant. In Jugoslavia, the urges did not find a political outlet other than theorizing.

The strategic situation in the build-up to WWII changed the landscape dramatically. The decision of the Hungarian and Romanian governments to ally with Germany meant that they had to accept German pressure to legalize their own Fascist parties. The Hungarian fascists were brutal but were sometimes kept in check by the Horthy government. Only when the Hungarian state did not have control of an area could the Hungarian fascists carry out atrocities.

The Romanian government was similarly unenthused about Fascism. It took a degree of pressure from Germany to legalize the Iron Legion. They were kept under control but the government caved into pressure to deport Jews to Germany. The acquiescence to German plans for genocide says little regarding the dispositions of the local population. The leadership of Gen. Antonescu was protective of Romanian Jews due to a close friendship between Antonescu and his Jewish college friend Dr. Filderman.

Croatia after the German defeat of Jugoslavia was radically different. Unlike any other country’s participation in the Holocaust, Croatia had wide public support for genocide and this was in part due to explicit support from the Croatian Catholic Church. The moral sanction of the national Catholic Church allowed far ranging support for the crimes of the Ustashi.



Left-1940s — Fascist Croatia committed a genocide against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies: Entrance into Jasenovac death camp number 3, with the sign presenting it as a “Labor Service of the Ustasha Defense - Concentration Camp No. III” The coat of arms above is inscribed: “Everything For the Fuhrer, Ustasha Defense.”(Taken from Byzantinesacredart.com)




The actions of the Ustashi were unlikely to be favored by the Vatican. The Pope had tried quietly to slow down the Fascist search for people in Italy and there were a number of people hidden in the Vatican. What is most probable is that the Croatian church establishment did not inform the Vatican about its actions in the Balkans. While the Croatian church was overt in the Balkans, the general disinterest in the Balkans made it possible to keep the actions of the Croat church quiet.




Dr. Johnatan Levy: “...the real impetus behind the Second World War slaughter of Jews, Serbs, and Roma by the [Croat] Ustasha was clerical fascism.” Before joining the Ustasha, Croats had to swear an oath on knife, hand-grenade, pistol and Roman Catholic Crucifix. (Taken from Byzantinesacredart.com)




During that time, the Ustashi was deeply intertwined with the Croat church and one had to swear an oath to the Catholic Church in order to join the Ustashi. The closest parallel is the Mafia. While the activities of the Mafia utilized the Catholic saints for ceremonies, the Catholic Church kept silent about their activities in Sicily and in America. That did not mean that the Vatican knew that the mafia existed until it leaked out to the general public.

The actions of the Croatian Catholic church are some of the most horrific in WWII however they were probably smart enough to keep their actions quiet from the Pope. The Pope’s other actions particularly diplomatically and in Italy reveal a man trying to keep a clean conscience while slowing down the German actions to the Holocaust, not a man trying to commit it.