It must be remembered that the views of the Pope about the war and about a future peace have been authoritatively expressed in various encyclicals and in the five points on which His Holiness stated a just peace could alone be founded. No qualification of these statements has been, or is likely to be made. At the same time the first care of the Pope is for the religious welfare of his flock and further therefore, any regime which fully safeguards the full exercise of religion is likely to be sympathetically regarded by the Vatican.
While it is too early to assess the effects of the French volte-face on Catholic opinion or Vatican policy, it may be useful to anticipate certain likely developments.
The new French Government is colouring itself with a more Catholic complexion than a Third Republic Ministry could have had. It is very premature to talk of a Latin bloc. Italian hostility is unabated and will continue until the loot is in the bag. The Spaniards, while they respect Petain, are apparently quite sceptical about his Government doing anything to regenerate France. The press in Spain, and broadcasting, are controlled by the Phalangist movement which is quite young and was virtually non-existent before 1936. Its members watch to see if France can produce a similar young movement and may believe in it when it comes. At present they see M. Laval as a crafty old parliamentarian dressed up in a difficult and unfamiliar part.
The
Osservatore Romano
printed an article by a Monsignor Boehm, which has only reached this country in extracts, but seems to have been friendly to the Petain programme for France. Too much attention is easily paid to short quotations from the
Osservatore
or the Vatican Radio. These things should never be treated as Papal pronouncements,
Vladimir
D'Ormesson, French Ambassador at the Vatican, may well have been instructed to seek some official Vatican utterance to strengthen the Petain Government in France, but is has been categorically stated at Rome that there has been no such official utterance either for or against Petain.
But the incident is significant. The Popular Front governments in France and Spain were anti-Catholic, and anti-British propaganda in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal particularly will take the line that our success entails the return of that kind of government in France. We should make it very clear that our success will set France free from German domination: that we mean to do that, but do not in the least want to dictate the form or spirit of French political life. Undoubtedly postwar
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- 2 -France would be orientated towards this country, but we have no trouble in being friends with non-parliamentary regimes as in Portugal and Turkey. The Petain government is hostile to us, for it will not survive our success, but it will be better propaganda, if we do not criticise too truculently and scornfully its internal policy.
It is more than ever important to keep stating our aims in the broadest way, as the defence of Christianity and of existing good things in Europe, national independence, individual and family rights and so on, as the preservation of a civilised order, and not as the democratic counter-revolution against Nazis and Fascists. Certain papers, e.g.
The New Statesman
urge that “Britain should become the rallying point for the revolution everywhere”. (leading article, July 6th) This would have, of course, a very bad effect upon Catholic opinion everywhere in Europe and North and South America and enable the enemy to illustrate his contention that our weapons are famine and revolution for Europe. The Red Army is seen as a real menace at the Vatican. The Catholic country of Lithuania has just been lost to the Church and taken by the Soviet, and the Germans can say, and doubtless do, that they would like to be free to deal with the Soviet, that one day they will, but that we pin them to the West and the Soviet alone gains. The Germans, who on their own demerits, are so unpopular in Catholic circles, are adjudged the lesser evil in Eastern Europe if Soviet rule is the alternative as in Poland. In England, Communism is not taken seriously, but in Central and Southern Europe where almost every country has had at least a small taste of revolutionary violence either twenty years ago or later, it is judged very real and makes an additional factor in all European appraisals of the situation.
Catholic sentiment is a very important
long range
force: it might seem a better bet to support militant socialism abroad but in the end religious influences are the stronger.
The Fascist regime in Italy, is since the Axis, increasingly unfriendly to the Church which has opposed both the Axis and the war. But the Lateran Treaty remains in force and the advantages are considerable for the Church, which on the whole prefers the devil it knows to those who might supplant him. If the Fascists are developing their own kind of anti-clericalism, as they are, it is not forgotten that they have supplanted a much more whole-hearted and aggressive secularism.
It is safe to say that the Vatican, which made every effort with President Roosevelt to keep Italy out of the war, would like nothing better than a separate peace for Italy, except perhaps a peace all round. If the danger of famine becomes real, it may be difficult for the Pope not to take part in a humanitarian appeal to the New World for food ships. This appeal might be taken up in America as an alternative to the policy of helping Britain by supplies and would appeal especially to those arch-isolationists the American Catholics, with their Irish dislike of Britain. We should get in first with our statement that any food shortage is simply the result of German policy and German military occupation, and that the German army has only to leave any particular country for that country to take again its place in World Trade.
American Catholic opinion is of much importance at Rome. The twenty million American Catholics are not rich relatively to other Americans. A sixth of the population, they are said to own not a sixth of the wealth but only a twenty-fifth. But that still leaves them much richer than most Catholic countries, and they have a generous tradition and much of the work of the Church, like the foreign missions, is coming to rely more and more on them. They would have preferred both the Pope and the President to be much blinder to the issues at stake in Europe, and the American Cardinals have not echoed the Pope's condemnation of Germany for fear of hastening American intervention.
English Catholic Opinion
The great mass of English Catholic opinion is solidly behind the war and not noticeably affected by the proportion of Irish blood which it carries. With the collapse of France, however, we may expect a new twist to German propaganda which will endeavour to exploit the idea of a Latin bloc, in the hopes of arousing Catholic sympathy and support in this country, in Ireland, in Canada and in the United States. However nebulous and unreal at the moment are the prospects of such a Latin bloc, we should be prepared for enemy propaganda to Catholic peoples, arguing that while Germany is necessary to counter Russia, the Catholic powers of Spain, France and Italy will maintain a Catholic Europe and a western culture; those who have the cause of religion at heart should therefore do everything in their power to encourage these forces of Christian culture; the first step therefore is to make peace accepting Axis Europe. In order to counter this probable development, active steps are being taken by the Catholic Section in collaboration with the General Division.
The English Catholic Weekly Press
The Catholic papers, are absolutely independent and are in no way official organs of the Hierarchy or of Catholics as a whole.
The Tablet
is thoroughly staunch and will continue to exercise great influence on educated Catholic opinion.
The Catholic Times
and the
Universe
have fully supported the war but their attitude towards the Petain Government has been indiscriminating and has given grounds for some anxiety. In their sympathy for a Government, which after so many years of anti-clerical rule, has in it a strong Catholic element, they have entirely glossed over the broken pledges of which the Government has been guilty. It is however only fair to say that in spite of their sympathy for certain aspects of the internal policy of the present French regime, these papers will not weaken about the prosecution of the war.
The Catholic Herald
is in a different category. In order to mark itself off from the rest of the Catholic press, it tries to be novel and startling. It is largely dependent upon unpaid contributors and thus gives the freedom of its columns to cranks who have failed to get an entree elsewhere. Strong representations have been made to the editor that his paper is creating a very unhappy impression both in Catholic and non-Catholic circles.
The Weekly Review
- although run by Catholics this paper is not a denominational one.
General Recommendations
1. Britain's war aims should be kept on a broad and high level, and should not be identified with Popular Front Government still less with revolution. We should make it quite plain that the political and internal future of France is for Frenchmen to decide and we should refrain from condemning the Petain
internal
programme in France
2. As revolution is particularly dreaded by Catholic populations, and famine is the road to revolution, we should counter the impression that we are responsible for the lack of food in Europe, and should keep the blockade in the background of propaganda and always defined as keeping supplies from the German war machine.
3. If conditions with the Soviet improve the matter must be handled with care as an uncomfortable necessity and as turning the tables on the Nazis.
4. We should continue to use Papal utterances in our propaganda in conjunction with those of President Roosevelt and our own statesmen particularly Lord Halifax, to convey the sense of a huge common moral front uniting the Catholic Church, the Empire and the United States in a moral alliance against Nazidom.
