Pope Francis Versus Christian Nationalism

Pope Francis spoke out for democracy and human rights at a time when many Christians support autocratic leaders like Donald Trump, Viktor Orban and Vladmir Putin.

It reminded me of a documentary I saw a few years ago, Steven Pressman's "Holy Silence", about the very different responses of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII to fascism in the 1930s and 1940s.

During the 1930s, Pius XI, spent the last 3 years of his pontificate taking a stand against fascism at a time when many Christians supported Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco.

At first, Pius XI supported Mussolini because Mussolini promised to restore privileges to the Catholic Church that it lost when Italy became a republic.

Then Hitler came to power. Pius XI despised Hitler and he realized that in supporting Mussolini, the Pope was enabling the rise of more extreme forms of fascism.

Pius XI criticized Mussolini when Mussolini began adopting Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws to Italy. In 1937, Pius XI had 300,000 copies of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge smuggled into Germany to be read at every Catholic pulpit on Easter Sunday that condemned the Nazi’s idolizing of the state and the idea of a master race.

Pius XI secretly commissioned American Jesuit journalist John LaFarge to write the encyclical Humani generis unitas that would explicitly condemn Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish policies. Pius XI died before he could deliver Humani generis unitas.

While Pius XI was willing to publicly confront Hitler, his successor, Pius XII was unwilling to attack Hitler except in the vaguest terms that the Nazis could easily disregard. While Pius XII secretly allowed monasteries to shelter Jews seeking refuge from Nazi persecution, he never spoke publicly against the Holocaust.

After the war, Pius XII was silent to the human rights abuses of Spanish leader Francisco Franco. Franco set up concentration camps for those that he deemed undesirable to his vision of Spanish society, which included liberals, socialists, gays and lesbians, intellectuals, Basques and Romanis. Between 200,000 to 300,000 people died.

Franco gave the Catholic Church special privileges in Spain, making it the state religion and giving it government subsidies and tax exemption status, as well as conforming Spanish laws to conform with Catholic dogma.

In exchange, Pius XII gave Franco the right to name Catholic bishops in Spain, as well as the right to veto any clergy. This insured that Franco would not have any clergy that would be critical of his human rights abuses.

Christian nationalists who want Trump, Orban and Putin to have the state favor their brand of Christianity are making the same mistake that Pius XII made.

"The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI" by Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Encyclical-Pius-XI/dp/0156006316/ref=sr_1…

"The Pope's Last Crusade: How an American Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI's Campaign to Stop Hitler" by Peter Eisner
https://www.amazon.com/Popes-Last-Crusade-American-Campaign-ebook/dp/B0…

"The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe" by David Kertzer
https://www.amazon.com/Pope-Mussolini-Secret-History-Fascism/dp/0812983…

"Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII" by John Cornwell
https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Pope-Secret-History-Pius/dp/0670886939/r…

Here is the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge by Pope Pius XI
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi…

Here is the draft of the encyclical Humani Generis Unitas by Pope Pius XI
https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-t…