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18 The Vatican and the United States

The Catholic Church is deeply affected by the apocalyptic events which have shaken Europe since the opening of the twentieth century and by the prospect of a future even more convulsed than the past. Enormous losses in membership and the increasing strength and daring of its mortal enemies have compelled it to look Westwards. Here Catholicism seeks new fields in which to consolidate and expand as compensation for its weakened position in bankrupt Europe.

This process, which had already begun in the opening years of the present century, was greatly accelerated during and after the First World War, and received a tremendous impetus particularly during the Second World War.

The Vatican has given more and more attention to the young and flourishing Church in the Americas, from which it had already greatly benefited. Its gains are not local only, nor exclusively in the religious field. They extend beyond America and to spheres with which at first sight the Catholic Church appears to have little or no concern.

The Vatican, in fact, is eager to transform the Americas into a solid Catholic Continent, to counterbalance the already half-lost Continent of Europe. If this statement sounds exaggerated it should be remembered that we are dealing with an institution accustomed to carrying out its plans, not in terms of countries and years or even generations alone, but in terms of continents and centuries.

Long-range policies usually escape the notice of those who are preoccupied with more immediate issues, but it is possible to observe the Vatican’s plans in the Western hemisphere developing under our very eyes. The increased tempo of the Catholic Church’s activities in the Americas and the success it has already achieved in that continent are more than remarkable. This success, however, is due, not only to the energy with which the Catholic Church has undertaken its task, but also, to a very great extent, to the fact that general economic, social, and cultural conditions are infinitely more stable than in Europe. This favors the plans of the Church, which has begun to be regarded by many as a stabilizing factor and a barrier against the revolutionary spirit of the age.

Such affinity of outlook and interests is not only to be found in those parts of the Continent which the Catholic Church has spiritually ruled for centuries―such as Central and South America―but has begun to penetrate and influence the attitude of Protestant North America as well. For it is there that the Catholic Church has directed its main activities for a generation and is still striving to conquer. The United States of America has become the key to the policy of the Vatican, not only with regard to the American Continent, but in relation to the whole world.

The policy of the Vatican, which for centuries was based on alliance with Catholic countries in Europe, now has been shifted to the West. The Vatican, foreseeing the disaster impending over Europe, has been preparing for the creation of a new Catholic world in the Americas on which it will be able to rely for the secular support it needs.

For such a policy to succeed it is necessary for the Vatican, not only to exercise spiritual dominion over South and Central America, but also to capture as completely as possible the fountainhead of American dynamism―namely, the United States of America. the United States of America, being the most powerful, wealthy, and active country in the Western hemisphere, has quickly become the undisputed leader of the American countries; and even before the Second World War it was obviously destined to be one of the most powerful countries, if not the most powerful country, in the world.

In view of this the Vatican, during the last generation, has concentrated its main efforts on making progress in the United States of America. By so doing it has followed the rule which has guided its policy throughout the centuries―namely, to ally itself with powerful secular nations.

The activity of the Vatican in relation to the United States of America becomes even more interesting when one considers that North America is a Protestant country. Catholics have formed only a very small minority, and powerful forces of a religious character are aligned against the incursion of Catholicism in that country.

What was the position of the Catholic Church before this new Vatican policy was put into operation―and what is it now? How does the Catholic Church intend to tighten its hold over a great Protestant country? And, above all, what is the Catholic Church’s influence in social and political matters and how far has its hold affected the course of the United States of America’s foreign policy before and during the Second World War?

When Washington took command of the Continental Army, Catholicism had only one Church (in Philadelphia); while Protestant America had a yearly celebration on “Pope’s Day” (November 5), during which the Pope’s image was ceremoniously burned at the stake (1775).

On the entry of the United States of America into the Second World War (1941) the Catholic Church owned or controlled a network of churches, schools, hospitals, and newspapers spreading from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. It had become the biggest, most compact and powerful religious denomination in the United States. The American President deemed it necessary to keep an “official personal” envoy at the Vatican, besides having scores of private envoys journeying backwards and forwards between Washington and Rome as the situation required. All this happened within the period of just over a century and a half. The feat as such is remarkable, and becomes even more so when one considers the influence that the Catholic Church has begun to exercise on the life of the nation as a whole.

What contributed most to the numerical increase of Catholicism was the mass emigration from Europe which occurred at the close of the last century and the beginning of the twentieth century. It was at that period that the Catholic Church gained most in strength and spread all over the States. The following figures give an idea of the enormous numerical gains made by Catholicism only through immigration: Between 1881 and 1890 the American Catholic Church acquired over 1, 250,000 new members; from 1891 to the close of the century another 1, 225,000; and between 1901 and 1910 the figure was well over 2, 316,000. In the brief space of three decades Catholicism had been strengthened by almost 5,000,000 new members through immigration alone.

Parallel with this numerical increase the establishment of churches and all other religious, social, and cultural branches kept step with the demands of the new Catholic populations. Their efficient supervision required a proportionately expanding hierarchical machinery.

The Vatican, already watching the progress of the American Church, was not slow in creating the necessary ruling bodies, represented by archdioceses, which in 1911 rose to 16, while bishoprics were brought to 40. Religious, semi-religious, and lay institutions grew everywhere with the same rapidity. Within thirty years, for instance, Orders for women, consisting mainly of small diocesan organizations, reached the figure of 250. The activities of some were nation-wide, such as the Ursuline, whose members were mainly concerned with educational work, the Sisters of Charity, and so on. Similar Orders for men grew all over the country, although they were not so numerous or varied; the principal and most active of them all was that of the Jesuits.

All these factors contributed to a steady increase of the Catholic population in the United States during this period and in the following decades grew in proportion. By 1921 the Catholic Church was already conducting 24 standard colleges for women and 43 for men, 309 normal training schools, 6, 550 elementary schools, and 1, 552 high schools; the total attendance at these establishments exceeding 2,000,000 did not stop there, but continued to soar upwards, gaining great impetus with the entry of the United States of America into the Second World War. By the end of hostilities (1945) the American Hierarchy was made up of: 1 cardinal, 22 archbishops, 136 bishops, and about 39,000 priests; while the Catholic Church controlled over 14, 500 parishes and numerous seminaries, where well over 21, 600 students were being prepared for priesthood. The number of monks was 6, 700, and of nuns 38,000, while Religious Orders included 6, 721 Brothers and 139, 218 Sisters, of whom 61, 916 nuns were engaged in works other than teaching. (In 1946 Pope Pius XII created four additional American cardinals.)

In the field of general education the Catholic Church has made even greater strides. In the years immediately following the First World War there were not sufficient high schools in the United States of America to deserve a separate report or an official directory, but by 1934 there were 966 Catholic schools, with 158, 352 pupils; by 1943 1, 522 schools, with 472, 474 pupils; and by 1944 the Catholic parochial schools, with 2, 048, 723 pupils. In 1945 the Catholic Church owned, controlled, and supervised a grand total of 11, 075 educational establishments, giving Catholic instruction to 3, 205, 804 young people (an increase of 167, 948 pupils over the preceding year).

No branch of education escapes the attention of Catholicism. It meets the needs of the youngest elementary pupils, the pupils at parochial and secondary schools, and the students at Catholic colleges and universities (769, in addition to the 193 seminaries).

American youth is cared for by the Catholic Church not only in schools, but also outside them. For that purpose societies and organizations of all kinds have been established. Bishops and others concerned with such activities are provided with a National Catholic Youth Council consisting of the leaders of the diocesan youth councils. Other important bodies are the two Catholic student institutions, the Newman Club Federation and the National Federation of Catholic College Students, with more than 600 clubs. The Boy Scouts are supervised by a special committee of bishops.

Once the young people have reached manhood or womanhood, the Catholic Church provides for their needs through the National Council of Catholic Men and the National Council of Catholic Women. These Councils have set up thousands of parish groups, each responsible to its respective bishop, whom they are ready to help in his various religious and non-religious undertakings. The building up of high schools, strengthening the Legion of Decency, sustaining the “Catholic Hour” and similar programmes on national radio networks, and so on, constitute the duties of the Councils.

The Catholic Church, which has also set itself to control the field of charitable institutions, has made similar striking progress in this direction and in the same period set up 726 hospitals.

During the Second World War the Catholic Church did not abandon its work amongst the troops, but built up a Catholic army of chaplains, which, from a mere 60 before Pearl Harbor, rose to 4, 300 by 1945, Mgr. Spellman having been appointed “Military Vicar of Army and Navy Chaplains” as early as 1940.

The average number of Americans received yearly into the fold of the Catholic Church is about 85,000. Within a single year, 1944, 90, 822 American citizens became Catholics, and during the years of the Second World War the Church gained a total of 543, 970 converts.

With figures like these it is no wonder that the Catholic Church, within the brief period of 150 years (1790 to 1945), has increased the number of its American members from 30,000 to over 24,000,000 (including Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands―see Catholic Directory, 1945).

The efficiency and success of all these nation-wide and manifold activities of the Catholic Church are due in part to the zeal with which the Catholics work for the maintenance and spreading of the Faith. Not less important are factors of a purely spiritual and administrative character. The most notable of these are without doubt the Catholics’ singleness of purpose, unity, and discipline and last, but not least, the powerful nation-wide organization which directs the innumerable activities of the Catholic Church in the United States of America—namely, the National Catholic Welfare Conference. This organization was created during the First World War to deal with problems affecting the interests of the Church in the United States of America, and appeared under the name the National Catholic War Council. It was subsequently known as the National Catholic Welfare Council, and finally as the National Catholic Welfare Conference. In it the American Hierarchy has almost unchallenged sway, although theoretically its power is of purely advisory nature.

The N. C. W. C. has come to the factotum of the Catholic Church and on its driving force the expansion of Catholicism depends.

In addition to the various activities of a charitable, cultural, and educational character at which we have just glanced, the N. C. W. C. is responsible for the efficiency of another instrument for the furtherance of American Catholicism―namely, the Catholic Press.

In 1942 the Catholic Church in the United States of America had 332 Church publications, with a total circulation of 8, 925, 665. These comprised papers of all descriptions, including 125 weeklies, 127 monthly magazines, and 7 daily newspapers. Within the brief period of ten years, up to the end of the Second World War, the circulation of Catholic papers increased by over 2, 500,000—or nearly 35 per cent.

All these papers are in close touch with the Press Department of the N.C.W.C. This Department describes itself as the “International Catholic news- gathering and distributing agency founded and controlled by the Catholic archbishops and bishops of the United States of America.” It is ruled by journalists skilful in their profession, and maintains correspondents in all the most important towns of the United States of America and the rest of the world, collecting news items from all five continents, which are then distributed all over the country and treated from the angle best suited to the interests of Catholicism. The N. C. W. C. Press Department during the Second World War forwarded between 60,000 and 70,000 words a week to about 190 publishers; and in 1942 it claimed to be serving 437 Catholic publications in the United States of America and other countries. Many of these Catholic papers had a good circulation, at the end of the Second World War. To cite only a few:

Catholic Missions, 530,000.

The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, 260,000.

The Young Catholic Messenger, 420,000.

Our Sunday Visitor, 480,000.

Sales of Catholic pamphlets in the United States of America by 1946 approximated 25,000,000 a year. In spite of war conditions, 650 new titles were published between 1942 and 1946, many attaining “best-seller” status with a sale of 100,000 copies each. The Paulist Press leads, its sales totaling 5, 967, 782. More than 10, 500,000 people in 1946 bought the 367 publications of the American Catholic Press. In the three preceding years thirty-five publications were launched and 1, 500,000 subscribers gained. There were four Catholic dailies in foreign languages.

In addition to serving papers in the United States of America, the N. C. W. C. also serves Catholic papers abroad, especially in Central and South America. Its Noticias Catolicas, for instance, go to all four daily papers of Mexico City.

Besides the N. C. W. C., the Church controls the Press through the Catholic Press Association, which is a Conference bringing together hundreds of publishers and editors, arranging for advertising the Catholic Press, reducing costs, encouraging Catholic outlook and Catholic journalists, and so on.

The Catholic Press, whose largest circulation is in parish papers, reaches all cultural and political strata. Chief among such papers are the Jesuit weekly America, The Commonwealth, the Catholic World (published by Paulists), and the Inter-racial Review, which is said to be the most influential with regard to racial problems.

The last mentioned journal attempted to deal with the question of the Negroes, who at the end of the Second World War constituted one-tenth of the American population (13,000,000). During the decade preceding Peral Harbor the Catholic Church had started a drive for the conversion of this minority, and, although it made no remarkable progress (300,000 in 1945, as compared with the 5, 600,000 acknowledging Protestant denominations), the attempt is worthy of notice.

Hostility had existed in the past between Negroes and Catholic minorities consisting mainly of immigrants who competed with the cheap Negro labor. This began to disappear with the stabilization of the economic life of the country and with the rebellion of the Negroes against discrimination by Protestant society and the Protestant Churches.

With the passing of the years the Negro has tried with increasing success to fight back at all those forces which endeavor to keep him a second-class citizen. The Catholic Church, by preaching racial equality and the right of the Negro to be on par with men of other races, will one day be able to swing to her side that minority―with the racial, social, economic, and political repercussions which would automatically follow.

The Catholic Church’s main instrument for the conversion of Negroes is its usual one―namely, education. Thousands of nuns are engaged exclusively in teaching Negro children.

Almost one-tenth of the 85,000 American citizens who are annually converted to Catholicism are Negroes. In the period between 1928 and 1940 the average per year was about 5,000, but during the war that figure greatly increased, the major gains being in urban centres.

During the Second World War the Catholic Church made great strides in its missionary work, and the number of priests devoting their full time to Negro conversion was 150 times greater than it was fifteen years before Pearl Harbor. Religious Orders for women assigned to work amongst Negros were 72, with almost 2,000 nuns, while religious Orders for men during the same period increased from 9 to 22. Most prominent of these Orders were those of the Josephite Fathers, founded in 1871, the Society of the Holy Ghost, the Divine Word, the Redemptorists, the Jesuits, the Benedictines; and for women the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, an Order for Negro women, and the Sister of the Blessed Sacrament.

The Catholic Church runs a university for Negroes, the St. Xavier University; and while in 1941 only ten Catholic institutions of higher learning admitted Negroes, in 1945 more than a hundred had opened their doors to them, as well as opening and encouraging on a large scale the priesthood for Negro youths.

By the end of the Second World War the Catholic Church in America, although it had prepared the machinery for the conversion of the Negroes, had by no means seriously embarked on the work, feeling it was premature. But on the day it deems opportune it will start a full drive in the racial field and without doubt will make great inroads. This particularly in view of the fact that about 8,000,000 Negroes claim affiliation with no religious denomination.

We must remember that the Catholic Church thinks in terms of centuries, and that, having a long-range policy, it prepares its machinery long before it intends to use it. One of the great moves of the Catholic Church to convert America to Catholicism will be its efforts to win over the American Negro to the Catholic Church. Significant activities in this field were already taking place before and during the Second World War, and increased with the end of hostilities. To quote only two: the work of the Inter-racial Review, as already mentioned, in the sphere of propaganda, and the activities of the Catholic Inter-racial Council in the field of practical endeavor.

In addition to all these activities, the Catholic Church, again through the formidable organization of the N. C. W. C., interests itself in social questions and the problem of labor.

The task of the N. C. W. C. is to drill the Catholic and non-Catholic population the social teachings of the Church in the controversial economic- social sphere, by endorsing all that the various Popes have said on the subject, based on the proclamations of Pope Leo XIII. Thus questions dealing with the family, just wages, private property, social security, labor organizations, and so on, are propagated as seen and taught by the Catholic Church. This teaching in the hard field of practical politics boils down to the advocacy of the Corporate State, as attempted by European Fascism, and hostility to Socialism and, above all, Communism.

The N. C. W. C. specializes in this important work through a “Catholic Conference on Industrial Problems, ” which organizes discussions on current social issues―conferences which have been rightly described as “travelling universities.” From 1922 to 1945 more than a hundred of these conferences were held in the principal industrial cities, sponsored by churches, labor leaders, professors in economics, and the like.

The Catholic Church also began a drive to train its Hierarchy in social problems. To this end the American Hierarchy organized “Priests’ Summer Schools of Social Action” and Congresses such as the National Catholic Congress on Social Action, held in Milwaukee in 1938 and in Cleveland the following year, the first being attended by 35 bishops, 750 priests, and thousands of laymen.

Such activity is aimed at two great goals; the penetration by Catholics of the economic-social field of America, and the gaining of influence amongst workers and capitalists alike in order to fight the menace of Socialism and Communism.

To achieve both these aims the Catholic Hierarchy again employs the N. C. W. C., whose first great organized and open attack against Communism was launched in 1937, when its Social Department made a detailed survey of Communism in the United States of America. It was followed by each diocese setting up a committee of priests to follow the progress of Communism and to report their findings to the N. C. W. C. Catholics Schools, Catholics workers, professors, etc., had the task of passing on any news of Communist activities and were kept supplied with anti-Red pamphlets, books, and films, while the most brilliant priests were sent to the Catholic University of Washington to become experts in social science. The Catholic Press was flooded by anti-Communist advertisements and articles, while Catholic workers and students were continually warned not to cooperate with the Reds.

This campaign was not merely theoretical, but entered the sphere of Labor itself; and also, in 1937, a special organization to fight Communism was created with the blessing of Cardinal Hayes of New York, and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists was set up to carry the war of Catholicism into the very unions. In addition to this Association there were many others bent on the same task, such as the Conservative Catholic Labor Alliance and the Pacifist Catholic Workers Group.

Another field in which the Catholic Church exerts a disproportionate influence is that of the screen.

In view of the immense importance that the screen has assured in modern society, it has been one of the primary goals of the Catholic Church, particularly of the American Catholic Church, to control, either directly or indirectly, an industry whose power to influence the masses it is generally agreed is unequalled.

Although at its inception the Church did not take much notice of this new industry, with the passing of time it grew increasingly interested, an interest which finally culminated in the Pope himself taking the unprecedented step of writing an Encyclical on the subject (Vigilante Cura, issued July 2nd, 1936, by Pope Pius XI). The Church, having realized the power of the film to influence the millions for bad or for good had determined to intervene, because as Pius XI put it, “the motion picture with its direct propaganda assumes a position of commanding influence.” In his letter the Pope advised Catholics to see that the screen be inspired by Christian principles, to watch what was seen by the public, stating that it was their duty to have a say in the production of such a new medium and when possible to boycott films, individuals and organizations which did not conform to the tenets of the Church. Indeed, Pius XI went even further, declaring that it would be a good thing if the whole film industry were inspired (read controlled) by the Catholic Church.”The problem of the production of moral films would be solved radically if it were possible for us to have the production wholly inspired by the principles of Christian (read Catholic) morality, ” Pius XI asserted.

Such directives came from the Vatican at a period when in the United States Catholic organizations were already hanging like invisible Damocles’ swords over every Hollywood studio, and the most important of which, the Legion of Decency, was warmly praised by the Pope himself: “Because of your vigilance and because of the pressure which has been brought to bear by public opinion, the motion picture has shown improvement.” (Vigilante Cura.)

Although previous to the issue of this Encyclical Catholic pressure on the film industry was considerable, after the Pope’s injunction it became even stronger, until nowadays there is hardly an individual in the whole of the film world who before planning a new production does not first reckon with Catholic approval or displeasure.

How can a religious body like the Catholic Church exert such power over an industry which at first glance has not the slightest affinity with religion?

In the same way as it does in the case of the Press or other similar means of public information or entertainment which deal directly with the masses; that is mainly through public pressure.

As early as 1927 such pressure had already become so considerable that certain producers made it a point to submit scripts to the National Catholic Welfare Conference for approval of ideas and scenes.

This custom, although unpopular, spread with the growing of the main Catholic organization which more than any other had set out to censor the film industry from coast to coast, namely the Legion of Decency, which assumed that name in 1930. In that same year the Production Code was written and presented to the Association of Motion Picture Producers by the Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S. J. and Martin Quigley. The Code was meant to advise producers what to film and what not film, what would be approved by the Catholic Church and what the Catholic Church would boycott.

This Catholic incursion into the film industry received further impetus when three years later the Papal representative summoned American Catholics “to united and vigorous campaign for the purification of the screen, which has become a deadly menace to morals.” (Most Rev. G. Cicognani, in his capacity as a representative of the Pope. October 1, 1933.)

The heavy machinery of boycott and threats was put into action with more vigor than before. Millions throughout the States signed the Legion of Decency pledge: “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost… as a member of the Legion of Decency I pledge myself to remain away from them (films disapproved by the Church). I promise further to stay away altogether from places of amusement which show them as a matter of policy.”

When, in addition to the rather stringent censorship through which every American film had to be subjected by the Legion, the Catholic Bishops followed the instructions of the Pope to the effect that besides the censorship of the Legion of Decency they should set up special reviewing boards in their own diocese so that “they may even censor films which are admitted to the general list (or the Legion of Decency approved list), ” Hollywood became scared.

Will Hays announced that the Production Code (which until then had not been taken very seriously by the studios) would become a moral guide, and, later, took the unprecedented step of reporting to the Pope that he, Hays, thought as Pius XI did; indeed that “he found himself in accord with the Pope’s views on the morals of modern movies.”

Since the Second World War, Catholic pressure has increased a hundredfold. Film producers who are not careful can get into trouble through being ignorant of certain moral teachings of the Catholic Church; those concerning marriage, for instance, which caused Mgr. McClafferty, Executive Secretary of the Legion of Decency, to declare: “the light of the screen as a death ray of disintegration… is attacking the family… by pictures which treat marriage lightly, which solve marital troubles through divorce.” (Detroit, September 1946.)

At the conference at which he said this, 700 women representatives of more than 500 Catholic High Schools, colleges and universities in 30 states attended, pledging themselves to combat films which do not conform to Catholic teachings.

There are occasions when the Legion of Decency openly condemns certain films before or during production, thus involving the film company and actors in serious financial losses. This occurred when the Catholic Church through the American Legion of Decency, “condemned” the $4,000,000 film “Forever Amber.”

Following this “condemned” rating by the Legion, numerous Bishops throughout the States denounced the film. As a result, “some who booked the film already are reported asking to be left out of their contracts, ” as Variety reported (December 1947). After earning more than $200,000 in the first fortnight of showing, “the film receipts have fallen off considerably, due to the Church ban.”

20th Century Fox Company had to make an appeal to the United States of America Hierarchy, who insisted on certain specific conditions by which Catholic morals could be respected. The Company had to submit to changes willed by the Legion of Decency in order to lift the film out of the “condemned” list. Not only had the film company to appeal to the Catholic Tribunal to revise the film according to Catholic dicts, but the President of the Corporation, Mr. Spyros Skouras, had to apologize for earlier statements by Fox executives criticizing the Legion for condemning the picture.

Thus a great Film Corporation had to submit before a tribunal set up by the Catholic Church, sitting above the Courts of the United States of America, judging, condemning and dictating, not according to the laws of the country, but the tenets of a Church which, thanks to the power of its organizations, can impose its standards upon, and therefore indirectly influence, the non- Catholic population of the country.

The Fox case was not the only one. It was preceded and followed by several others no less remarkable. To quote a similar case: during this same period the Loew Company followed up the Hollywood sacking of the ten alleged Communist writers, directors and producers by banning Chaplin’s most brilliant film, “Monsieur Verdoux, ” from its 225 cinemas in the United States after a protest by the Catholic War Veterans that Chaplin’s “background is un-American” and that “he does not love the United States of America.” Shortly before this, the Catholic Legion of Decency forced the temporary withholding of “The Black Narcissus, ” a British film, on the ground that it was a reflection on Catholic Nuns.

The Catholic Church, however, does not confine its activities to condemning the motion picture industry. It has been able to deepen its influence in Hollywood and elsewhere to such an extent that in the years following the Second World War, Protestant United States of America saw, not without bewilderment, one Catholic film after another appear in quick succession on her screens.

In 1946 plans were laid in Hollywood for the production of 52 educational Catholic films a year for schools and parish halls, under the direction of Fr. Louis Gales. Since then various projects have taken shape in Hollywood and in influential American financial circles.

The Catholic Church has set out to capture the screens of the globe. Hence the tremendous efforts of the American Hierarchy to exert increasingly heavy pressure upon the motion pictures of America; the American motion picture industry is the paramount supplier of films to the 90,000 cinemas of the World (1949).

And when it is remembered that large organizations such as the Knights of Columbus with its 650,000 members, the Catholic War Veterans, who in 1946 began a nation-wide campaign to increase their membership to 4,000,000, the National Council of Catholic Men, Catholic Trade Unions, the National Council of Catholic Women wit more than 5,000,000 members, the Senior Catholic Daughters of America, Catholic students, and so on are all working in unison at the bidding of the American Hierarchy, it is not difficult to guess how a religious body like the Catholic Church, although still a minority, can already exert a disproportionate influence upon motion pictures, one of the greatest industries of Protestant America.

In addition to the film industry, the Catholic Church has also made great strides in the direct and indirect influencing of other instruments of public entertainment, education and information, such as the stage, the advertising business, etc.

The increasing power of the Catholic Church in practically every department of life has made it a very adventurous task for anyone to disregard discretion or prudence in the publishing world. One could quote innumerable cases when national dailies have had to water down and very often to leave out altogether some items of news simply to avoid arousing the wrath of the Catholic Hierarchy.

Pressure on the press is exerted more often than is believed through the boycotting of advertisements, as in the well known case of David Smart when “the Catholic Hierarchy scared the shirt off his back with a boycott of his whisky advertisers in Ken and Esquire” before the Second World War. (George Seldes, The Catholic Crisis.) With the passing of the years, such instances have occurred with alarming frequency.

The same methods are employed with publishers of books, most of whom, before even considering a manuscript, try to guess in what light it will be judged by the Catholic Church, which besides “paralyzing” and killing a book can indirectly hit back at the publishers; by withdrawing or refusing acceptance of advertisements; by publicly condemning certain types of literature; by promoting wars on “bad books, ” like the one initiated in 1942 by the publication of a radio talk given by Cardinal Spellman, and later on led by the New York Journal American and supported by leaders and societies of all faiths; and by hundreds of such sundry devices often involving anyone thus boycotted in serious financial losses.

These activities, although perhaps not as spectacular as those connected with the screen, yet are bound to have profound repercussions on the life of the average citizen of the United States of America, particularly when in addition to such negative Catholic pressure one remembers the ramifications of the Catholic, or Catholic sympathizing, press and the vast machinery of the N. C. W. C.

Catholicism in the United States of America also owes its progress to another factor, which, although not so well known, is greatly responsible for Catholic influence―namely, the fact that the majority of the Catholic population live in urban centres. It should be remembered that it is chiefly through the urban population that religious, cultural, social, and political changes are effected, and that it is the urban masses who exert decisive influence on issues of national importance.

The Catholics’ numerical strength and the fact of their living mainly in urban centres have made them a force of considerable account, with which every politician, from the town attorney to the Presidential Candidate, must reckon.

The great strength of Catholicism in the United States of America and the progress it has made there in the twentieth century, as compared with that of the other 256 recognized religious denominations which have tried to convert America is united into one solid bloc, and that all its forces are directed to the one goal―namely, to make America a Catholic country.

This unity and definite purpose has, first, made the Catholic Church the largest of all religious bodies in America; in 1945 Catholicism stood foremost in the number of its church members in thirty-eight out of fifty largest American towns. Secondly, this unity has given birth to a peculiar brand of Catholicism known as “American Catholicism, ” which was first snubbed by the Vatican then tolerated, and finally encouraged in the form in which it stands today.

The man who gave organized impetus to the unification of American Catholics was Father Hecker, who in the last century maintained that in order to make progress in the United States of America the Catholic Church must make itself American. Father Hecker fought against the tendency of that period among Catholic immigrants to create their own churches with their own national bishops speaking their own languages, thus forming innumerable Catholic bodies within the Catholic Church of America.

As an illustration of what that meant, as lately as 1929, in the City of Chicago alone, there existed 124 English Catholic churches, 38 Polish, 35 German, 12 Italian, 10 Slovakian, 8 Bohemian, 9 Lithuanian, 5 French, 4 Croatian, and 8 of other nationalities, making a total of 253.

Had this tendency been allowed to grow, Catholicism, in spite of its religious unity, would have split its effort, and consequently, like the Protestant denominations, would have remained a comparatively obscure body in the United States of America. But the spiritual and administrative unification of Catholicism and the effort of making the Catholic Church “American” produced another factor of great importance: it gave birth to a new brand of Catholicism peculiar to the United States of America. This was noticed as early as 1870, when Europeans began to state that “Catholicism in the United States has about it an American air” (M. Houtin).

At the beginning of the twentieth century the characteristics of American Catholicism were already well marked. The most important of these were the American tendency to give “the active virtues in Christianity predominance over the passive”; and secondly, to show a preference for “individual inspiration to the eternal magisterium of the Church to concede everything to non-Catholics, while passing over certain truths in silence if necessary as a measure of prudence” (Premoli, 1889). This tendency was very important, for it greatly influenced the attitude of American Catholics toward the teachings of the Catholic Church in social and above all, political problems.

These, in fact, instead of being the intractable and insoluble problems which they were in Europe, were treated with a liberality and breadth of mind which no Catholic would have dared to dream of in Europe. This allowed American Catholics to co-operate with the Protestants and to live without invoking, in the religious, social, and political fields, that extremism which was the source of much bitterness elsewhere.

American Catholicism came to the foreground of the political life of the country on a grand scale during the election for the Presidency in 1928, when Governor Smith, the Catholic candidate, issued his “credo, ” which became that of approximately 95 per cent of American Catholics. In answer to factions whose slogans was, “We do not want the Pope in the White House, ” and especially in answer to those honest Americans who began to ask themselves whether, after all, anyone could be at the same time both a loyal American and a devout Catholic, Alfred E. Smith, after having stated that American Catholics, for whom at the moment he spoke, accepted the separation of Church and State, made this pronouncement:

I summarize my creed as an American Catholic. I believe in the worship of God according to the faith and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. I recognize no power in the institutions of my Church to interfere with the operation of the Constitution of the United States or the enforcement of the Law of the land. I believe in absolute freedom of conscience for all men and equality of all Churches… in the absolute separation of Church and State…”

This was something new in the history of Catholicism in that the great bulk of American Catholics, as already indicated, as well as a good portion of the Hierarchy, openly supported Smith. Yet their Church clearly teaches that “the State ought not to be separated from the Church, ” and that no Catholic can really believe in equality of religions for the simple reason that Catholicism is the only true religion. All others, it is claimed, are false and therefore ought not to be treated on a par with the Catholic Church, and all Catholics must follow the teachings of the Pope. This means they cannot support true democracy, complete freedom of the Press, and similar doctrines.

This American attitude had shaken the Vatican for several decades. When finally it was enunciated, and, what is more, supported by the American Church, the conservative Vatican, although jolted, nevertheless deemed it a wise policy not to restrain this new Catholicism too openly. Some degree of recognition was allowed to this unheard of freedom, this independence of thought. But that American Catholicism should indicate what the Church ought to teach instead of accepting what the Church actually teaches was considered a very dangerous tendency.

What made the Vatican slacken its doctrinal rigidity as it would never dream of doing for any European nation? Its plan to make of the United States of America a direct and indirect instrument to be employed to further Catholicism within and outside that country. The Vatican became aware that to impose its rigid principles too dogmatically on the American Church would contrast too much with the Liberalism, independence, and general concept of life in America. To so do would alienate not only non-Catholics, but also many American Catholics. It was therefore decided to allow the authority and doctrines of the Catholic Church to be submitted to a process of transformation which would modify the conservative European Catholicism into a Liberal and progressive American Catholicism.

By permitting the American Hierarchy to organize itself and be to a great extent independent of Rome in matters of administering and propagating Catholicism, and by allowing Catholics to treat their opponents with that freedom which is the basis of the American way of life, the Vatican rightly thought that it would make it easier for the American Faithful to execute their task of furthering Catholic principles, ethics, and influence.

So far the Vatican has proved right and has succeeded in the its first important steps. How far it will allow American Catholics to alienate itself from the traditional Catholicism of Europe it is difficult to say. A great deal will depend on the progress made in the United States of America, on the social and political trend of the world, and, above all, on the gravity of the earthquakes which will continue to shake Europe more than other countries in the years to come.

To whatever lengths the Vatican may go in trying to harmonize its spirit with modern society, and however much freedom it may give to American Catholicism, it is nevertheless certain that it will not alter its fundamental aim by an inch. It will not modify its basic hostility towards the real democratic freedom of society so radically alien to its own doctrines. The indulgence shown towards American Catholicism is merely a tactical maneuver, spreading over a whole continent and embracing decades, if not centuries, to enable the Catholic Church the better to conquer the land.

It should be borne in mind that, notwithstanding its progress and the influence it has already achieved, the Catholic Church in the United States of America, although a powerful minority, is still a minority when confronted by the compact opposition of all the other religious denominations and their cultural, social, and political derivatives. The Catholic Church, therefore, must be careful not to show its real nature too soon or too openly, lest it should alarm the opposition.

Yet in spite of the main principle guiding the Vatican, American Catholicism has already dared to show its true character and aims with regard to both the domestic social and political life of the United States of America and American foreign policy. In fact it has already attempted to do there what it has done for centuries in the Old World namely, to shape society according to its social principles and direct or make use of the political power of a great secular nation to further the religious interests of the Catholic Church abroad. This in spite of the fact that its maneuvers have been carried out in a still overwhelmingly Protestant country.

We have already seen what the global policy of the Vatican is with regard to society in general, and how the Vatican has meddled with the social and political life of nations to shape them according to its doctrines. Our examination of European politics should have made this amply clear. The aims of the Vatican in America are the same as its aims in Europe, the only difference being in the tactics it adopts to reach them.

The fundamental characteristics of the Church’s principles with regard to modern society are that they sponsor Authoritarianism and are diametrically opposed to the principles of social and political democracy. The whole policy of the Vatican since the beginning of the twentieth century has been directed, through its own efforts, but above all in alliance with non-spiritual movements, to hamper the, way of nations. Hence its direct and indirect interference in the political life of Europe and its support of dictatorships.

In America, before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Catholic Church, having the same aims as in Europe, thought itself strong enough to raise its head a little and hesitantly show what it really wanted.

The ultimate aims of the Catholic Church in America are very clearly set out in an official book, stamped with the entire approval of the Pope, studied as a text in Catholic universities, and written by the head of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. (The State and the Church, by Mgr. J.. 4. Ryan, and M. F. X. Millar, republished 1940 as Catholic Principles of, Politics.) It explicitly states that as there exists only one true religion, Catholicism, the Catholic Church must establish itself as the State Church in the United States of America. This in accordance with the fundamental doctrine of the Popes “that the State must not only have care for religion, but must recognize the true religion”. (Leo XIII). In short, Catholicism must be made to prevail and eventually eliminate all other religions. This has as its authority the encyclical written by Pope Leo XIII, called Catholicity in the United’ States, in which the American separation of Church and State is condemned.

What, then, should happen to American principles of liberty of conscience, of the individual, of religion, of opinion, and all those other aspects of freedom that are now an integral part of American life? And to take a particular sphere of society, the religious, what would happen if Catholicism assumed power?

Since all religions, with the exception of Catholicism, are false, they cannot be allowed to pervert those who are in the fold of the Catholic Church. Hence all other religious denominations in the United States of America “might” be allowed to profess their faith, and to worship only if such worship is “carried on within the family circle or in such inconspicuous manner as to be an occasion neither for scandal nor of perversion to the Faithful….”

Thus a Catholic United States of America would limit, and eventually even forbid, the practice of religious freedom, which automatically takes the Church into the cultural, social, and finally political, fields. This is based on the Catholic doctrine that “since no rational end is promoted by the dissemination of false doctrine, there exists no right to indulge in this practice.” Why? Simply because the Pope states, and the leader of the American Catholics declares, that “error has not the same rights as truth.”

As the reader will have inferred, the Catholic Church would like simply to shape the free United States of America on the same model as the Catholic States of Franco’s Spain, Petain’s France, Mgr. Tiso’s Czechoslovakia not to mention Mussolini’s Italy when he was not disputing with the Vatican on religious questions.

The Catholic Church is not only implanting such ideas into the minds of the select few.

Its spiritual “Shock Troops, ” namely the Jesuits, had begun before the war openly to attack the democratic institutions of the United States of America. Suffice it to quote two typical utterances:

How we Catholics have loathed and despised this… civilization which is now called democracy…. To-day, American Catholics are being asked to shed their blood for that particular kind of secularist civilization which they have heroically repudiated for four centuries (America, May 17, 1941).

And, as if that were not enough, the same publication dared to foretell social revolution within the United States of America, as follows:

The Christian (that is, Catholic) revolution will begin when we decide to cut loose from the existing social order, rather than be buried with it (idem).

Such plans, although carried out in Europe, would have seemed fantastic to an American; yet they were being carefully prepared by the Catholic Church within the United States of America itself before the thunderbolt of Pearl Harbor.

The Vatican being a master in the art of chicanery, naturally did not officially sponsor these plans. It continued to woo democracy and all else that is dear to the American masses, while at the same time preparing a tiny minority of its Faithful, led by a priest, Father Coughlin. In view of what Father Coughlin preached, wrote, and broadcast, it should be remembered that he had the tacit approval of the American Hierarchy, for “any priest who writes articles in daily papers or periodicals without the permission of his own bishop contravenes Canon 1386 of the Code of Canon Law.”

Father Coughlin had thousands of readers of his paper Social Justice, and millions of listeners to his broadcasts. What did he preach? He simply preached the kind of Authoritarianism which was then so successful in Catholic Europe, combined with a mixture of Fascism and Nazism harmonized to a certain extent to suit American society and temperament.

But Father Coughlin, besides preaching, also acted. His tactics, were not those employed by the European sponsors of Authoritarianism, Catholic or otherwise, for he bore in mind that the country in question was the United States of America. Yet they did remind one of similar and successful moves in Europe.

Father Coughlin, in fact, tried to use non-Catholic elements which nevertheless had in common with Catholicism and with him the same hatred of certain things and the same goals in social and political matters. By skillful maneuvering he managed to secure a majority control, 80 per cent, of “America First, ” an organization formed mainly by super-nationalist elements and business magnates.

Father Coughlin and the leaders of this movement had already made plans to transform “America First” by amalgamation of members with the millions of his radio followers, into a mighty political party. In imitation of European Fascism they went so far at this early stage as to organize a kind of private army which was screened behind the formation of the “Christian Front. ” It was to have been the herald of Coughlin’s “Christian Revolution.”

Sports clubs were set up in many parts of the United States of America. The peculiarity of these clubs was their resemblance to quasi-military movements and the military drilling of their members. The nature of the movement made the American authorities suspicious; Father Coughlin’s paper, Social Justice, was banned as “seditious, ” while many sporting clubs of the “Christian Front” were raided (e. g., Brooklyn Sporting Club of the Christian Front, February 13, 1940).

On more than one occasion Father Coughlin stated that he would seek power, even by violent means; as, for instance, when he declared: “Rest assured we will fight you, Franco’s way” (Social Justice, quoted by J. Carlson). Furthermore, he even dared to predict, at the outbreak of the Second World War, that he would be in power within the next decade:

We predict that… the National Socialists of America, organized under that or some other name, eventually will take control of the Government on this Continent…. We predict, lastly, the end of Democracy in America…. (Father Coughlin, in Social Justice, September 1, 1939).

Could there be a more outspoken hint of what Father Couglin and his non- Catholic associates would do if they had the opportunity to develop their plan? And what would that mean if the situation should turn in their favor? We have seen how Fascism began and developed in Europe, and this gives us our answer: the result would be simply an American version of European Fascism.

Naturally, the Catholic Church in the United States of America could not support this campaign too openly. It was in its interest even to disown Father Couglin at times, when it did not want to endanger its penetration in American Society through its schools, charitable institutions, the Press, and so on. And yet there is no doubt that the Catholic Church watched Father Couglin’s work with great sympathy, and that secretly it supported him and even blessed him. A few typical instances will suffice to prove this.

In 1936 Bishop Gallagher, Coughlin’s superior, on his return from a visit to the Vatican, made so that he could discuss, with the Pope, Coughlin’s activities, declared: “Father Coughlin is an outstanding priest, and his voice… is the voice of God….”

In 1941 a Franciscan compared Father Coughlin to a “Second Christ” (New York, July 29, 1941), and in the following year Catholic prelates asked openly for Coughlin’s return, so that he might organize his revolution: “The days are coming when this country will need a Coughlin and need him badly. We must get strong and keep organized for that day” (Father Edward Brophy, a “Christian Front” leader, June 1942).

All this while, in the background, leaders of the American Hierarchy itself were often sympathizers with Fascism. Such, for instance, were Cardinal Hayes of New York, decorated four times by Mussolini, and Cardinal O’Connell, who called Mussolini “that genius given to Italy by God.”

By 1941 “America First” and Father Coughlin had about 15,000,000 followers and sympathizers.

Pearl Harbor put an abrupt end to all this. But the first moves, which were kept quiet until the war storm passed, and until new circumstances favored them, were already clear when the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki struck the knock-out blow at Japan.

The portents of textbooks in the Catholic universities, of American cardinals being decorated by Mussolini, of Father Coughlin and his “Christian Front, ” may, perhaps, seem small when compared with the immense activities carried out by the Catholic Church in the United States of America; for instance, through its N. C. W. C. Nevertheless, they are very significant and demonstrate that, should Catholicism continue its growth in the years to come, it will be a powerful influence, ready to steer the destiny of the United States of America towards a path in all probability alien to the tradition and spirit of the American people.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church in the United States of America is waiting for the time to come when it may emerge more openly with its real aims. It has been carrying on with more subtle tactics its policy of employing its already remarkable influence in that country in order to achieve goals in the internal and, above all, in the external fields. To put it more bluntly, it is using the power of the United States of America to further its policy in various parts of the world.

This might sound rather startling, but in reality it is not so. Without searching for doubtful instances, let us remember two remarkable occurrences, the first of which took place in the decade immediately following the First World War, when revolution broke out in Mexico. It happened that the external agencies which found themselves endangered by the new Government were the Catholic Church and the great American oil concerns. Both wielded great influence in the internal affairs of Mexico through their economic power, controlled in the one case from Rome and in the other from the United States of America.

The programme of the new Mexican Government was to limit the influence of the Church by undermining it in the economic, ‘social, cultural, and political fields, and to expropriate the oil concern owned and controlled by American firms. It therefore found itself confronted by two powerful enemies, which, although so alien the one to the other, became allies.

The Catholic Church, besides starting an armed revolution and inciting Mexican Catholics to assassinate the Mexican President, aroused the 20,000,000 Catholics in the United States of America against their neighbors, and the American Hierarchy at the same time openly asked for American intervention in Mexico. This request, of course, was backed by the powerful oil concern, and it so nearly succeeded that the United States of America went so far as to mobilize a considerable part of its Air Force on the border of Mexico (see following chapter).

The second and more recent case occurred during the Spanish Civil War. We have already seen the part played by the Vatican in that tragedy. When the war first broke out, in July 1936, the main concern of the Vatican was to procure as much help for the Catholic rebels as possible and to deprive the Republicans of such help. That Hitler and Mussolini sent soldiers and guns to Franco, that France closed her frontier, that Tory England helped the rebels with her hypocritical non-intervention formula, was not enough to satisfy the Vatican.

The help sent to the Republicans by Russia was ridiculously inadequate and was made even less effective by difficulties of communication and by the iron ring of the Western Powers, who were determined that the Republicans should not be helped. The only place still open to the Spanish Government was the United States market.

It became a matter of the utmost importance that this last hope of the Republic should be dashed. As neither Mussolini nor Hitler, for obvious reasons, could ask Washington to close the door, this task was undertaken by the Vatican, which, using the full machinery of the Catholic Church within the United States, started one of the most unscrupulous slander and hatred campaigns on record. This it conducted through its Press, radio, pulpits, and schools; and, by appealing directly and openly to President Roosevelt, it managed to get what it wanted.

At this stage it would not be amiss to glance at the close relation. ship that existed between President Roosevelt and the Vatican, for we have already seen how important this relationship was to become throughout the Second World War.

The Pope and the President had several aims in common, and each could help the other in his respective field. The Vatican was taking the initial steps to get the United States of America’s support in the eventuality of a European war, in the background of which loomed Bolshevik Russia, while Roosevelt at that time wanted to capture the Catholic Vote in the next Presidential election and the Vatican’s support of his policy of unification for the American Continent. More remotely he desired the Vatican’s support and influence in the political cauldron of Europe, especially in the event of war.

It was against this background that the Vatican began to act in the autumn of 1936 by sending the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli, on a visit to the States. Strangely enough, the visit coincided with the election. Cardinal Pacelli arrived in New York on October 9, 1936, and, after spending a couple of weeks in the East, he made a whirlwind trip to the Middle and Far West, visiting Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, etc. He was back in New York on November 1. After Roosevelt was reelected, on November 6, he had lunch with him at Hyde Park.

What the visit of the Papal Secretary meant to the American Hierarchy, with its tremendous machinery of newspapers and the N. C. W. C., at election time, is obvious. This, it should be noticed by way of contrast, while Father Coughlin was advising Americans that if they could not unseat Roosevelt with the ballot they should oust him with bullets.

Pacelli and Roosevelt, after the election, discussed the main points: the help that the United States of America should give indirectly to the Vatican to crush the Spanish Republic, under the formula of neutrality, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Washington. Secret negotiations were begun between Pius XI and Roosevelt, and continued until 1939, without any concrete result. Then, on June 16, 1939, the Rome Correspondent of the New York Times sent a dispatch from the Vatican, declaring that “steps to bring relations between the Holy See and the United States on a normal diplomatic footing are expected to be taken soon by Pope Pius XII [who, meanwhile, had succeeded Pius XI].”

On July 29, 1939, Cardinal Enrico Gasparri arrived in New York and spent three days with Archbishop Spellman, his mission being to prepare “the juridical status for the possible opening of diplomatic relations between the State Department and the Holy See” (New York Times, July 29, 1939).

The great difficulty which prevented the establishment of regular diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the White House was that Roosevelt could not send a regular ambassador to the Vatican, while the Vatican could not send a nuncio to Washington, without submitting the plan to Congress. However, Roosevelt found a more compromising man in Plus XII, and a way was soon found by which Congress could be overstepped and the United States could have its ambassador. In December 1939 the United States, which officially had ignored the Vatican since 1867, established diplomatic connections with it by appointing Mr. Myron Taylor the first personal ambassador of President Roosevelt to the Pope. This was accomplished without any serious stir in Protestant United States, and the move was favored by the belief that, thanks to the parallel efforts of the Pope and the President, Italy had been kept out of the war.

Mr. Taylor was a millionaire, a high Episcopalian, an intimate friend of both Roosevelt and Pius XII, and an admirer of Fascism. He was thus accepted by Protestants, Catholics, the White House, the Vatican, and Mussolini. For it had not been forgotten that on November 5, 1936, Taylor had declared that “the whole world has been forced to admire the successes of Premier Mussolini in disciplining the nation, ” and had expressed his approval of the occupation of Ethiopia: “To-day a new Italian Empire faces the future and assumes its responsibilities as guardian and administrator of a backward people of 10,000,000 souls” (New York Times, November 6, 1936).

That was the beginning of the diplomatic political relations of the Vatican and Washington, which lasted until the death of President Roosevelt (April 1945) and practically until the end of the Second World War.

We saw this relationship at work when dealing with Italy, Germany, and Russia, through the frequent scurrying across the Atlantic of Mr. Sumner Welles, Mr. Taylor, Mgr. Spellman, Mr. Titman, and Mr. Flynn, all of whom, as occasion demanded, acted as “unofficial” ambassadors to the Holy See.

The affinity of common interests in numerous domestic and foreign spheres fostered this close relationship. The role the Vatican could play during hostilities as an intermediary between all the belligerents, and the prestige it could exercise in many countries, constituted the strength of Catholicism, on the one hand; while, on the other hand, economic, financial, and political advantages were the assets of the United States. These forces, which impelled the two Powers to follow parallel policies, productive to both partners and enhancing the already great influence of Rome, both within and without the United States, made the Catholic-American co-operation so intimate that, as an ex-Ambassador to the Vatican put it, “few people in Europe were aware of the union which was functioning on a spiritual level between the two forces which were represented in the United States and the Holy See and which… were co-ordinated in each instance that justified joint action.” (Mr. Frangois Charles Roux, former French Ambassador to the Holy See. Revue de Paris, September 1946.)

With the coming of a new President and the cessation of hostilities, this relationship was practically unaltered. The personal representative of the President to the Vatican, explained in 1939 “as a temporary measure made necessary by war, ” with the dawn of peace remained there, on the ground that besides being of importance during hostilities, he “would be equally useful in the future.” He would, therefore, continue indefinitely in his mission, which would end, “not this year, probably not next year, but at some time or other; in fact, only when peace reigns all over the whole world. ” (President Truman to the Protestant Ministers who asked him to withdraw his special envoy to the Vatican, June 1946.)

After this declaration had created a deep sense of uneasiness throughout the country, and influential sections had described Mr. Taylor’s appointment as “preferential treatment of one Church over another, ” had called for a Congressional investigation into “the financing, authorization and responsibilities” of Mr. Taylor’s mission, and had expressed resentment of the fact that the President, by maintaining the semi-official relationship with the Vatican, violated “our cherished American doctrine separating Church from State, ” a White House statement announced that Mr. Taylor would be returning to Rome on a visit not exceeding thirty days, “to resume discussions on matters of importance with the Pope” (28th November, 1946).

In the following year, Pope and President exchanged letters overtly acknowledging an unofficial alliance. the like of which not even the most sanguine imagination would have dared to visualize only a short decade before.

Whereas Truman in a missive which his personal envoy presented to Pius XII in August 1947 pledged the resources of the United States to help the Pope and “all the forces striving for a moral world” to restore order and to secure an enduring peace “which can be built only upon Christian principles, ” the Head of the Catholic Church assured the President that the United States of America would receive “wholehearted co-operation from God’s Church, ” which championed “the individual against despotic rule… laboring man against oppression… religion against persecution, ” adding that as “social injustices…are a very useful and effective weapon in the hands of those who are bent on destroying all the good that civilization has brought to man… it is for all sincere lovers of the great human family to unite in wresting those weapons from their hands.” (Letter sent by Pope Pius XII to President Truman, August 1947.)

A few days later the Pope, speaking from a golden throne in the middle of St. Peter’s Square, warned 100,000 members of the Catholic Action League (one of the Vatican’s main weapons in the struggle to resist the growth of Communism in Italy) against “those who are bent on destroying civilization. ” Before the menace of the Communists, affirmed the Pope, heavy duties pressed upon every Catholic, indeed upon every man, duties which called for conscientious fulfillment often entailing acts of true heroism. The time for reflection was past, and the time for action had come. (See London “Times, ” September 7, 1947.)

Although during the Second World War she had not fully realized it, the United States of America now discovered that the Vatican, besides being the “world’s best listening pose’ from which more could be learned about the currents and cross currents of international affairs than from any State Department in the world, was also a most powerful ally in the “cold war” which East and West, supposedly at peace, were waging against one another.

It was a time when responsible United States leaders were talking of the situation as extremely grave, when hints of a lightning preventive atomic war against Soviet Russia seemed to be more than mere rumors.

At the Vatican ominous plans had been carefully laid down. Primates in the various countries behind the Iron Curtain were warned to prepare for the establishment of Catholic or Right-wing Governments on the approaching downfall of the Communist regimes as one of them, Cardinal Mindszenty, openly declared during his trial two years later. During that trial in Budapest, Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary, admitted that he had asked for American and British intervention “to get rid of an unbearable cruelty, terror and oppression, ” but bad always prayed against the coming of a third World War. Nonetheless he agreed that he had calculated “that such a war might come.” (London “Times,” 5. 2. 1949.)

The atomic blitzkrieg did not take place. The “cold war” was its sinister substitute. But the probability that a shooting war might burst upon the world in the near future made the mission of the Presidential personal envoy to the Vatican more necessary and impellent than ever before.

From then onwards relations between the United States of America and the Vatican, owing to the increasing identification of mutual interests in certain areas of the world e. g. Eastern Europe and the necessity of supporting or combating certain political movements either with dollar loans or with encyclicals, became so close that they were soon transformed into a real and proper tacit alliance, the like of which was without precedent in the annals of American history.

This strange political bed-fellowship was made possible, in addition to the above reasons, by the realization on the part of both partners that neither alone could hope successfully to crush the Red Dragon. For the one, while providing moral weapons, could not supply atomic bombs; and the other, while bursting with immense war potential, was unable to distill the spiritual stamina morally to justify an anti-Bolshevist crusade that would plunge mankind into a third bloodbath.

If Communism, which in numerous parts of the world had crystallized into political systems whilst in others it was still in a fluid state, was to be successfully combated, it had to be fought simultaneously on two well defined fronts: the material and the spiritual; hence the necessity of employing moral as well as physical weapons.

As the United States of America, notwithstanding her immense financial and industrial resources, could not seriously contemplate, the wiping out of the Communist ideology should she succeed in crushing Soviet Russia, so neither could the Vatican, with its 400 million Catholics, hope to combat an armed conglomeration of dictatorships holding in their grip one sixth of the Earth and a third of Europe. It was inevitable, therefore, that the United States of America, which could oppose them with the weight of steel and of standing armies, and the Vatican, having at its disposal a worldwide moral boycott strong enough to stir millions with deep conviction, should become necessary to one another.

It followed, therefore, that as in 1939 previous to the outbreak of the Second World War Roosevelt had deemed it useful to maintain a personal envoy at the Vatican, in 1949, Truman could do no less than his predecessor. The United States of America, in a tacit acknowledgment that democratic principles were not sufficient to give the necessary fire to its crusade, had turned to the Vatican for a whipping up of organized antagonism on the moral side.

Within a decade the American Catholic honeymoon had produced what the Church had so fervently waited for, particularly since the disappearance of Nazism: the shining sword of an American St. George making ready to slay the Red Dragon. The United States of America had become the arsenal of the Catholic Church.

Paradoxically enough, one of the factors most responsible for the gathering momentum of the Catholic Church in the United States was the spread of Communism which during the last twenty years has done more to strengthen Catholicism in the United States of America than practically anything else since the great Catholic immigrations of the last century.

The bogey of Communism, which during the last thirty years had served so well in world politics, has proved to be no less useful to the Vatican’s efforts to break down the anti-Catholic front inside the United States of America.

Most of the Protestant Churches, which even in comparatively normal times, owing to their disunity, unco-ordinated efforts and lack of vision, are at a chronic disadvantage when dealing with the Catholic Church, with the resurgence of the “Red menace” at home and abroad have been mesmerised by the anti-Bolshevist role which the Vatican has been playing so prominently in world politics as a partner of the United States of America.

This to such an extent that to-day one sees Protestant leaders and Protestant papers approve of the political activities of the Catholic Church; indeed, support the Vatican both in the domestic and foreign politics, in the mistaken notion that the Vatican’s fight is their fight, that the Catholic Church is the foremost champion of Christianity against an anti-Christian ideology, seemingly unaware that Catholicism is making formidable breaches within their own ranks and is quietly attempting to step into their place.

What twenty years ago any Protestant would have regarded an utter impossibility, now is looked upon with indifference and even approval by influential sections of American Protestantism.

It is true that when compared to the nationwide Protestant dis. approval this is of little account, yet it is of ominous portent that the Catholic Church has finally achieved what it has so persistently attempted for decades: to split the anti-Catholic front of American Protestantism, to divide its opponents; indeed, to rally to its side influential sections and individuals of the opposite field, to be welcomed as an ally in the very midst of Protestantism, until recently the most powerful obstacle to its incursion in the life of the United States of America.

Constantinople was not sacked because the Turks had battered her mighty walls. It fell because of a small breach in the rear which the Byzantines had hardly noticed, engrossed as they were in repelling the massive attack of the 200,000 troops of Mohamet II from whom they expected their ruin to come.

The Catholic Church’s achievements do not end here. Besides having aligned itself with Protestant United States in world politics and having succeeded in lulling a considerable part of the opposition, it is quickening its pace to Americanize itself the better to Catholicize America.

Its Hierarchy has been expanded, allowed more freedom than any Hierarchy outside the United States of America. New American Cardinals have been created (1946); American Bishops have multiplied, seminaries have increased, American saints are being raised to the Altar (Mother Cabrini, 1946); or their causes, some of which were introduced forty years ago, now are suddenly speeded up to give the American masses their American born saints. (The Pope himself in July 1947 promoted the canonization cause of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, American born mother of five and, alter the death of her husband, founder and first superior in the United States of the Sisters of Charity. If the cause succeeds, Mother Seton will become the first saint to be born in America, as Frances Cabrini, was born in Italy and became a naturalized American.) Members of the American Hierarchy are posted with unparalleled frequency to positions of eminence and responsibility, not only in America but also abroad. (Election in Paris of Fr. William Slattery of Baltimore, as Superior General of the Vincentians, breaks a tradition of four centuries. The post has always been held by a Frenchman, July 1947. Fr. John Mix, born in Chicago, elected Superior General of the Congregation of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, July 1947. Mother Mary Vera of Cleveland, Ohio, elected Superior General of the Sisters of Notre Dame, January 1947.) Indeed, American Cardinals are confidants and personal friends of the Pope and their weight in the central administration of the Vatican is increasing with the passing of time. Americans are taking up the reins of the Catholic Church in America, abroad and in Rome, the better, when the time is ripe, to take over a Catholic America.

The Vatican, having set out to conquer, although always true to a carefully studied grand strategy, is a master of tactics. The interplay of social and political currents and countercurrents everywhere consequently is indefatigably used to carry out in quickened tempo its penetration in the affairs of the United States of America and of the rest of the world.

Its campaign for the ultimate conquest of the United States of America is conducted simultaneously along four main lines:

(A) Alliance with the United States of America in the struggle against world Communism.
(B) The lulling of Protestant opposition within the United States of America by use of the Communist bogey. The assumption of the role of the first and foremost Christian Knight against the Red Dragon. The attempt to obtain the support of certain sections of the non-Catholic Churches.
(C) Intensification of the process of Americanizing Catholicism inside and outside America.
(D) Unobtrusive efforts to batter certain clauses in the political structure of the United States of America, the modification of some of which would ultimately give the Catholic Church a privileged status vis-a-vis other Churches.

With reference to the last, two indicators more than anything else show where the Catholic Church is concentrating its attack: Protestantism’s softening to the idea of a permanent unofficial representative to the Vatican; and the Catholic, Church’s attempt to assail the Constitution of the United States of America. Although it is perilous to assume the mantle of a prophet, yet it is not improbable that the “temporary measures” initiated by Roosevelt may grow into a “permanent feature” of the State Department.

On the day the United States of America has an Ambassador to the Vatican, the Vatican will be entitled to have a representative in Washington who will officially address the President on behalf not only of Vatican City, an independent miniature State, but of the Roman Catholic citizens of the United States, and furthermore on behalf of the 400 million Roman Catholics all over the world. It would be as if Moscow’s Ambassador accredited to Washington were entitled legally to represent, besides the Government of Soviet Russia, American Communists and indeed all Communists abroad.

What would this mean? That the Constitution of the United States of America would crumble to the ground and that the separation of the State from the Church would be gone forever. (It is noteworthy that a Pope’s broadcast dealing with false and true democracy has been incorporated in the Congressional Record, 1946. Senator James Murray of Montana, on proposing its insertion, remarked: “Those who have criticized this message… should be sure that in criticizing its contents they do not also criticize some of the fundamental tenets of American Democracy.”)

This is not mere speculation. The Catholic Church has already taken the first cautious yet bold steps along this new, dangerous road. In the autumn of 1948, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy of America issued a long statement calmly making public their determination to amend one of the most fundamental concepts of American Government, to work “peacefully, patiently and perseveringly” for the revision of what it considers the Supreme Court’s “ominously extensive interpretation” of the First Amendment. Their chief point at issue was unmistakably propounded: Was or was not the First Amendment, prohibiting Congress from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion, ” intended to reach and to maintain a separation of Church and State? In their attempts at interpreting what was in the minds of the framers of the Constitution, the Catholic Hierarchy wrote off as a “misleading metaphor” Jefferson’s sentence regarding “the wall of separation between Church and State, ” going even further by suggesting that the phrase can be clarified by the words of the Amendment itself.

To reach the end of a thousand-miles-long journey, as the Chinese proverb says, one begins with a first small step.

The Catholic Church in the United States has traveled far since the days in the 18th Century when its 30,000 members were considered almost social outcasts. At its present pace, increase, and growing weight, not many years will go by before no single department of American life will not be directly or indirectly influenced by the Catholic Church. Catholicism in the United States, being on the increase in geometrical proportion, is geometrically seeping through the economic, social, moral, educational and political life of the country.

[Three in every 16 Americans is a Catholic (1949). About 43 Negroes became Catholics in the United States every day during 1946. Catholics represent about one-fourth of the entire Indian population of the United States. America’s most Catholic cities are: Boston, leading with 75. 3 per cent Catholic population, New Orleans 66 per cent, Providence 56. 7, Syracuse 53. 5, Jersey City 53. 2, Buffalo 52, Detroit 47. 2, Chicago 40. 8, Philadelphia 29. 5, and New York only 22. 6 per cent. ]

If the Catholic Church can exercise such a remarkable influence now, when, although a formidable unit, it is still a minority, what will be its power a few decades hence?

The increase of the United States of America’s stature in world politics will increase the stature of American Catholicism. An increased American Catholicism will mean growing Catholic pressure on the internal structure of American society.

How much of such pressure will the fast-disintegrating Protestant Churches stand? For how long would the Constitution be left unaltered and the separation of Church and State be allowed to remain one of the fundamental pillars of the United States?

If, parallel to this, American Catholic pressure should continue to grow also within the secretive walls of the Vatican itself, so that out of the coming Conclaves there should emerge the first of the American Popes, how soon would the Catholic Church conquer America?

[As far back as 1945 there were rumors that Mgr. Spellman might be Papal Secretary of State (Vatican Radio, 16. 6. 1945). Since the nomination of more American Cardinals, certain Vatican circles do not “exclude” the possibility of an “American Pope.”)

We live in a century where many seemingly impossible speculations have already become pulsating realities. In the past the Catholic Church has performed miracles. Will it still be able to perform one in this our twentieth century, and transform the United States into a Catholic America?