Abstract

The Catholic Church and Fascism: III

The Second World War imposed new strains on Vatican diplomacy but did not alter its fundamental policy. In the period before Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. aid against Adolf Hitler, Nazi detector of Germany, was desperately needed, the overwhelming majority of the Vatican's representatives in this country railed at the possibility of American intervention in language that was strikingly similar to Soviet propaganda in the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact. On the whole, the post-war policy of the Vatican had been little different from its pre-war policy. Most American church leaders continued to favor Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain, after the war almost as enthusiastically as they had during the Spanish civil war, and the American diocesan press continued to carry eulogies.