Central Europe ;Austria . Following the
Anschluss, he launched a crusade against the Church, and the Nazis confiscated property, closed Catholic organisations and sent many priests to Dachau. The
Anschluss saw the annexation of mainly Catholic Austria by Nazi Germany in early 1938. Hitler initially attempted to appeal to Christians in a speech on April 9 in Vienna, when he told the Austrian public that it was "God's will" he led his homeland into the Reich and the Lord had "smitten" his opponents. At the direction of
Cardinal Innitzer, the churches of Vienna pealed their bells and flew swastikas for Hitler's arrival in the city on 14 March. However, wrote Mark Mazower, such gestures of accommodation were "not enough to assuage the Austrian Nazi radicals, foremost among them the young
Gauleiter Globočnik". Globocnik launched a crusade against the Church, and the Nazis confiscated property, closed Catholic organisations and sent many priests to Dachau, Anger at the treatment of the Church in Austria grew quickly and October 1938, wrote Mazower, saw the "very first act of overt mass resistance to the new regime", when a rally of thousands left Mass in Vienna chanting "Christ is our Fuehrer", before being dispersed by police. A Nazi mob ransacked Cardinal Innitzer's residence, after he had denounced Nazi persecution of the Church. The American
National Catholic Welfare Conference wrote that Pope Pius, "again protested against the violence of the Nazis, in language recalling Nero and Judas the Betrayer, comparing Hitler with
Julian the Apostate." ;Czech lands , the Nazi governor of
Bohemia and Moravia (Czech region). One of the main architects of the
Nazi Holocaust, he believed that Catholicism was a threat to the state.
Czechoslovakia was created after World War I and the collapse of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Shortly before World War II, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, swallowed by Nazi expansion. Its territory was divided into the mainly Czech
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the newly declared
Slovak Republic, while a considerable part of Czechoslovakia was directly joined to the
Third Reich (Hungary and Poland also annexed areas). Catholicism had had a strong institutional presence in the region under the
Habsburg Dynasty, but
Bohemian Czechs in particular had a
troubled relationship with the Church of their rulers. Despite this, According to Schnitker, "the Church managed to gain a deep-seated appreciation for the role it played in resisting the common Nazi enemy." Some 487 Czechoslovak priests were arrested and jailed during the occupation. 122 Czechoslovak Catholic priests were sent to
Dachau concentration camp. Seventy-six did not survive the ordeal. Following its October 1938 annexation, Nazi policy in the
Sudetenland saw ethnic Czech priests expelled, or deprived of income and forced to do labour, while their properties were seized. Religious orders were suppressed, private schools closed and religious instruction forbidden in schools. When the Germans advanced on Prague in March 1939, churches came under gestapo surveillance and hundreds of priests were denounced. Monasteries and convents were requisitioned and
Corpus Christi processions curtailed. As elsewhere, the Catholic press was muzzled. Following the outbreak of war, 487 priests were rounded up from occupied Czechoslovakia—among them the Canon of Vysehrad, Msgr.
Bohumil Stašek. On 13 August 1939, Stašek had given a patriotic address to a 100,000 strong crowd of Czechoslovaks, criticising the Nazis: "I believed that truth would triumph over falsehood, law over lawlessness, love and compassion over violence". For his resistance efforts, Bohumil spent the remainder of the war in prison and the concentration camps. Msgr. Tenora, Dean of the
Brno Cathedral was also among those arrested, while six directors of Catholic charities were also seized including Mgr
Otto Lev Stanovsky. Hitler was angered by the co-operation between the church and the assassins who killed Heydrich. Following the assassination of Heydrich,
Josef Beran was among the thousands arrested, for his patriotic stance. Beran was sent to Dachau, where he remained until Liberation, whereafter he was appointed Archbishop of Prague—which had remained vacant since the death of Kašpar. The
Slovak People's Party (SPP) had been founded in 1913 by a Catholic priest,
Andrej Hlinka, and wanted Slovak autonomy. The extreme-nationalist lawyer
Vojtech Tuka headed the party's radical wing, which moved steadily closer to Nazism, complete with
Hlinka Guard paramilitary. In March 1939,
Prague arrested Hlinka's successor, Fr.
Jozef Tiso, the Prime Minister of the Slovakian region, for advocating independence. Hitler invited Tiso to Berlin, and offered assistance for Slovak nationhood. Tiso declared independence, and with German warships pointing their guns at the Slovakian Government offices, the Assembly agreed to ask Germany for "protection". The small and predominantly Catholic and agricultural region became the Fascist Slovak Republic, a nominally independent Nazi puppet state, with Tiso as president and Tuka as Minister-President. On 28 July 1940, Hitler instructed Tiso and Tuka to impose antisemitic laws. SS Officer
Dieter Wisliceny was dispatched to act as an adviser on Jewish issues. According to Phayer, "Hitler demanded a price for Slovak independence, its 90,000 Jews. Pius XII wanted to save them, or at least the 20,000 who had converted to Christianity".
Giuseppe Burzio, the Apostolic Delegate to Bratislava, protested the antisemitism and totalitarianism of the regime. the priest-president of the Nazi puppet state of
Slovakia, meeting Hitler. His regime was nonetheless highly antisemitic. Phayer wrote that antisemitism existed well before the Nazi time and during the interwar period "antisemitism characterised the Catholicism of the Slovak people". The People's Party, founded and dominated by clergymen, used antisemitism as part of its political presentation. The Nazis had asked for 20,000 young able-bodied Jews. Tiso hoped that compliance would aid in the return of 120,000 Slovak workers from Germany. Burzio protested to Prime Minister
Vojtech Tuka. The Vatican began to receive reports from Slovak army chaplains in October 1941 of mass shootings of Jews on the Eastern Front, but did not take action. When, in early 1942, papal diplomats in Bratislava, Hungary and Switzerland predicted impending deportations and exterminations, the Vatican protested. Burzio advised Rome of deportations to Poland "equivalent to condemning a great part of them to death" and the Vatican protested to the Slovakian legate. According to Phayer, the protests, not made in public, were ineffectual and 'resettlements' continued in the summer and autumn of 1942—57,752 by the end of 1942. Burzio reported to Rome that some of the Slovakian bishops were indifferent to the plight of the Jews. Others, such as Bishop
Pavol Jantausch and Bishop
Pavol Gojdič were active in protecting Jews. The Vicar of Bratislava and , Bishop of
Prešov, emphatically denounced the deportations. Distressing scenes at railway yards of deportees being beaten by Hlinka guards had spurred community protest, including from leading churchmen such as Bishop Pavol Jantausch. The Vatican called in the Slovak ambassador twice to enquire what was happening. These interventions, wrote Evans, "caused Tiso, who after all was still a priest in holy orders, to have second thoughts about the programme". Burzio and others reported to Tiso that the Germans were murdering the deported Jews. Tiso hesitated and then refused to deport Slovakia's 24,000 remaining Jews. In August 1944, the
Slovak National Uprising rose against the People's Party regime. German troops were sent to quell the rebellion and with them came security police charged with rounding up Slovakia's remaining Jews. The invasion of predominantly Catholic Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 ignited the
Second World War. The Nazi plan for Poland entailed the destruction of the Polish nation, which necessarily required attacking the Polish Church, particularly, in those areas annexed to Germany. In Nazi ideological terms, Poland was inhabited by a mixture of Slavs and Jews, both of which were classed as
Untermenschen, or subhumans occupying German
Lebensraum,
living space. Germany instigated a policy of genocide against Poland's Jewish minority and murdering or suppressing the ethnic Polish elites. Historically, the church was a leading force in Polish nationalism against foreign domination and the Nazis targeted clergy, monks and nuns in their terror campaigns for their resistance activity and their cultural importance. According to the
Encyclopædia Britannica, 1,811 Polish priests were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Special death squads of SS and police accompanied the invasion and arrested or executed those considered capable of resisting the occupation: including professionals, clergymen and government officials. The following summer, the
A-B Aktion round up of several thousand Polish intelligentsia by the SS saw many priests shot in the General Government sector. In September 1939
Security Police Chief Heydrich and General
Eduard Wagner agreed upon a "cleanup once and for all of Jews, intelligentsia, clergy, nobility". Of the brief period of military control from 1 September 1939 to 25 October 1939, Davies wrote: "according to one source, 714 mass executions were carried out, and 6,376 people, mainly Catholics, were shot. Others put the death toll in one town alone at 20,000. It was a taste of things to come." Poland was divided into two parts by the German occupiers: the Reich directly annexed Polish territories along Germany's eastern border, and the second part came under the administration of the so-called
Generalgouvernement (
General Government)—a "police run mini-state" under SS control and the rule of Nazi lawyer
Hans Frank, which, wrote Davies, "became the lawless laboratory of Nazi racial ideology" and in due course the base for the main Nazi concentration camps. Yet here, Nazi policy toward the Church was less severe than in the annexed regions. The annexed areas were all to be "Germanized", and the Polish Church within them was to be thoroughly eradicated—though German Catholics could remain or settle there. 80% of the Catholic clergy and 5 bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939;
108 of them are regarded as blessed martyrs. In a report to Pius XII regarding the dire situation, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal
August Hlond wrote, "Hitlerism aims at the systematic and total destruction of the Catholic Church in the ... territories of Poland which have been incorporated into the Reich". , 1942. was murdered at Auschwitz. Following the surrender of
Warsaw and
Hel Fortified Area, the
Polish Underground and the Armia Krajowa (
Home Army) resisted the German occupation. The Home Army was conscious of the link between morale and religious practice and the Catholic religion was integral to much of the
Polish Resistance, particularly during the
Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
Adam Sapieha,
Archbishop of Kraków became the de facto head of the Polish Church after the invasion and openly criticised Nazi terror. Among the most revered Polish martyrs was the Franciscan, Saint
Maximilian Kolbe, who was murdered at
Auschwitz-Birkenau after he offered his own life to save a fellow prisoner who had been condemned to death. During the War he provided shelter to refugees, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid in his friary in
Niepokalanów. Poland had a large Jewish population and, according to Davies, more Jews were both killed and rescued in Poland, than in any other nation: the rescue figure put at between 100,000 and 150,000, the work of the Catholic-affiliated Council to Aid Jews was instrumental in much rescue work. Thousands of Poles have been honoured as Righteous Among the Gentiles,constituting the largest national contingent, and hundreds of clergymen and nuns were involved in aiding Jews during the war, though precise numbers are difficult to confirm. Emphasis was placed on protecting children, as it was nearly impossible to intervene directly against the heavily-guarded transports. False papers were prepared, and children were distributed among safe houses and church networks.
Oskar Schindler, a German Catholic businessman came to Poland, initially to profit from the German invasion. He went on to save many Jews, as dramatised in the film ''
Schindler's List''. According to Davies, the Nazi terror was "much fiercer and more protracted in Poland than anywhere in Europe". Hlond refused to negotiate with his captors unless all of Poland was freed. He was the only member of the Sacred College of Cardinals to be arrested by the Nazis, and was held by the
Gestapo, first at its headquarters in
Paris and then confined at a convent at
Bar-le-Duc, until the Allied advance forced the Germans to shift him to Wiedenbrtick, in
Westphalia, where he remained for seven months until he was released by American troops in 1945. reported that "as Cardinal Hlond's reports poured into the Vatican, Pope Pius XII protested against the enormities they recounted with unrelenting vigor". It noted the Pope's
28 October Encyclical and reported that Pius addressed Polish clergy on 30 September 1939 and spoke of "a vision of mad horror and gloomy despair" and said that he hoped that despite the work of the enemies of God, Catholic life would survive in Poland. In a Christmas Eve address to the College of Cardinals, Pius condemned the atrocities "even against non-combatants, refugees, old persons, women and children, and the disregard of human dignity, liberty and human life" that had taken place in the Polish war as "acts that cry for the vengeance of God". According to Phayer, from 1939 to 1941, there was a determined appeal for papal intercession in Poland, but the Holy See argued that intervention would only worsen the situation though that was not a popular position. When the French urged Pius to condemn Germany's aggression, he declined "out of consideration for repercussions on Roman Catholics of the Reich"é
August Hlond and the General of the Jesuits
Wlodimir Ledóchowski met with Pius on September 30, 1940 and left disappointed when he did not condemn the Soviet Union or Germany for destroying Poland. The Vatican used its press and radio to tell the world in January 1940 of terrorization of the Polish people, a reference to Poles of
Warthegau and of the
Polish Corridor who had been dispossessed and driven into the General Government. A further broadcast in November lacked the detail of January communications and "Thereafter", wrote Phayer, "Vatican radio fell silent regarding Poland and the decimation of its populace". On 16 and 17 November 1940, Vatican Radio said that religious life for Catholics in Poland continued to be brutally restricted and that at least 400 clergy had been deported to Germany in the past four months: In November 1941, Bishop Sapieha requested explicitly for Pius to speak out against Nazi atrocities. According to Lucas, the pope's "silence" led some Polish Catholics to conclude that the Vatican was unconcerned, and there was even talk of cutting off allegiance to Rome. Pius alluded vaguely to atrocities on Easter 1941, and Cardinal Secretary of State
Luigi Maglione explained to the Polish Ambassador to the Holy See that Pius spoke in veiled words but had Poland in mind. The policy was intended to spare Poles from greater atrocities. Word came later from Poland objecting to that but would be used again, during the Holocaust itself. According to Davies, the Catholic religion was an integral component of the struggle. ;Hungary . As a member of the
Hungarian Parliament, he voted in favour of antisemitic legislation in 1938. Later, he spoke against Nazi mistreatment of the Jews. Hungary joined the Axis powers in 1940. Its leader, Admiral
Miklós Horthy, later wavered in support for the alliance. Germany
occupied Hungary in March 1944, soon after Horthy, under significant pressure from the church and the diplomatic community, had halted the deportations of Hungarian Jews. In October, it installed a pro-German
Arrow Cross dictatorship. After Germany's 1935 Nuremberg Laws were promulgated, similar legislation had followed in much of the rest if Europe. Catholic priests and bishops in Western Europe were not active in parliaments that established anti-Semitic legislation, unlike in Eastern Europe. Serédi later spoke out against the Nazi persecution of Hungary's Jews. After the October 1944 Arrow Cross takeover, Bishop
Vilmos Apor, who had been an active protester against the mistreatment of the Jews, together with other senior clergy including
József Mindszenty, drafted a memorandum of protest against the
Arrow Cross government. Rotta became a leader of diplomatic actions to protect Hungarian Jews. Other leading church figures involved in the 1944 rescue of Hungarian Jews included Bishops
Vilmos Apor,
Endre Hamvas and
Áron Márton. Primate
József Mindszenty issued public and private protests and was arrested on 27 October 1944. There was apparently still some scepticism still in Vatican circles about the severity of the situation. In September 1944,
Amleto Cicognani, papal representative in Washington, told
Aryeh Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy) of the
World Jewish Congress that "the situation in Hungary is much less acute, since the persons responsible for the previous persecution have been removed from power". "Contradictory information", it was claimed, was arriving about the Hungarian situation. Ultimately, when called upon to condemn publicly Nazi policies against Jews publicly, Pius XII chose to exercise restraint in the name of avoiding a greater evil. ;Romania Angelo Roncalli (later
Pope John XXIII) advised Pope Pius XII of the plight of Jews being kept in concentration camps in Romanian-occupied Transnistria. The Pope interceded with the Romanian government and authorised for money to be sent to the camps.
Andrea Cassulo, the papal nuncio to Bucharest, was honoured as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. In 1944, the Chief Rabbi of Bucharest praised the work of Cassulo on behalf of Romania's Jews: "the generous assistance of the Holy See ... was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme Pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews—sufferings which had been pointed out to him by you after your visit to Transnistria. The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance."
Southern Europe ;Croatia After
World War I, the desire of Croatian nationalists for independence was not realised. The region found itself in a Serb dominated dictatorship of
Yugoslavia. Repression of the Croat minority spurred extremism, and the Ustaša ("Insurgence") was formed in 1929 by
Ante Pavelić, with the support of
Fascist Italy. Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary dismembered Yugoslavia in April 1941. In regions controlled by Italy, the Italian authorities protected Jews from Nazi roundups, as occurred throughout Italian territory.
Martin Gilbert wrote that when negotiations began for the deportation of Jews from the Italian zone, General Roatta flatly refused, leading Hitler's envoy,
Siegfried Kasche, to report some of Mussolini's subordinates "apparently been influenced" by opposition in the Vatican to German anti-Semitism. Most of Croatia fell to the new
Independent State of Croatia, where Pavelic's Ustase were installed in power. Unlike Hitler, Pavelic was pro-Catholic, but their ideologies overlapped sufficiently for easy co-operation. Phayer wrote, Pavelic wanted Vatican recognition for his fascist state and Croatian church leaders favoured an alliance with the Ustase because it seemed to hold out the promise of an anti-Communist, Catholic state. According to Hebblethwaite, Pavelic was anxious to get diplomatic relations and a Vatican blessing for the new 'Catholic state' but "Neither was forthcoming": Giovanni Montini (future
Pope Paul VI) advised Pavelic the Holy See could not recognise frontiers changed by force. The Yugoslav royal legation remained at the Vatican. When the Italian King advised that Duke of Spoleto was to be "King of Croatia", Montini advised the Pope could not hold a private audience with the Duke once any such coronation occurred. Pius subsequently relented, allowing a half hour audience with Pavelic. The
Archbishop of Zagreb,
Aloysius Stepinac, wanted Croatia's independence from the Serb dominated Yugoslav state (
the jail of the Croatian nation). Stepinac arranged the audience with Pius XII for Pavelic. Phayer wrote that Montini kept Pius informed of matters in Croatia and
Domenico Tardini interviewed Pavelic's representative to Pius; he let the Croat know the Vatican would be indulgent—"Croatia is a young state—Youngsters often err because of their age. It is, therefore, not surprising Croatia has also erred." The Vatican refused formal recognition but Pius sent a
Benedictine abbot,
Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone, as his apostolic visitor. Phayer wrote that this suited Pavelic well enough. Stepinac felt the Vatican
de facto recognised the new state. (far right). Initially Stepinac welcomed Croat independence and the Pavelic regime's atrocities against Jews and Serbs In April–May 1941, hundred of thousands of Serbs were murdered and Nazi copycat laws eliminated Jewish citizenship and compelled the wearing of the Star of David. The German army pulled out of Croatia in June 1941. As the terror continued Archbishop Stepinac had begun, May 1941, to distance himself from the Ustase. Hebblethwaite wrote, "The Vatican's policy was to strengthen the hand of [Stepinac] in his rejection of forcible conversions and brutalities". Pavelic told Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop while the lower clergy supported the Ustase, the bishops, and particularly Stepinac, were opposed to the movement because of "Vatican international policy". Filipović-Majstorovic headed the notorious Jasenovac concentration camp. He was suspended as an army chaplain in 1942, expelled from the Franciscan Order in 1943, and executed as a war criminal after the war. He was not, evidently, excommunicated. Phayer wrote that Archbishop Stepinac himself came to be known as
jeudenfreundlich (Jew friendly) to the German and Croat regimes. And, suspended a number of priest collaboratos in his diocese. When Himmler visited Zagreb a year later, indicating the impending roundup of remaining Jews, Stepinac wrote to Pavelic that if this occurred, he would protest for "the Catholic Church is not afraid of any secular power, whatever it may be, when it has to protect basic human values". When deportatation began, Stepinac and Marcone protested to
Andrija Artuković. The Vatican ordered Stepinac to save as many Jews as possible during the upcoming roundup. Though Stepinac personally saved many potential victims, his protests had little effect on Pavelic. Diplomatic pressure was preferred to public challenges on the immorality of genocide. Pavelic's diplomatic emissaries to the Holy See were merely scolded by Tardini and Montini. At the war's end, leaders of the Ustasha, including its clericals supporters such as, Saric, fled taking gold looted from massacred Jews and Serbs with them. ; Slovenia The Nazi persecution of the Church in
annexed Slovenia was akin to that which occurred in Poland. Within six weeks of the German occupation, only 100 of the 831 priests in the
Diocese of Maribor and part of the
Diocese of Ljubljana remained free. Clergy were persecuted and sent to concentration camps, religious Orders had their properties seized, some youth were sterilized. The first priest to die was Aloysius Zuzek. The Jesuit John Le Farge reported in the Catholic press in the America that the situation an official report sent to the Vatican following the invasion "may be briefly described as hell for Catholics and Catholicism in Slovenia, a 98% Catholic country, a hell deliberately planned by Adolf Hitler out of his diabolical hatred of Christ and His Church". As in other occupied territories, the German army confiscated church property, dissolved religious houses and arrested and exiled priests.
Western Europe ;Low Countries The
German Occupation of the Netherlands was particularly protracted. While the Dutch civil service collaborated extensively with the occupying administration, the Dutch Church, and leaders like the
Archbishop of Utrecht Johannes de Jong, firmly opposed Nazi movement, which Dutch Catholics were forbidden to join. As in other parts of the Third Reich, the Catholic press was suppressed. Clergy were arrested and forced out of educational positions. On 2 September 1940, the Nazi Governor of the Netherlands,
Arthur Seyss-Inquart ordered a purge of clergy who refused to advocate
Nazism. In November, the office of the Bishop of Roermond and the Hague headquarters of the Jesuits were raided. On 26 January 1941, the Dutch Bishops issued a critical Pastoral Letter. The Nazi-run press responded with threats, and also reported that Archbishop de Jong was fined for refusing to preach the German invasion of the Soviet Union was a "religious crusade" against Bolshevism. When Seyss-Inquart installed a Dutch Nazi at the head of the Catholic Workers' Union, De Jong told Catholics to quit the Union. The occupation of the Netherlands also saw a particularly efficient cruelty towards the Jews, and harsh punishment for their protectors. When Jewish deportations began, many were hidden in Catholic areas. Parish priests created networks hiding Jews. Close knit country parishes were able to hide Jews without being informed upon by neighbours, as occurred in the cities. The Nazis responded by revoking the exception of Jews who were baptized, and a round up was ordered. The
Gestapo made a special effort to round up every monk, nun and priest who had a drop of Jewish blood. Some 300 victims were deported to Auschwitz and immediately sent to the gas chambers, among them Saint
Edith Stein who was killed at Auschwitz. According to John Vidmar writes, "The brutality of the retaliation made an enormous impression on Pius XII." Henceforth, he avoided open, confrontational denunciations of the Nazis. "It is clear from Maglione's intervention Papa Pacelli cared about and sought to avert the deportation of the Roman Jews but he did not denounce: a denunciation, the Pope believed, would do nothing to help the Jews. It would only extend Nazi persecution to yet more Catholics. It was the Church as well as the Jews in Germany, Poland and the rest of occupied Europe who would pay the price for any papal gesture. Another Dutch victim was Catholic dissident Carmelite priest and philosopher,
Titus Brandsma. The Church played an important role in the defence of Jews in Belgium. The
Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ) was formed to work for the defence of Jews in the summer of 1942. Of its eight founding members,
Emile Hambresin was Catholic. Some of their rescue operations were overseen by the priests
Joseph André and Dom Bruno. Among other institutions, the CDJ enlisted the help of monasteries and religious schools and hospitals.
Yvonne Nèvejean of the Oeuvre Nationale de l'Enfance greatly assisted with the hiding of Jewish children.
The Queen Mother Elizabeth and
Léon Platteau of the Interior Ministry also made a stance to protect Jews. The Belgian Superior General of the Jesuits,
Jean-Baptiste Janssens was also honoured as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem. Following the
German occupation of Belgium, the Primate of Belgium
Jozef-Ernst Cardinal van Roey wrote a refutation of Nazi racial doctrines and of the incompatibility of Catholicism and Nazism. In a dialogue, Van Roey wrote that Catholics could never adapt to governments which "oppress the rights of conscience and persecute the Catholic Church"; asserted the right to freedom of the press; and said Catholics ought not resign themselves to defeat and collaboration with the Nazis, because "we are certain that our country will be restored and rise again". ;France 's Free French chose the Catholic symbolism of
Joan of Arc's standard, the red
Cross of Lorraine as the symbol of their cause. Following the capitulation of France, the nation was divided between a military occupation of the north and the nominally independent "
Vichy regime" in the south.
Valerio Valeri remained nuncio to the divided nation. Marshal
Philippe Pétain, the leader of the Vichy government had no religious convictions, but courted Catholic support. His great rival, and leader of the
Free French, General
Charles de Gaulle was a devout Catholic. De Gaulle's Free French chose the Catholic symbolism of Saint
Joan of Arc's standard, the
Cross of Lorraine, as their emblem. As elsewhere under Nazi Germany's occupation, French clergy faced intimidation and interference. In July 1940, the residence of
Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris, along with those of
Cardinal Baudrillart and
Cardinal Liénart and other church offices were searched by the Gestapo for "evidence of collusion between the late
Cardinal Verdier and the Jews". Verdier had described World War II as "a crusade ... We are struggling to preserve the freedom of people throughout the world, whether they be great or small peoples, and to preserve their possessions and their very lives. No other war has had aims that are more spiritual, moral, and, in sum, more Christian". On September 9, the Bishop of Quimper was arrested for opposing Nazi plans for Brittany. The Bishop of Strasbourg was prevented from returning from Vichy France to his dioceses and his Cathedral was closed to the public. The Bishop of Metz was expelled from his diocese—which was itself later dissolved for "political reasons".
Vatican Radio denounced the treatment of the Church in predominantly Catholic
Alsace-Lorraine. In March 1941, it announced in Alsace, Catholics were facing "cruel persecution". The Catholic newspaper
Esprit criticized Petain for his anti-semitic laws, and the paper was suppressed. The French bishops encouraged obedience to the Vichy regime and refrained from making public statements against the regime's mistreatment of Jews until 1942. In 1997, the French church issued a
Declaration of Repentance for this approach. Soon after Pacelli became pope, Vichy France put forward antisemitic decrees. Vichy's ambassador to the Vatican, Léon Bérard, reported to his government that having spoken to competent authorities the Holy See had no insurmountable difficulties with this and did not intend to become involved. During the War,
Cardinal Tisserant, called on the Vatican to forcefully condemn Nazism by name. Following the
Velodrom d'Hiver roundup of Jews of July 15, 1942, the Northern assembly of cardinals and archbishops sent a protest letter to Petain, and following round ups of Jews in Vichy France in 1942, several Bishops—
Archboshop Saliège of Toulouse,
Bishop Théas of Montauban, ,
Cardinal Gerlier (Archbishop of Lyon),
Monseigneur Edmund Vansteenberghe from
Bayonne and
Monseigneur Moussaron of
Albi—denounced the roundups from the pulpit and parish distributions, in defiance of the Vichy regime. Thousands of priests, nuns and lay people acted to assist French Jews, protecting large numbers in convents, boarding schools, presbyteries and families. According to
The New York Times, "The defiant attitude of those churchmen after 1942 contributed to the fact that that three quarters of France's Jewish population survived, many of them protected by French Catholics". De Gaulle came to meet the Pope on 30 June; following which, the French leader wrote of great admiration for Pius, and assessed him to be a pious, compassionate and thoughtful figure. Upon whom, the problems of world situation weighed heavily. Following the fall of the Vichy government, De Gaulle told the Vatican the Papal Nuncio
Valerio Valeri had become
persona non grata to the French people, having worked with the Vichy regime. Valeri was replaced by Angelo Roncalli, the future
John XXIII—however, prior to departing, Valeri was presented with the
Legion d'honneur medal by De Gaulle. ==See also==