A TWENTIETH-CENTURY CRUSADE

The first comprehensive history of the Vatican's aggressive counterrevolutionary agenda against secular liberalism and communism through international law, cultural diplomacy, and a marriage of convenience with
authoritarian and right-wing rulers.

After the United States entered World War I and the Russian Revolution exploded, the Vatican feared that secular liberalism combined with communism would weaken the authority of the Church in Europe. In response, it developed an aggressive international agenda to ensure that European states would be secure from liberal and socialist taint and to support conservative governments that would uphold the faith.

A Twentieth-Century Crusade reveals that papal officials pressed governments to sign concordats assuring state protection of the Church and its mission in exchange for support from the masses of Catholic citizens. These agreements were implemented in Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, as well as in Lithuania and Poland. Eager to shelter Europe's Catholics from liberalism and communism, the Vatican presented itself as a Catholic International— a political and diplomatic foil to the Communist International,
equipped with social power and a strong media presence. During the years after World War I, the papacy became a willing ally of fascist and right-wing forces and repressed dissident voices coming from the
Catholic left (including from within the Holy See itself ). Following World War II, the Church—abetted by conservative political leaders— attempted to mute its role in strengthening fascist states.

This decades-long papal mission unraveled after Vatican II, when the Church abandoned active participation in nation-states. But—as Giuliana Chamedes shows in her groundbreaking exploration—the future of political Catholicism is unclear, as liberal and conservative forces within the Vatican continue to battle for supremacy.

Giuliana Chamedes is Assistant Professor of History and a faculty affiliate of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. During a stint as a journalist for ANSA, the Italian news agency based in Rome, she had the opportunity to observe the Vatican closely, and she returned as a scholar to probe its archives.