Until the very eve of the Holocaust, the Catholic church was engaged in a struggle against what it termed “liberalism,” namely, modern secular democracy and the separation of church and state. This struggle was framed by Catholic leaders as one of Catholic civilization against a Masonic-Jewish conspiracy to de-Christianize Europe. The charge of a Masonic-Jewish conspiracy was a staple of the Catholic press in interwar Poland. The church's efforts to create a Catholic Poland by overturning so-called liberal or Masonic democracy had patent implications for Jews, who were seen as the primary agents and beneficiaries of secularity. This article provides an overview of what the Catholic press wrote about so-called Jewish-Masonic efforts to create a secular Poland and places those writings within the context of the Vatican's crusade against modern secular liberal democracy, a crusade not officially repudiated until the Second Vatican Council—thirty years too late for Poland's Jews.
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References
1.
1. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 162.
2.
2. Illustrative of this kind of thinking is the remark of Israel's then prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, that Poles imbibe antisemitism with their mother's milk. See Jerusalem Post (international ed.), 16 Sept. 1989.
3.
3. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 2:240.
4.
4. Bernard D. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100 to 1800 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), p. 166.
5.
5. Ibid.
6.
6. Ibid.
7.
7. Harry M. Rabinowicz, The Legacy of Polish Jewry (London: Yoseloff, 1965), p. 22.
8.
8. For an extended discussion of the symbol, see Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 1:159-160.
9.
9. Gen. 4:11-15.
10.
10. Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 16:9-10.
For a recent study on the Catholic association of Jews, Masonry, and modernism before World War I in France, see C.J.T. Talar, “Antisemitism as Ally: Campaigning Against Masonry and Modernism,”Continuum, 2:199-215 (1993).
20.
20. Some lodges in Ireland consisted entirely of priests and Catholic laymen like the patriot Daniel O'Connell. A convent of nuns in France sent George Washington a gift of a Masonic apron. In 1794 Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, when asked about the papal prohibitions, responded, “I do not pretend that these decrees are received generally by the Church.” See William J. Whalen, Christianity and American Freemasonry (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1958), p. 103.
21.
See also Robert F. Byrnes, Antisemitism in Modern France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1950), 1:126, n. 61.
25. Oscar L. Arnal, Ambivalent Alliance: The Catholic Church and the Action Française, 1899-1939 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), p. 33.
26.
26. Davies, God's Playground, 1:166.
27.
27. Maintaining the old order restored by the Congress of Vienna of 1915 was a high priority for the popes. They viewed the czar as the chief guarantor of social order. As late as 1894, Pope Leo XIII enjoined the Poles to trust and obey the imperial authorities who had carved up their nation. See Davies, God's Playground, 2:212-213.
28.
28. Przeglad homiletyczny, 15:216-218 (1937).
29.
29. August Cardinal Hlond, Na strazy sumienia narodu (Ramsey, NJ: Don Bosco, 1951), pp. 164-165.
30.
30. Mały dziennik, 29 Dec. 1938.
31.
31. For the most detailed discussion of Poland's interwar economy and the Jewish question, see Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939 (New York: Mouton, 1983). Marcus faults the majority of interwar Jewish commentators for “polemic and protest” over a “fair selection of facts.” He argues that Jewish poverty was not the result of discrimination but of the economic plight of the nation as a whole.
38. “The Wogs [White Oriental Gentlemen] begin at Calais,” according to the British saying. And it was with an appeal to their self-anointment as Kulturträger (upholders of culture) that Germans traditionally sought to justify their expansionist Drang nach Osten (drive to the east).
39.
39. See Ronald Modras, The Catholic Church and Antisemitism: Poland, 1933-1939 (Reading, UK: Harwood Academic, 1994).
40.
40. Mały dziennik, 26 Feb. 1939.
41.
41. Ibid., 16 Feb. 1939.
42.
42. Ibid., 13 Mar. 1939.
43.
43. Stanisław Trzeciak, Talmud, Bolszewizm i “project prawa małzeńskiego w Polsce” (Warsaw: Polska Agencja Prasawa, 1932), p. 35.
44.
44. Carlen, Papal Encyclicals, 3:353-369.
45.
45. Przewodnik Katolicki, 40:642 (1934).
46.
46. Prad, 28:3-6 (1935).
47.
47. Ibid., 7-8:360-67 (1926).
48.
48. Cited in ibid., 23:95 (1932).
49.
49. See Ronald Modras, “The Catholic Church in Poland and Antisemitism, 1935-39: Responses to Violence in the Universities and in the Streets,” in Remembering for the Future, ed. Yehuda Baueret al. (Oxford: Pergamon, 1988), 1:183-196.
50.
50. Prad, 23:239-245 (1932).
51.
51. Antony Polonsky, ed., My Brother's Keeper? Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust (Oxford: Routledge, 1990).
52.
52. Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 4.
