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The Vatican's Ostpolitik*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John M. Kramer
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Extract

Although the founder of the Catholic church said that “My Kingdom is not of this world,” one commentator correctly has observed of the church that “few contemporary institutions have been more intimately — and none more continuously — involved in the political order.” Never was the church's temporal dimension more graphically illustrated than in the June 1979 visit to his homeland of Pope John Paul II, the former Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, Archbishop of Cracow, Poland. Millions of people, many of them from other Communist countries, heard the first pontiff ever elected from a Soviet bloc nation repeatedly call for respect for human rights, for provision of religious liberties, and for the primacy of the individual over the state — demands that many regimes, including Communist ones, have been notably reluctant to grant. The pontiff also publicly raised the delicate issue of Polish-Soviet relations, asserting that alliances must be based on mutual respect and equality and that “there can be no just Europe without the independence of Poland marked on its map.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 1980 , pp. 283 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1980

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References

1 Murphy, Francis, “Vatican Politics: Structure and function,” 26 World Politics (07 1974), 542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Washington Post, 3 06 1979.Google Scholar

3 For earlier analyses of the Vatican's Ostpolitik, see Veto, Miklos “Kremlin and Vatican,” Survey, 48 (07 1963), 163–72Google Scholar; Stehle, Hansjakob, “Vatican Policy towards Eastern Europe,” Survey, 66 (01 1968), 108–116Google Scholar; Daim, Wilfried, The Vatican and Eastern Europe (New York, 1970)Google Scholar. For a recent analysis that examines the more narrow issue of papal and Communist motivations for their rapprochement, see Dunn, Dennis, “Papal-Communist Detente: Motivation,” Survey, 99 (Spring 1976), 140–54.Google Scholar

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7 Thus, a joint resolution of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity and the Russian Orthodox patriarchate noted “strong tendencies in various parts of the world” towards “certain forms of socialism” and asserted that these contained “constructive aspects which Christians should recognize and try to understand.” Quoted in Radio Free Europe (hereafter referred to as R.F.E.), East-West/1, 9 05 1974, 31–32Google Scholar. See also the New York Times, 19 04 1973Google Scholar wherein the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for Evangelization of People is quoted as declaring that Maoism contained “some directives that are in keeping with the great principles of the millenary Chinese civilization and find authentic and complete expression in modern social Christian teaching.”

8 The impact of these policies led one Western commentator to observe that the “Catholic Church in Croatia and Slovenia is now subject to the least state interference in all of Eastern Europe” (Simon, Gerhard, “The Catholic Church and the Communist State in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,”Google Scholar in Bociurkiw, and Strong, , Religion and Atheism, p. 191.Google Scholar

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10 Fried, Zlatko et al. , Religions in Yugoslavia (Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1971), pp. 72–77, prints the full text of the protocol.Google Scholar

11 Soviet Chief of State Podgorny called on the pope in 1967, but the Vatican described this as a private visit. New York Times, 30 03 1971Google Scholar. The pope's reception of Tito underlines the contrast between present and past Vatican policy towards Communist Europe, for Tito is still excommunicated for his role in the arrest of Cardinal Stepinac.

12 New York Times, 30 03 1971.Google Scholar

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20 It is unclear if this action constituted a formal recognition of the Oder-Neisse line, for the Vatican said that it took the action “to meet pastoral needs,” which suggests something less than formal recognition (New York Times, 29 06 1972).Google Scholar

21 These policies apparently were the subject of considerable discussion in the talks. The Vatican's official communique on the Olszowski visit stressed that the “Holy Father mentioned the questions closest to the heart of the Church in Poland, expressing the hope that these questions can find a satisfactory solution,” a statement obviously designed at least partly to reassure the Polish episcopate that the Vatican would protect its interests. See R.F.E., Polish Situation Report/39, 14 11 1973, 7–9Google Scholar, for a detailed discussion of Olszowski's visit.

22 For details of the 1974 Casaroli visit, see R.F.E., Polish Situation Report/5, 8 02 1974Google Scholar. R.F.E., Polish Situation Report/3, 24 11 1974, 3Google Scholar, provides background on the permanent working contacts between the Holy See and Poland. The Polish government conferred ministerial rank on its representative for the contacts, an action that, according to the Italian Communist party paper L'Unita, 30 09 1974Google Scholar, “surprised” the Vatican which had expected a “lower ranking official.” The Vatican appointed Archbishop Luigi Poggi of its Council for the Public Affairs of the Church to supervise the contacts.

23 See R.F.E. Polish Situation Report/32, 17 09 1976, 3–5.Google Scholar

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25 R.F.E. Polish Situation Report/41, 3 12 1976, 21.Google Scholar

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27 R.F.E., Polish Situation Report/29, 13 12 1977, 9–10, quotes from the pope's remarks to Gierek.Google Scholar

28 Hungarian Socialist Workers Party First Secretary Janos Kadar in March 1963 had indicated willingness for such an accommodation in his assertion that “believers and nonbelievers are equal citizens. It is all the same whether one writes the word God with a capital letter and the other does not, but it is important that everyone write the word ‘person’ with a capital letter” (New York Times, 23 03 1963).Google Scholar

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30 While the Hungarian government received the 1964 agreement “with unconcealed pride and satisfaction,” the importance and extent of the unresolved issues led one authority to observe that the agreement “was nothing if not modest in content,” a sentiment shared partly by Casaroli himself. Yet the 1964 agreement did establish the precedent for similar agreements with other socialist states, and permitted the partial rejuvenation of the Hungarian hierarchy through ecclesiastical appointments. R.F.E., Hungary/21, 5 05 1969, 5Google Scholar; Beeson, , Discretion and Valour, p. 247Google Scholar. See L'Osservatore Romano (Rome), 19 09 1964Google Scholar, for Casaroli's assessment of the agreement.

31 By early 1976, all three of Hungary's archbishoprics and seven of its eight bishoprics were headed by residential prelates, while an apostolic administrator headed its Greek Uniate diocese. For Cardinal Mindszenty's accusation that many of the new appointees collaborated closely with the regime, see the New York Times, 8 02 1974Google Scholar. A kinder assessment disputes Mindszenty, but admits that they are not men of “exceptional ecclesiastical character” (R.F.E., Hungary/3, 10 03 1972, 1).Google Scholar

32 In February 1976, the pope appointed, with the concurrence of the Hungarian government, the Most Reverend Laszlo Lekai as Mindszenty's successor. According to the Washington Post, 13 02 1976Google Scholar, there is no evidence that Lekai ever collaborated with the regime, although he is obviously acceptable to it. Hungarian Prime Minister Gyorgy Lazar, after a recent audience with Pope Paul, commented that “we are moving along a road at the end of which we may establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See.”

33 Quoted in the Washington Post, 10 06 1977 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

34 For details on these measures, See Magyar Hirlap (Budapest), 20 08 1977.Google Scholar

35 Die Welt (Hamburg), 24 12 1976.Google Scholar

36 See the New York Times, 11 02 1964Google Scholar, for details of the 1964 agreement.

37 R.F.E., Czechoslovakia/4, 13 03 1973, 3.Google Scholar

38 Ibid.,/36, 2 October 1974, 1–2; Die Presse (Vienna), 21 03 1977Google Scholar. For samizdat documents from Czechoslovakia alleging that the Vatican appoints pro-regime prelates to important ecclesiastical positions, see Religion in Communist Lands (Winter, 1978), p. 286.Google Scholar

39 Glas Koncila, 1 04 1973Google Scholar. Yugoslav authorities banned this issue of the paper for the article on Czechoslovakia.

40 The pope's comment is quoted in R.F.E. Czechoslovak Situation Report/27, 20 07 1977, 7Google Scholar. For details of the 1977 agreement, see ibid.,/2, 18 January 1977, 1–3.

41 New York Times, 8 10 1977.Google Scholar

42 Thus, in 1972, when over 17,000 Lithuanian Catholics addressed a petition for greater religious freedom to the United Nations' Secretary General, the government successfully pressured the hierarchy to issue a “Pastoral Letter” condemning the action. The “Pastoral Letter” precipitated another letter signed by many priests proclaiming that “we have had enough of these Monsignors who spread the “truth” about the Lithuanian Catholic Church by means of the atheist radio and press. We have also had enough of the kind of bishops who publish such pastoral ‘letters’” (quoted in Beeson, , Discretion and Valour, p. 116).Google Scholar

43 Ibid., 114. Four new Lithuanian bishops were consecrated between 1965–1970, and a Latvian bishop in 1972, to serve the Baltic region.

44 As Romanian First Party Secretary Ceausescu has remarked, “We believe that in the light of the efforts to achieve European security and a better, more equitable world, there are prospects for the expansion and development of cooperation between Romania and the Vatican” (Scinteia [Bucharest], 28 03 1974).Google Scholar

45 New York Times, 31 10 1974.Google Scholar

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47 Quoted in Beeson, , Discretion and Valour, p. 281.Google Scholar

48 Washington Post, 22 10 1978.Google Scholar

49 That the Vatican under Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI often ignored internal religious oppression in pursuit of cordial diplomatic relations with Communist governments has been a frequent allegation of critics of Ostpolitik. Thus, an American spokesman for Ukrainian Uniate Catholics assailed the Vatican for wanting “to make a sacrificial lamb out of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in its search for improved relations with the Soviet Union,” while Cardinal Wyszynski, commenting upon Vatican-Polish talks that focused primarily upon “international matters of common interest,” advised that “when the representative of the Holy See arrives in Poland, it is not enough to discuss peace between nations and talk about securing people against hunger” and that future talks should examine the “problems of the Church at home” (New York Times, 17 03 1971Google Scholar; R.F.E., Polish Situation Report/5, 21 03 1975, 7Google Scholar). For material on Pope John Paul II's background, including his role in church-state relations in Poland, see R.F.E. Background Report (Poland)/233, 27 10 1978Google Scholar. Tomsky, Alexander, “Profile of the New Pope,” Religion in Communist Lands (Winter, 1978), pp. 220–22.Google Scholar

50 Washington Post, 7 06 1979.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., 22 October 1978.

52 For a discussion of these actions, see R.F.E. Polish Situation Report/26, 16 11 1978, 17–19.Google Scholar

53 Quoted in Ibid.,/2, 26 January 1979, 5.

54 New York Times, 30 12 1978.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 3 March 1979.

56 Quoted by United Press International, 17 06 1979.Google Scholar

57 New York Times, 6 06 1979.Google Scholar

58 Washington Post, 10 06 1979.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., 25 January 1979.

60 New Times (Moscow), no. 44 (1978), 27.Google Scholar

61 Izvestiya, 17 01 1979.Google Scholar

62 Washington Post, 4 06 1979.Google Scholar

63 Uj Ember, 5 11 1978Google Scholar, quoted in R.F.E. Hungarian Situation Report/29, 17 11 1978Google Scholar; R.F.E. Hungarian Situation Report/1, 11 01 1979, 19Google Scholar; Washington Post, 23 01 1978Google Scholar; New York Times, 16 02 1979Google Scholar; Ibid., 31 December 1978.

64 Pope Paul's comments are reported in Nepszabadsag (Budapest), 10 06 1977.Google Scholar