The Catholic Church in the Cold War. The Reactions of Pius XII and the Holy See to the Establishment of State Socialist Regimes in East Central and Southeast Europe (1945–1958)

Project duration: January 2022 – 2026
Project staff: Dr. Marion Dotter, Collegium Carolinum
Project coordinator: Prof. Dr. Martin Schulze Wessel, Collegium Carolinum
Fundind: This project is financially supported by the Max Weber-Stiftung. Research project by Collegium Carolinum in cooperation with the DHI Rome and the DHI Warsaw.

Postdoctoral project at Collegium Carolinum within the framework of the research project „The Global Pontificate of Pius XII. Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945-1958”

The Catholic Church in the Cold War. The Reactions of Pius XII and the Holy See to the Establishment of State Socialist Regimes in East Central and Southeast Europe (1945–1958)

When the Vatican allowed access to the archives of the pontificate of Pius XII for the first time in 2020, the media response was great. The public was particularly interested in the role of the Pope during the Second World War. However, the international research project “The Global Pontificate of Pius XII. Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945–1958” begun in January 2022, focuses on the post-war era. Ten researchers at various international locations will address the question of the Vatican’s attitudes and actions concerning key topics of the 20^th century like decolonisation, democratisation, and remembrance of the Shoah and World War II. With the help of the new material from the Apostolic Archive as well as additional sources from within Europe and beyond, they will investigate the Vatican’s role during the early Cold War and the beginning of globalisation.

At Collegium Carolinum, Marion Dotter is working on the post-doctoral project on the relationship between the Catholic Church and communism in East Central and Southeast Europe. Pope Pius XII is known for his strict aversion to communist ideology – as expressed, for example, in the publication of the “Decretum S. Officii contra communismum” in 1949 and the gradual approach to the Western system of states and values. This also roughly outlines the twofold role that Pius XII holds as an international actor until today: As sovereign of the microstate Vatican City on the one hand, he was entitled to dispatch representatives to foreign countries and take up negotiations with government authorities, while on the other hand, his function as head of the Catholic Church placed him among the “non-governmental actors”, and the worldwide clerical structures of the Church provided him with resources extending down to the lowest administrative level of the parishes.

Describing this double role of the Church as an internationally and locally active institution in East Central and Southeast Europe is the current research project’s primary goal. It aims to achieve this by way of a comparison between the Czechoslovak Republic, northern Yugoslavia, and Austria. Although Czechoslovakia was able to establish itself as a discrete nation after the Second World War, it remained subject to the Soviet dictate. As a Yugoslav republic, Slovenia was considered to be among the “non-aligned” socialist states and accordingly plotted its own state socialist course. The east of Austria was formally under Soviet occupation until 1955, with the country declaring itself neutral in the state treaty that secured its independence. This selection allows the Church’s reactions to the Marxist ideology in three very different manifestations to be compared. The project looks to reveal the measures taken by the Catholic Church in response to the challenges of the post-war era, as well as to what degree they were tailored to the political and national specificities of the studied countries.

These measures will be traced across all levels of the ecclesiastic administration – from the various decision-making bodies of the Curia to the episcopate and the national lay organisations – in order to complement European post-war history with a religious history perspective.

The international research project “The Global Pontificate of Pius XII” organises an annual internal workshop for the staff members of all partner institutions, who come together to present their individual projects on the four main topics – Cold War, decolonisation, remembrance culture, and democratisation – in the shape of progress reports.

1^st workshop “The Global Pontificate of Pius XII”: Internal project meeting (in cooperation with the GHI Rome), Munich, 26–27 May 2023