The Holy See and Czechoslovakia 1945—1948 in the Context of the Nascent Cold War

Abstract

The spectre of Communist expansion as a result of the Second World War represented for Pope Pius XII one of the greatest concerns. The unambiguously pro-Soviet orientation of the Czechoslovak government in exile and the crucial influence of Communists in the inner architecture of the restored state convinced the Holy See that Czechoslovakia was already in 1945 fully absorbed into the Soviet sphere of influence. This fact strengthened the Pope’s conviction of the necessity to resume relations with Prague as soon as possible and to send a nuncio there who would provide reliable information and protect the interests of the Church threatened both by open persecution and by propaganda manoeuvres in favour of a “progressive Catholicism”. The importance of the relations with Czechoslovakia stood out also in the international perspective, in which Czechoslovakia, in contrast to Poland or Hungary, seemed to be the last observatory still accessible to the Vatican diplomacy in the whole East-Central Europe. The year 1947 represented a caesura in the relations between the Holy See and Czechoslovakia. In the international context, this year was generally perceived by the Vatican as a definitive reinforcement of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. In the Czechoslovak framework, the greatest importance was ascribed to the political crisis in Slovakia in autumn 1947, during which the Communists definitively took over the political power in Slovakia. The lost struggle over the predominantly Catholic Slovakia, that for some time had been considered by the Vatican one of very few hopes for the defence of Christian interests in the Republic, was perceived by the Holy See as a dominant breakthrough on the way to the total Communist transformation of Czechoslovakia. While in the immediate post-war period the Holy See had tried to come to terms with Czechoslovakia also at the price of some compromises, in winter 1947/1948 the last hopes for a diplomatic solution vanished and were replaced by the conviction that in the confrontation with Communism not diplomatic, but spiritual weapons — prayer, testimony, martyrdom — were of crucial importance.