White Eagle, Black Madonna: One Thousand Years of the Polish Catholic Tradition by Robert E. Alvis

Abstract

Reviewed by: White Eagle, Black Madonna: One Thousand Years of the Polish Catholic Tradition by Robert E. Alvis David Curp White Eagle, Black Madonna: One Thousand Years of the Polish Catholic Tradition. By Robert E. Alvis. (New York: Fordham University Press. 2016. Pp. xvi, 349. $125.00 clothbound. ISBN 978-0-8232-7170-2; $35.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-8232-7171-9.) The central contention of Robert Alvis' study, that the Catholic Church in Poland holds a peculiarly central place in that country's history and culture, is inarguable. The Catholic Church has shaped the relationships between its Polish faithful and Poland's non-Catholic populations within its changing borders, as well as between Poland and its various neighbors in Europe, and even globally in the places touched by Polonia—Poland's diaspora. In turn, Poles also have enriched the Catholic faith in ways that until relatively recently—during and after St. John Paul II's pontificate—many English speakers were unaware of. Alvis' White Eagle, Black Madonna seeks to introduce and make intelligible to this audience some of the wide and deep crosscurrents that Catholicism's instantiation in Poland have generated in that country and for the world. The work is divided into ten chapters that focus on distinct eras of Polish history and the role of the Catholic Church therein, though it is heavily weighted towards the modern era. The sketches of general Polish history are generally judicious, and interweave Poland's changing geopolitics, internal political life, social development, and broader cultural changes with the story of its Catholic religious life. Several of the chapters are particularly important in demonstrating the dynamic ways in which Polish Catholics integrated their faith into their peculiar circumstances. In his discussion of the Reformation, for example (the strongest chapter in his work), Alvis notes Poland's uniqueness as a country that for over a century saw much of Polish Catholicism's lay leaders (especially among the nobility—the szlachta) and prominent clergy resist the pull of religious violence that engulfed Europe. This was due to their society's distinctive, pre-existing multi-religious pluralism as well as the degree to which, even as Catholics, Poles had previously found themselves targeted by the crusading zeal and predatory geopolitical vison of the Teutonic Knights in the high Middle Ages. Polish resistance to religious violence was both politically pragmatic—the szlachta understood that a state strong enough to enforce religious uniformity would be strong enough to subordinate them—but also principled and faithful, as Polish Catholic lay believers and many of their clergy grasped the importance of a free religious conscience. There are many ironies of Poland's Reformation. These [End Page 345] include how the papacy (and some Polish churchmen then and later) considered this refusal to use coercion a sign of religious and political weakness, as well as how this resistance played a key role in the resurgence of Catholicism in the late sixteenth century as the Church in Poland turned to teaching and evangelization instead of force to answer the challenge of Protestantism. Finally, perhaps the supreme irony of this graced historical moment is that while Polish Catholics resisted the pull of religious persecution during the Reformation, in a changed—and charged—geopolitical and cultural moment a century later, Polish Catholic lay and clerical elites enacted restrictions on religious life that their forefathers had rejected. This is an ambitious book that points to just how much needs to be done to make a vastly different experience of Catholicism accessible to a wider audience. While this reviewer wishes that the author had been able to develop at greater length the development of Poland's rich Catholic spirituality and customs, as well as the sustained work of education, charitable works, and burgeoning social movements that were a primary mode of experiencing Catholicism for many Poles, Professor Alvis has offered us a concise and rewarding survey. David Curp University of Ohio Copyright © 2019 The Catholic University of America Press