The Connolly Association, the Catholic Church, and anti-communism in Britain and Ireland during the early Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 78-96
Author(s):  
Gerard Madden
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

scholarly journals The Catholic 1968: Poland, Social Justice, and the Global Cold War

Slavic Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 638-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr H. Kosicki
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Development ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Humanae Vitae ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Catholic Church

In the 1960s, the Catholic Church underwent a revolution in the teaching and practice of its faith, known as aggiornamento. Catholics responded by pioneering new forms of agency in world affairs in the Global Sixties. This was a cross-Iron Curtain story, affecting communist and non-communist countries in Europe, as well as developing countries across the world – a story of transfers and encounters unfolding simultaneously along multiple geographical axes: “East-West,” “North-South,” and “East-South.” The narrative anchor for this story is the year 1968. This article explores the seminal role of east European Catholics in this story, focusing on Polish Catholic intellectuals as they wrote and rewrote global narratives of political economy and sexual politics. A global Catholic conversation on international development stalled as sexual politics reinforced Cold War and post-colonial divisions, with the Second and Third Worlds joining forces against First World critics of a new papal teaching on contraception, Humanae Vitae. Paradoxically, the Soviet Bloc became the prism through which the Catholic Church refracted a new vision of international development for the Third World.

The FBI and the Catholic Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regin Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
World War ◽  
Federal Bureau Of Investigation ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

The relationship between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Catholic Church was complex and changed over time. It is well-known that the bureau and the hierarchy of the church cooperated and supported each other during the early part of the Cold War. However, there is more to the story than that. This chapter explains how the bureau, for a number of reasons, pursued a relationship with Catholics during the late 1930s and World War II. As the author explains, however, the Catholic Church was never a monolithic entity, and the bureau maintained surveillance of progressive and radical Catholics who questioned the Cold War consensus. This chapter will focus on a little-known event at the end of World War II when the bureau played an important role in influencing the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to abandon its traditional liberal (or positive) anticommunism for a conservative (or negative) anticommunism.

Thomas J. Kiernan and Irish diplomatic responses to cold-war anticommunism in Australia, 1946-1951

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Gerard Madden
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
State And Society ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Post War ◽  
Views And Perceptions ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Catholic Church

Despite being a peripheral actor in the Cold War, Ireland in the immediate post-war period was attentive to cold war developments internationally, and the influence of the Catholic Church over state and society predominantly shaped the state's response to the conflict. Irish diplomats internationally sent home repo rts on communist activity in the countries in which they served. This article will discuss Thomas J. Kiernan, Ireland's Minister Plenipotentiary in Australia between 1946 and 1955, and his responses, views and perceptions of Australian anti-communism from his 1946 appointment to the 1951 plebiscite on banning the Communist Party of Australia, which ultimately failed. Through analysis of his reports in the National Archives of Ireland – including accounts of his interactions with politicians and clergy, the Australian press, parliamentary debates and other sources – it argues that his views were moulded by the dominant Irish conception of the Cold War, which was fundamentally shaped by Catholicism, and his overreliance on Catholic and print sources led him to sometimes exaggerate the communist threat. Nonetheless, his reports home to Dublin served to reinforce the Irish state's perception that communism was a worldwide malaise which the Catholic Church and Catholics internationally were at the forefront of combatting.

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