It is very difficult to review such a densely packed book that treats of such complex theological and pastoral issues. In only 257 pages, the author analyses case studies of Catholic involvement in, and official Church responses to, political violence in the Irish independence and civil wars of 1916–1923, in the widespread violence that led to the Fascist seizure of power in Italy in 1922, the Cristeros’ armed struggle against anticlerical governments in Mexico in the 1920s and the analogous situation in Spain during the Civil War of 1936–1939, the case of pro-Fascist priests advocating “hate the enemy” under the Saló regime in Italy, 1943–45, the Hungarian uprising against the Communist and Soviet authorities in 1956, the Northern Ireland “Troubles” from the 1970s to the 1990s, the various armed revolutionary movements in Latin America from the 1960s onwards, the “years of lead” period of terrorism in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, the slaughter of Tutsi (and “moderate” Hutu) by Hutu in Rwanda in 1994 and the US antiabortion violence in the early years of this century.
The author’s case-by-case approach is methodologically sound, and the array of sources that she consults, in four different languages, is extremely impressive.
Professor Ceci considers how Catholics in these situations invoked either theological traditions of the right to oppose and take up arms against tyrannical regimes, or tenuous versions of the “just war” theory to justify their actions. Key considerations were whether those regimes could be considered “legitimate” or not, and whether the resort to violence was likely to worsen the situation and negatively impact the “innocent.” Thus, she deftly explains how the Irish hierarchy was deeply divided on the legitimacy of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, despite the genuine belief of the Catholics involved in the justness of their cause, and the strong lobbying on their behalf by the rector of the Irish College in Rome.
She also demonstrates that the Church authorities, from the pope down, responded differently in analogous situations. For example, regarding the Mexican Cristeros, who undoubtedly committed atrocities, she highlights the difficulties of the Vatican’s position, which just stopped short of publicly condoning their armed struggle against a legitimate government, whereas in the Spanish case the authorities in Rome eventually gave diplomatic recognition to Franco’s government even though his forces, as well as some of the forces of the legitimate Republic, had murdered Catholic priests.
The formal condemnation by the Church authorities of priests who supported Mussolini’s restored regime in 1943 by espousing the Fascist call to “hate the enemy” contrasts with the condemnation by the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence of partisan violence against the German occupying forces in central Italy. When he remained silent about the atrocities committed by the Germans, he was publicly denounced by Catholics involved in the partisan struggle.
Catholic involvement in the Italian “Years of Lead,” as she demonstrates, was extremely exiguous. While some of the leaders of the Red Brigades terrorists had a Catholic upbringing, so did the overwhelming majority of Italians in their age group. One suspects that many of the “black,” that is, neo-Fascist, terrorists of the same period, whom she does not mention, shared that experience.
A particular focus of her attention is the case of Bobby Sands, the Provisional IRA prisoner who died on hunger strike in protest against the conditions in the Maze Prison in 1981. Was he a “martyr” or did he effectively commit a mortal sin by suicide? In right-wing/Catholic circles in Italy, he was seen as a martyr; hence, the little “shrines” to him that used to adorn some street corners in Rome. The complexity of the question of violence in a just cause as a form of sacrifice is also analyzed in the section on the involvement of Catholics, including priests, in the guerrilla wars in Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century.
The most horrifying and perplexing of all the situations that Professor Ceci examines is that in Rwanda, where Catholics were actively involved in the mass murder (800,000) of other Catholics. Pope John Paul II’s response seems to have been weak and wishy-washy, presumably for fear of upsetting Catholic “unity.”
Some important case studies are missing from Professor Ceci’s survey; Catholics and political violence in (a)the inter-war Polish region of Galicia/West Ukraine, now part of Ukraine, and (b) in the World War Two “Independent State of Croatia,” including what are now parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, not to mention German, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian Catholic involvement in the Holocaust. In the case of Western Ukraine, the Greek Catholic Church had an ambiguous relationship with the Ukrainian terrorist OUN-Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists—members of which perpetrated acts of terrorism and other violence against what they considered to be the “Polish occupying authorities.” Few clergy condemned these acts.
The Catholic Church in Croatia welcomed the establishment in 1941 of the fascist Ustashe regime established by Anton Pavelic and “sponsored” by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, as a liberation from Serbian, Orthodox domination. Croatian Catholic activists reared in the 1930s Krizieri youth movement, and even some Catholic clergy (including Franciscans) subsequently became involved in the slaughter of Jews, GRT people, and ethnic Serbs resident in the territories of the “Greater Croatia” controlled by the Ustashe. Both of these cases may arguably be compared with the Irish struggle for independence, in which Catholics were involved, the Provisional IRA terror campaign in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, and perhaps even the Hungarian uprising of 1956. In these cases, the resort to violence was prompted and justified by the identification of the defence of nationalist/ethnic identity with that of Catholic interests.
Professor Ceci is to be congratulated for a strikingly original study that meticulously dissects the moral dilemmas facing Catholics. Despite its lacunae, nothing on this subject has been attempted on this scale and in this complexity before.
