Although this book consists of five separate articles and an introductory overview, it has a coherence and cohesion that one rarely finds in edited collections. Every chapter covers similar themes and addresses related questions, resulting in a broad yet thorough presentation of a topic that has received surprisingly little attention from historians: the role of Catholics from the Soviet Bloc during the Second Vatican Council, and the impact of that momentous event in the communist world. The volume includes coverage of Hungary (Árpád von Klimó), Yugoslavia (Ivo Banac), Czechoslovakia (James Ramon Felak), Poland (Piotr H. Kosicki), and global diplomatic affairs (Gerald P. Fogarty). The editor's introduction provides a useful overview, along with an excellent summary of the existing scholarship. This is a pathbreaking project, and one that historians specializing in Catholic history and east European history will find extremely valuable. I cannot begin to even summarize the wealth of fascinating information here, so instead I will pull back and mention a couple themes that run throughout the entire book.
One of these threads is the role of Church-State relations in framing how Vatican II was received in eastern Europe. The authors approach the term “oppression” with varying levels of critical nuance, though all of them have to deal with this topic, because it cast a shadow on every aspect of the Council's history in the region. They all agree that the old image of a “Church of Silence” is unfounded: Catholic religious life was never stamped out, and both clerical and lay voices continued to be heard. Nonetheless, communist antagonism and oppression appear in every story told in this book. One challenge in writing about communist religious oppression is evident in these essays: precisely which aspects of state policy should be interpreted under this rubric? From the perspective of the Catholics under study, the violations ranged from imprisonment to the removal of religion classes from state schools. In other words, they experienced the challenges of modernity in the context of communist authoritarianism, thus blurring the lines between the two. This led to miscommunication (some willful, some unintended) at the Second Vatican Council. A west European bishop might advocate “freedom of conscience,” and be met with resistance from conservatives who continued to adhere to the obligatory antimodernism of Pius X, if not the Ultramontanism of Pius IX. East European clerics, meanwhile, heard the same words and applauded, assuming that “liberty” would restore their right to teach the catechism in state schools, and free people from unwanted exposure to secular (and state-sponsored) decadence and atheism. These essays illustrate how the Council's rhetoric could cut different ways in different contexts, and they exemplify the methodological challenges that come with describing such moments.
Another argument that runs throughout this volume is that a history of Vatican II in eastern Europe is, in fact, a topic worth studying. The stereotype is that the bishops from the communist world (except for the Poles) played almost no role during the Council. Even more enduring is the general impression that Vatican II had virtually no resonance in the Soviet Bloc. The first claim is basically true, but as we learn in this book, Catholics from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia managed to participate in the Council despite the machinations of the communist governments. The Poles, of course, were there in force, and a young bishop named Karol Wojtyła make a particularly strong impression. But the most important part of the story, in my opinion, is what happened afterwards. All these authors provide examples of new initiatives that brought to life the openness, tolerance, and universalism of Vatican II. We learn about a wide range of pastoral experiments, ecumenical outreach, and lay activism that would have been hard to imagine prior to the Council. Kosicki offers a word of caution, however, noting that the ideals of Vatican II are hard to find in Poland today. Did they fade away, or did they never extend much beyond the intelligentsia in the first place? If the latter is true, then why? The impression one gets from this book, particularly the articles by Banac, Klimó, and Felak, is that communist censorship made it difficult to spread the Council's message. Kosicki argues that even the conservative Polish Primate, Stefan Wyszyński, viewed the reforms with more equanimity than we might expect, simply opting for a more evolutionary implementation. If we accept this presentation, we would conclude that developments after 1989 are largely responsible for the situation we see today. That allows us to retain an image of the Church resisting communist oppression on behalf of a broad agenda of liberty.
The contribution by Gerald Fogarty focuses mainly on the Papacy's role during the Cuban Missile Crisis and its aftermath, and it might seem a bit out of place in this collection. But maybe not: what's striking about the story is that Popes John XXIII and Paul VI promoted peaceful engagement with the communist authorities over the heads of the Church hierarchy in the Soviet Bloc, without much concern for their views. Today, once again, the Vatican seems focused on global issues while ignoring the situation in eastern Europe. Pope Francis preaches tolerance, condemns racism, and calls for the acceptance of refugees—even as the Church appears to buttress political movements that represent the antithesis of those ideas. Vatican II behind the Iron Curtain rests on the claim that the Council did, in fact, influence Catholicism in the Soviet Bloc, and that there is more to the story of the 1960s than Vatican Ostpolitik and an oppressed “Church of Silence.” I am inclined to agree, which gives me hope that when historians study our present moment, the disconnect between Rome and eastern Europe will turn out to be smaller than it appears.
