Book contents
- Survivors
- Maps
- Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
- Survivors
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Warsaw Besieged
- 2 The Killing Years
- 3 Pawiak Prison
- 4 The Warsaw Ghetto
- 5 Information Wars
- 6 School of Hard Knocks
- 7 Matters of Faith
- 8 Spoiling for a Fight
- 9 Home Army on the Offensive
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Matters of Faith
Catholic Intelligentsia and the Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2022
- Survivors
- Maps
- Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
- Survivors
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Warsaw Besieged
- 2 The Killing Years
- 3 Pawiak Prison
- 4 The Warsaw Ghetto
- 5 Information Wars
- 6 School of Hard Knocks
- 7 Matters of Faith
- 8 Spoiling for a Fight
- 9 Home Army on the Offensive
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 7, “Matters of Faith: Catholic Intelligentsia and the Church,” asks how Catholics behaved in Warsaw and why. Roman Catholicism was the religion of the majority of Varsovians and had played an important role in the development of the Polish national project. In the absence of a Polish government, the Church provided a potential locus of authority for Poles. Warsaw’s priests drew particular negative attention from the Nazi occupation for their potential influence and they were viciously persecuted, imprisoned, and often sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. Nevertheless, leaders of the Church, from the pope in Rome to local bishops, were hesitant to provide guidance, support Nazi occupation, or encourage opposition to it. Despite the lack of a top-down Catholic policy, this chapter argues that individual priests and lay Catholic leaders were motivated by their religious faith to form everything from charities to a postwar clerical state. Crucial among Catholics was the question of the developing Holocaust and the role of Polish Jews in Polish Catholic society, which sharply divided them.
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- Information
- SurvivorsWarsaw under Nazi Occupation, pp. 192 - 225Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022