The Vatican in World Politics [full]

Description

The importance of this book cannot be exaggerated. Properly understood, it offers both a clue and a key to the painfully confused political situation that shrouds the world. No political event or circumstance can be evaluated without the knowledge of the Vatican's part in it. And no significant world political situation exists in which the Vatican does not play an important explicit or implicit part. As Glenn L. Archer, Executive Director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, puts it, "this book comes to grips with the most vital social and political problems of our day. The author presents with singular clarity and without bias the conflicts between the Roman Church and the freedoms of democracy. " This book is valuable also in that it brings to light historical facts hitherto kept secret, many of them published here for the Catholic Church, seemingly preoccupied only with its religious tasks, is feverishly engaged in a race for the ultimate spiritual conquest of the world. Not a single event of importance that has contributed to the present chaotic state of affairs has occurred without the Vatican taking an active part in it. The Catholic population of the world—400 millions—is more numerous than that of the United States and Soviet Russia put together. When it is remembered that the concerted activities of this gigantic spiritual mass depend on the lips of a single man, the apathy of non-Catholic American should swiftly turn to keenest attention. His interest, furthermore, should increase when he is made aware that the United States is intimately involved in the attainment of both the immediate and the ultimate goals of the Vatican. These goals are: 1. The annihilation of Communism and of Soviet Russia. 2. The spiritual conquest of the U. S. A. 3. The ultimate Catholicization of the world. Do these goals seem fantastic? Unfortunately they are neither speculation nor wild and idle dreams. They are as indisputable and as inextricably a part of contemporary history as the rise of Hitler, the defeat of Japan, the splitting of the atom, the existence of Communism. Indeed the inescapable alternative by which mankind today is confronted is not whether this will be the American or the Russian Century, but whether this might not after all become the Catholic Century. Surely, then, the nature, aims and workings of the Catholic Church deserve some scrutiny. The American citizen, perturbed by the past, bewildered by the present and made increasingly anxious about the future, would do well to ponder the exertions of the Vatican in contemporary American and world politics. His destiny as well as the destiny of the United States, and indeed of mankind, has been and will continue to be profoundly affected by the activities of an institution which, although a church, is nonetheless as mighty a political power as the mightiest nation on the planet.the first time. Foreword by Guy Emery Shipler Preface 1 The Vatican in the Modem World 2 The Vatican State 3 The Vatican Power 4 Spiritual Totalitarianism of the Vatican 5 Religious Orders 6 The Vatican on World Unrest 7 Vatican Policy between the Two World Wars 8 Spain, the Catholic Church and the Civil War 9 Italy, the Vatican and Fascism 10 Germany, the Vatican and Hitler 11 The Vatican and World War II 12 Austria and the Vatican 13 Czechoslovakia and the Vatican 14 Poland and the Vatican 15 Belgium and the Vatican 16 France and the Vatican 17 Russia and the Vatican 18 The Vatican and the United States 19 The Vatican, Latin America, Japan, and China 20 Conclusion About the Author