Joseph McCabe

“ Military considerations lie outside my many fields of interest but it can safely be said that they afford no justification of the action of France. Indeed now that we see the supreme French commanders in their true light as priest-ridden mediocrities who put the interest of their Church above the interests of their nation and the dictates of honor we wonder if they did not strain these military considerations in 1938 in order to avoid an effective alliance with Russia which the Vatican, which sought an alliance with Germany against Russia, would bitterly resent. ”

“ Note carefully that this was not an attack on the miserable group of Catholic weaklings which was called the Vichy government. If it were, we might allow for strong feeling and over-emphasis. But it was a cold and responsible Statement of what had happened in the tragic days of Munich. At that time Britain and America were cordial friends of France, and the betrayal was softened with vague phrases or even, since the whole world was still steeped in calumny against the great Soviet civilization, excused on the ground that Russia could not be trusted. In war, as in wine, the truth comes out. ”

“ France was morbid and demoralized during several years before the way, but we did not then imagine that its great soldiers were convinced that lack of religion was the root of all its troubles and that the authority of the Church must be reestablished at any cost to the nation, even the sacrifice of that honor of which it was so proud. The final word in 1938 when the Czechs called upon the French to redeem their pledge, was with the Catholic heads of the army and navy: Petain, Weygand, and Darlan. ”