Rome's Most Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and Independent Poland, 1914–1939. By Neal Pease. Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009. xxiv + 288 pp. $49.95 cloth; $26.95 paper

摘要

The title of this subtle and sophisticated scholarly study is intentionallynmisleading. The author’s intent is not to depict a Polonia semper fidelis, an“Catholic country non-pareil, ready and willing to do the bidding of thenChurch” (217). Rather, his purpose is to analyze and trace the complexndynamic of Catholicism in Polish politics and of Poland in the politics of thenwider Catholic world in the interwar period. The complicated, three-cornerednrelationship of the Polish government, the Polish Church, and the Vaticannensured that tensions, misunderstandings, and disagreements were common.nNeither of the dominant Polish political figures in this period, JózefnPiłsudski and Roman Dmowski, was a model Catholic, and their respectivenparties held social and political positions that often put them at odds withnCatholic policy. The Catholic clergy in Poland was, moreover, itself oftenndivided, with respect both to domestic political and religious matters and tonpapal policy. Pease also treats with insight the relationship of Catholicism innPoland with Communism, Jews, Freemasons, and other religious minorities.nPopes Benedict XV (d. 1922), Pius XI (1922–1939, the former papal nuncionin Poland whose Polonophilia earned him the unofficial title of “the Polishnpope”), and Pius XII (from 1939) often pursued policies and methods whichnPolish governments and some Polish clergy found problematic and, in someninstances, unacceptable. Pease’s study is impressively grounded in archivalnBOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES 967nand printed sources and reflects a mastery of the secondary literature. Very wellnwritten, it is an authoritative work that corrects conventional wisdom.