by Peter Eisner
I also thank Rector T. Frank Kennedy, S.J., at the Jesuit Community at Boston College, and the members of the community, who welcomed me and provided stimulating conversation, not to mention room and exquisite victuals during two visits.
Thanks to Miguel Pagliere, friend and photographer extraordinaire, and to Neal Levy for their encouragement. In Italy, I benefited from the insights of Professor Piero Melograni and am grateful for the help of my colleague in Rome, Sarah Delaney, for making things work so smoothly. We shared a wonderful welcome in the lovely town of Segni in Lazio by members of the archives at the Archivio Diocesano Innocenzo III; and thanks to the archive director, Alfredo Serangeli, for his time and expertise. During a long lunch in Segni, the archivists reminded me that memories endure of World War II and its consequences.
One highlight was a day trip to Castel Gandolfo where Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J., an American research astronomer and planetary scientist, took us on an extensive tour of the papal grounds. It included a rare visit to the marvelous Vatican Observatory, its Zeiss telescope and breathtaking museum and library—complete with a four-hundred-year-old copy of Copernicus’s Astronomia Instaurata (published about seventy years after his death).
The current pope was not there during our visit in October 2011, yet one could imagine the presence of Pius XI, pacing the balconies and feeling the wind whipping across Lake Albano. I am grateful to Brother Guy for his kindness; and also to my niece, Natalie Hinkel, who made the connections for that visit.
Sister Catherine Bitzer, archivist at the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, was of great help and my appreciation to her consideration; and to the members of her order, The Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, who hosted me for a week. My uncle and aunt Jerry and Joan Gropper and cousins Amy Gropper and David Futch provided the logistics. Thanks to David Futch for also helping review the archives of Bishop Joseph Hurley.
I enjoyed greatly my chats with The Honorable Guido Calabresi, Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, following the revelation that his family had a direct connection to some of the events that took place in the book. Thanks as well to the Rev. Michael P. Morris, M.A., M.Div., archivist of the Archives of the Archdiocese of New York, who graciously provided advice and access to relevant files in the archdiocese’s archives.
Among others, thanks to a number of historians, Richard Breitman, Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Michael Gannon, David I. Kertzer, my colleague David Kahn, David Alvarez and Robert Maryks, and Michael R. Marrus; Thomas J. Reese, S.J; Thomas Brennan; and to Tomas Gergely, Martin Hosking, and Berle Cherney, for his photo expertise; Neal S. Levy; Matthew Budow helped connect me with an important archive at the University of Michigan through Adam Zarazinski, who tracked down a letter from Cardinal Tisserant there.
No one could have a better editor than Henry Ferris, whose logical choices and sensitivity are unparalleled and central to the book; my agent, Flip Brophy, is the dynamo that keeps things together. Many thanks to both.
None of this works without family support—my wife, Musha Salinas Eisner, partner, editor, and best critic; my daughters, Isabel and Marina, constant boosters; Maria Teresa Leturia, my aunt, and Amparo Maria Salinas are not only supporters, but are also assiduous copyeditors and critics. I always wish that Bernie, Lorraine Eisner, and Agricol Salinas Artagoitia could have stayed longer with us. Sic transit gloria mundi.
EXCERPTS FROM LAFARGE’S ENCYCLICAL
The following excerpts from John LaFarge’s draft encyclical are from the files of Edward Stanton, S.J., Burns Library, Boston College.
Humanis Generis Unitas
(The Ineditum)
Pope Pius XI
The unity of the human race is forgotten, as it were, owing to the extreme disorder found at the present time in the social life of man. This disorder is seen whether we consider the smaller or the lesser groups of people, but especially when we look at the greater groups. This disorder is found not only in what people do, but still more in what they think. All varieties of catchwords are produced which are supposed to cure the state of things but their mere number furnishes telling proof of the confusion.
In one place a magical remedy is prescribed under the resounding formular [sic]: Unity of Nation; elsewhere people are roused to enthusiasm by a leader’s intoxicating appeal to the Unity of the Race, while in the eastern European sky dawns a promise reddened with terror and blood of a new humanity to be realized in the Unity of the Proletariat.
In the name of the Unity of the State the obligations imposed by the political nature of community are added to the often incompatible demands of those diverse collectivities, Nation, Race, and Class.
RACE AND RACISM
111 When we come to the question of race we find most completely exemplified the harm that is done by the loose, sentimental, almost mystical manner of speaking which has been applied to the ideas of nation, people, and State. There is so little unanimity, whether in scientific or in practical usage, as to what is meant by the term race or racial bond that we find it is actually used now, and was formerly more used, merely to designate a nation or people. Apart from that, racial bond is used, in accordance with present-day scientific parlance, to denote the common participation of a group of human beings in certain definite, permanent physical qualities, and in association with the bodily constitution which is marked by these physical qualities are certain constantly observed psychological characteristics. If this and no more than this is meant and if, moreover, the constancy of all the individual racial characteristics is not extended over too long a period of time, the usage of the term “race” remains within the limits of verifable [sic, meaning verifiable] observation.
Denial of human unity
112 But so-called racism wishes to imply much more than this. It contradicts the negative conclusions which we already established in this Letter based upon the teachings of the Faith, the testimony of philosophy and of other sciences and experience as to every genuinely human form of separation in the social life of man. Theoretically and practically it contradicts the principle that no type of separation can be genuinely human, unless it shares in that which forms the common bond of humanity. The theory and practice of racism which makes a distinction between the higher and lower races, ignores the bond of unity whose existence is demonstrated by these three sources of knowledge or at least it robs it of any practical significance. It is incredible that in view of these facts there are still people who maintain that the doctrine and practice of racism have nothing to do with Catholic teaching as to faith and morals and nothing to do with philosophy, but is a purely political affair.
Denial of human personality
113 The surprise at such people increases when the three criteria that were proposed in connection with these negative conclusions are applied to the doctrine of Racism. The first criterion showed that the inner unity and free-will of the human person was indispensable for the creation of any truly human society. But if the racial community is to be the source of all other forms of society, this inner unity and free-will of the human person must be guaranteed. But no justice is done by racism to the significance of the human person in the formation of society. According to racism the common blood stream drives individuals with compulsive force into a community of physical and psychological qualities. Otherwise there is no explanation of the absolutely hopeless position which racism assumes as to the so-called inferior races; its complete assurance as to the so-called superior races; the mechanics of its legislative procedure, which judges all individuals of a given race according to the same ethnic formula.
Religion is not subject to race
120 But Racism is not content with denying the validity of the universal moral order as a benefit that unifies the whole human race; it likewise denies the general and equal application of essential values in the field of economic welfare, or art, of science and, above all, of religion. It maintains, for instance, that each race should have its own science, whic
h should have nothing in common with the science of another race, particularly of an inferior race. Although the unity of the sum of human culture is a matter of concern for Catholic faith and morals, let us touch here only upon the relation between race and religion. In this connection We have recently drawn attention to a false proposition of racism, which declares: “Religion is subject to the law of race and must be adapted to that law.” Scholars, however, of reputable standing who in their researches have made comparison of the various peoples and of the various phases of development of individual peoples, declare that there is no immediate connection between race and religion and that the result of their studies points rather to the religious unity of humanity.
Racism destroys the structure of society
123 Respect for reality, as it is consistently manifested by the divine Revelation, by the various sciences and by experience, does not permit the Catholic to remain silent in the presence of racism; for respect for that which is must always be an essential trait of the Catholic. Therefore it must be said that Racism likewise fails to stand the test of the third of the negative criteria. According to this criterion a group which claims for itself extensive totality, that is to say, which judges the content of all other purposes and values from the standpoint of its own purpose and fundamental scale of values, destroys the basic structure of humanity as a true unity in true diversity and thereby betrays its own inner falsity and worthlessness. But this is precisely what is done by Racism, both theoretical and practical. It places the fact of racial grouping in such a central position, assigns to it such exclusive significance and efficacy, that in comparison therewith all other social bonds and groupings have no distinct, relatively independent individuality or juridical foundation for the same. Through the extension of racial values the entire life of society becomes a single mechanically unified totality; it is robbed precisely of that form which is given it by the spirit; true unity is true diversity.
124 The central race value oversimplifies, confuses, obliterates everything besides itself. Through its extensive Totalitarianism it effects a type of society which is entirely similar to that Internationalism which Racism affects to reprove and which is combated by Us. Its concept of the world is too simple, primitively simple. Youth that is brought up in this concept of the world will be fanatical as long as it accepts it, and nihilistic once it rejects it; and either of these developments is possible if mind and heart have lost the ability to appreciate the manifold riches of the True and the Good, riches which in all their breadth and unity can only be communicated by a truly spiritual life.
Evil effects on youth and education
125 Wretched youth, wretched parents, wretched teachers to whom the fundamental law of racist education permits naught but the prospect of fanaticism or nihilism. Let Us lay before the whole world this shameful educational principle, which We recently stigmatized as false: “The aim of education is to develop the qualities of the race and to inflame the mind to a glowing love of one’s own race as the supreme good.” For youth menaced through such racist doctrine with spiritual destitution and decay We cannot pray fervently enough to Him who is the divine Teacher, who in His own Person gave a perfect example, uniting the supernatural and the natural in unparalleled breadth and universality, saying “I will that they shall have life and have it more abundantly.”
The diversity of races
126 Would that the world were free of this mistaken and harmful Racism with its assumption of a rigid separation of superior and inferior races and aboriginal, unchangeable differences of blood. Certainly, there exist today some more or less perfect or more or less perfectly developed races, if we measure them by the outward manifestations of cultural life. But these differences come from and are determined by the environment, in the sense that only through the influences of the environment—apart from what is caused by the exercise of man’s free will—could original racial tendencies develop in one or the other manner and still continue to develop. Even if we grant that the various original, as well as later racial tendencies, impose a certain definite direction and even limitation upon that development and upon the influence of the environment, they afford as yet no basis for an essential difference between the individual races in the capacity for religious, moral and cultural life. This is shown by the teachings of Revelation as well as by those of philosophy and of the other sciences.
Influence of environment
127 For these teachings point to the original and essential unity of the human race; in accordance with which the various original racial tendencies are not to be ascribed to original differences of blood, but only to the influence of the environment, including also the spiritual environment. To such an influence certain great isolated groups have been exposed over long periods of time. In that respect the positive development of various racial tendencies, through the diversity of particular races, occurs in exactly the same way as the development of other elements shaping human communities. These tendencies put on the whole the clear stamp of a vital individuality, and enrich the life of humanity as a whole. The only influence in this fertile and positive development of different races in the world today—again, apart from the influence of human freedom—is in the favorable or unfavorable disposition of the past or present environment.
The Jews and anti-Semitism (religious separation)
131 Those who have placed race illegitimately on a pedestal have rendered mankind a disservice. For they have done nothing to advance the unity to which humanity tends and aspires. One naturally wonders if this end is faithfully pursued by many of the principal advocates of a so-called racial purity or if their aim isn’t rather to forge a clever slogan to move the masses to very different ends. This suspicion grows when one envisages how many subdivisions of a single race are judged and treated differently by the same men at the same time. It is further increased when it becomes clear that the struggle for racial purity ends by being uniquely the struggle against the Jews. Save for the systematic cruelty, this struggle, in true motives and methods, is no different from persecutions everywhere carried out against Jews from antiquity. These persecutions have been censured by the Holy See on more than one occasion, but especially when they have worn the mantle of Christianity.
The actual persecution of the Jews
132 As a result of such a persecution, millions of persons are deprived of the most elementary rights and privileges of citizens in the very land of their birth. Denied legal protection against violence and robbery, exposed to every form of insult and public degradation, innocent persons are treated as criminals though they have scrupulously obeyed the law of their native land. Even those who in time of war fought bravely for their country and the children of those who laid down their lives on their country’s behalf are treated as traitors and branded as outlaws by the very fact of their parentage. The values of patriotism, so loudly invoked for the benefit of one class of citizens, are ridiculed when invoked for others who come under the racial ban.
In the case of the Jews, this flagrant denial of human rights sends many thousands of helpless persons out over the face of the earth without any resources. Wandering from frontier to frontier, they are a burden to humanity and to themselves.
NOTES
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your e-book reader.
SOURCE ABBREVIATIONS
ACDSA Archives of the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine
BLBC Burns Library, Boston College
GUL Georgetown University Archives
HLHU Houghton Library, Harvard University
NARA National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
NYT New York Times
SLRH Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
Prologue
1 “If by chance . . .” Robert A. Hecht, An Unordinary Man. A Life of Father John LaFarge, SJ (Lan
ham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996), 242.
2 “that great flame . . .” John LaFarge, The Manner Is Ordinary (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1954), 194.
2 “Once the light of science . . .” John LaFarge, Interracial Justice (New York: America Press, 1937), 11.
2 Sometimes he appeared Hecht, Unordinary Man, 251.
3 One night, LaFarge began Walter Abbott, S.J., to Edward Stanton, S.J., undated, Stanton Papers, BLBC.
Chapter One: Nostalgia Confronts Reality
8 “Although there are differences . . .” “Religious Leaders Unite for Austria,” NYT, March 23, 1938.
10 He turned once more LaFarge, Manner Is Ordinary, 76.
11 To his horror Ibid., 254.
12 A quick cab ride John LaFarge, “Europe Revisited,” The Month, London, March 1939, 215.
13 “Catholics in the Vienna diocese . . .” “Cardinal Makes Appeal,” NYT, March 13, 1938.
13 The Vatican secretary of state Emma Fattorini, Hitler, Mussolini and the Vatican (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2011), 140.
13 Hitler’s trip on May 2 “Rome Ready for Hitler, An Elaborate Welcome,” The (London) Times, May 2, 1938, 1.
14 Ambassador William Phillips, accompanied William Phillips diaries (MS AM2232), HLHU, 2539.
14 “I only hope the poor wretches . . .” William Phillips letter to FDR, May 8, 1938, William Phillips diaries (MS AM2232), HLHU, 2539.
14 The Times of London described the event “Dictators Meet,” The (London) Times, May 4, 1938, 1.
15 LaFarge’s newspaper also reported “Rome Ready for Hitler, An Elaborate Welcome,” The (London) Times, May 2, 1938, 1.
