El catolicismo mundial y la guerra de España by Javier Tusell and Genoveva García Quiepo de Llano (review)

282 BOOK REVIEWS laid the preliminary groundwork forVatican Council II by stressing the need for Catholics to participate in an urban, pluralistic society while still maintaining their faith through close networks of unions, associations, and educational groups within the Catholic community. Arens looks at what the three famous summer sermons came to mean and concludes that von Galen came to represent a "religious Führer" (p. 401) of Germany. Yet Teuber and Seelhorst provide evidence how the German episcopacy, including von Galen, backed away from speaking out forJews. Perhaps the most pivotal essay in the book is by the editor when he directly addresses the issue of how historians today are struggling to redefine what constitutes resistance. According to him, von Galen was a résister because he was so viewed by the Hitler government. The cement which holds this together is the theme that von Galen's postwar image remains largely intact. Beth Griech-Polelle Rutgers University El catolicismo mundialy la guerra de España. ByJavier Tusell and Genoveva García Quiepo de Llano. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos. 1993. Pp. xiii, 384.) The Spanish Civil war was a defining moment for Catholics throughout the world. In this fine study, the authors measure the impact of that struggle upon Catholics in Spain, France, Italy, Britain, and the United States. The work is based on an exhaustive reading of the sources, primarily the press and the polemical writings of the engaged. Three major events of the war influenced Catholic views: the anticlerical fury of 1936 which resulted in the deaths of thousands of clergy and laity; the complexity of issues surrounding the Basque Catholics' support of the Republic; and the Spanish bishops' pastoral letter of 1937 justifying their support for Franco's Nationalists. In Spain itself, the authors argue that although the religious question was not a primary cause of the war, by the time the anticlerical fury had run its course, the majority of Spaniards who supported Franco did so for religious reasons. This may be hard to prove, but it is certainly true of Catholics abroad. Furthermore , Catholics abroad also reacted on the basis of the religious situation in their own countries, so that the war became, as historian K.W. Watkins has pointed out, a mirror that reflected the problems within each country. Tusell and Quiepo de Llano claim that the Spanish war came to play a major role in the evolution of Catholicism. The conflict between the Nationalist-supporting majority and the vocal anti-Nationalist minority in each country stifled the development of progressive movements within the Church. It also created a great deal of long-lasting bitterness and hostility between the two groups. The authors give splendid summaries and comparisons of the religious situation in all of the countries. France gets the greatest attention: it was the foreign BOOK REVIEWS 283 nation most directly concerned, and in Maritain, Bernanos, Mauriac, and Mounier it had the most powerful intellectuals who opposed the Nationalists. The dispute there was the same as elsewhere and centered on what one considered the primary cause of the war: the religious question or the social question . Those Catholics abroad who viewed the social question as the most important urged neutrality and in some cases support for the Republic, while those who argued the religious question supported the Nationalists and came to see the war as a crusade against a communist-satanic conspiracy. The authors correctly point out that other countries' reactions cannot be understood without reference to the French reaction; only in Britain and the United States was this not completely the case. There the reaction was a response to Catholic-Protestant tensions. The authors devote substantial space to the British and American reactions, and while they do not present any new facts or interpretations, their assessment and descriptions are sound and complete. Their description of the Italian reaction is the most complete in print. The authors conclude that the impact of the war on the Catholic conscience was bitter and negative in spite of the victory of that side for which most Spanish Catholics fought. Abroad, the war set Catholics back in their attempts to integrate themselves into democratic institutions, and...