Père Merklen’s War: Editing France’s Catholic Newspaper During the Dark Years

Examining how the daily newspaper La Croix and its editor-in-chief, Father Léon Merklen, negotiated the Dark Years of the Occupation, this article addresses common categories of resistance and collaboration as they pertain to the French Catholic Church during World War II. Resistance and collaboration are both necessary but problematic terms. We need to account for the complexity and fluidity of the experiences of the majority of Catholics, including clergy, who do not fall easily into one of these categories. Merklen’s story introduces us to an ineliminable grey area at the heart of Catholic responses to Vichy, Nazism, and the Holocaust.