Many Christians view abortion as the only moral issue that matters, that they do not care what other political stands a party takes, if a party is against abortion, that is the party Christians should support.
When we look back at the history of Vichy France, and this is the only enthusiastically pro-Catholic French regime after the French Revolution, we must ask the inevitable question:
What are the dangers of single-issue politics, when that single issue is abortion?
YouTube, Roe v Wade decision: https://youtu.be/C4rH6qhhw70
YouTube, Dobbs decision: https://youtu.be/Jb_vUFnAf3g
The danger of such a narrow view is apparent when we review the history of the only anti-abortion, pro-Catholic regime in France after the French Revolution, the fascist regime of Vichy France that collaborated with the conquering Nazis. The leaders of this pro-Catholic Vichy regime were also deeply anti-Semitic and cooperated with the Germans to persecute the Jews from the earliest days of the regime. The Vichy regime was also deeply xenophobic in its immigration policies. Communism was the mortal enemy of the Christian faith; many Catholics saw fascists as allies in their struggles against communism.
In World War I, the invading Germans bogged down short of Paris, but in World War II, the Nazi blitzkrieg of tanks and Stuka dive-bombers reached the Pyrenees in six weeks, and nobody in continental Europe in the beginning of the war could conceive how England could cross the Channel and conquer France after she withdrew in disgrace from Dunkirk. The socialist politicians of France fled abroad, but the pro-Catholic conservatives under the World War I hero, General Petain, chose to stay behind, surrendering to the Nazi storm-troopers.
Much of this video has been extracted from our longer video on how Christians Resisted the Nazis in Vichy France.
The collaborationist Vichy government made a big show of being pro-Catholic. The Vichy government fought against moral decadence, waging a campaign against alcoholism, reestablishing religious instruction in the schools, church properties that had been seized in 1905 were now restored. Divorce was now forbidden in the first three years of marriage.
Vichy France would replace the French Revolution slogan of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” with “work, family, and fatherland.” The French under the Vichy regime would definitely be far less free and have to work far harder, either as prisoners or for far less pay.
Many leaders and officials of Vichy France openly and eagerly collaborated with their Nazi conquerors in rounding up the Jews to send them to their deaths in the Nazi concentration camps. The Milice, the French secret police, had a more sinister reputation than the Gestapo in their eagerness to arrest, torture, and murder those who opposed the Nazi Vichy regime, those who fought with the Resistance, those who secretly harbored and protected Jews, those who printed flyers and posters opposing Nazism. Many Vichy leaders were tried and executed after the end of the war for treason.
Hitler shrewdly allowed the rump Vichy regime nominal autonomy in the third of France that was unoccupied by German troops. Since the church teaches that the political authorities should be respected, the regime had the support of many elderly bishops throughout the war. The humiliation of the German conquest was seen as an opportunity for moral and religious transformation.
Like the general population, some of the clergy were collaborators, some aided the Resistance. Resistors were few when the Nazis ruled the continent, they grew in number after the Allies invaded North Africa, then Sicily, then Italy, then Normandy. Communists were the most dedicated resistors, there were also many Catholics and Protestants and pastors and priests involved in the Resistance.
The Vichy government was friendly to Catholics but was not friendly to Jews. In 1940, long before the Germans began to apply pressure, the Vichy government implemented anti-Semitic policies and legislation, although Jewish veterans and long-established French families were exempted from some of the harsher policies. Jews were excluded from prestigious governmental and military jobs, and from teaching and media jobs.
The German persecution of the Jews in France increased in 1942, Jews were required to wear yellow stars, and Himmler ordered that 100,000 Jews from all of France be deported to the Auschwitz death camps, foreign born Jews first. The Vichy officials offered token resistance. This persecution extended to clergy who assisted the Jews, many French priests and pastors would be murdered in the Dachau concentration camp, many of the faithful would become martyrs in their defense of the Jews. One nun commented as she sent to the death camp in Ravensbruk, “I am leaving for Heaven.”
We need to start with the backstories to the fascism of Vichy France and the persecution of the Jews in World War II. Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism, the Jews were hated in all of Europe, including France, and many Catholics despised the Jews. We can see this most clearly in the Dreyfus affair that deeply divided French politics for decades.
Dreyfus was a Jewish army officer working in the consulate was falsely accused of treason and imprisoned in the brutal Devil’s Island in French Guiana. When evidence was revealed clearly implicating someone else, this evidence was suppressed, because the Army did not want to be embarrassed, and had no desire to clear the damaged reputation of a Jew.
The abhorrent treatment of the Jews was what turned much of the clergy and the faithful against the regime. Several bishops protested against the treatment of the Jews while they continued to support Petain. Many Catholics and Protestants clergy and faithful cooperated in actively resisting the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Many seminaries, convents and churches hid Jews, often with secret cooperation from bishops and other church administrators, many of the faithful helped Jews escape to Spain and Switzerland.
In the end the Church gained little from the efforts of the Vichy regime, upon its liberation France reverted back to a secular state, and the constant battle between clericalism and anti-clericalism was resumed. The authority of the bishops, many of whom were so closed tied to Marshal Petain and the Vichy regime, was undermined, most French bishops were forced into retirement after the war. The Vichy regime was definitely not pro-life when it came to the Jews.
(NOTE: See individual blogs for YouTube videos cited for footnote references.)
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