Peace Efforts
The war and its consequences were Benedict's main focus during the early years of his pontificate. He declared the neutrality of the Holy See and attempted from that perspective to mediate peace in 1916 and 1917. Both sides rejected his initiatives.
The national antagonisms between the warring parties were accentuated by religious differences before the war, with France, Italy and Belgium being largely Catholic. Vatican relations with Great Britain were good, while neither Prussia nor Imperial Germany had any official relations with the Vatican. In Protestant circles of Germany the notion was popular that the Roman Catholic Pope was neutral on paper only, strongly favouring the Allies instead. Benedict was said to have prompted Austria–Hungary to go to war, to weaken the German war machine. Allegedly, the Papal Nuncio in Paris said in a meeting of the Institut Catholique, to fight against France is to fight against God; the Pope was said to have exclaimed to be sorry not to be a Frenchman. The Belgian Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier, known as a brave patriot during German occupation but also famous for his anti-German propaganda, was to have been elevated by Benedict XV, who allegedly praised the Treaty of Versailles, which humiliated the Germans.
These allegations were rejected by the Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, who wrote on 4 March 1916 that the Holy See is completely impartial and does not favor the Allied side. This was even more important, so Gasparri noted, after the diplomatic representatives of Germany and Austria–Hungary to the Vatican were expelled from Rome by Italian authorities. However considering all this, German Protestants rejected any “Papal Peace” as insulting. French politician Georges Clemenceau regarded the Vatican initiative as anti-French. Benedict made many unsuccessful attempts to negotiate peace, but these pleas for a negotiated peace made him unpopular, even in Catholic countries like Italy, among many supporters of the war who were determined to accept nothing less than total victory.
On 1 August 1917, Benedict issued a seven point peace plan stating that: (1) "the moral force of right ... be substituted for the material force of arms," (2) there must be "simultaneous and reciprocal diminution of armaments," (3) a mechanism for "international arbitration" must be established," (4) "true liberty and common rights over the sea" should exist, (5) there should be a "renunciation of war indemnities," (6) occupied territories should be evacuated, and (7) there should be "an examination ... of rival claims." Great Britain reacted favourably but President Woodrow Wilson rejected the plan. Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary were favorable but Germany replied ambiguously. Benedict also called for outlawing conscription, a call he repeated in 1921. Some of the proposals eventually were included in Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points call for peace in January 1918.
In Europe each side saw him as biased in favour of the other and was unwilling to accept the terms he proposed. Still, although unsuccessful, his diplomatic efforts during the war are attributed to an increase of papal prestige and served as a model in the 20th century: to the peace efforts of Pius XII before and during World War II, the policies of Paul VI during the Vietnam War and the position of John Paul II before and during the War in Iraq.
Read more about this topic: Pope Benedict XV, Pontificate
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