The French churches and the Jewish question: July 1940 - March 1941

This article examines why, following the military defeat of June 1940, the French Catholic Church remained silent as race laws were introduced, wherea s before the war it had publicly rejected racism and opposed antisemitism. A number of reasons accounted for it. A strong conviction prevailed in its ranks that the regime which had then emerged offered a unique opportunity t o resume preeminence in French society and regain rights formerly denied un der the Republic. It took two years for members of the clergy to recognise that by its prolonged silence the Church had in fact jettisoned its traditi onal views on 'justice and charity' for all men. It was only after the depo rtation to the death camps of over fifty thousand Jews that it finally rais ed its voice up on their behalf.