McCarthyism and the Catholic Church

Paper Summary:

When Joseph McCarthy, a republican Wisconsin senator pursued an anti-communist agenda, the Catholic Church was eager to support him to countervail the threat of communism. The paper shows that in fact the Catholic Church supported the McCarthyism movement out of fear that communism would undermine the Catholic Church and what it stood for. This paper discusses how values of communism and catholicism contrast and brings up the influence of certain events (like the Bolshevik Revolution) and other contributing aspects to the Catholic fear of Communism.

From the Paper:

"After World War II, tensions about communism were still strong. The United States and the Soviet Union were involved in the Cold War. Both countries were anxious about the other nuclear weapon development of the other country. This went on for 40 years despite the fact that nothing significant happened in it, hence the term "Cold War." Suspicions that the Soviet Union was going to use nuclear weapons to achieve their world domination goal were prevalent during this time. The Brooklyn Tablet was suspicious of the post-war peace efforts and stated that "The UN, NATO, SEATO, and the OAs were all seen as forms of collectivism. There were fears that the drive toward world government would eventually lead to the merger of the American Government and economy with an international organization, most likely controlled by communism. [xxxiv]" Also in the Tablet, James Gillus said that the UN is a "base form which communist spies enter and operate in America [xxxv]." All the recent events set up people with paranoia. During the Cold War, a majority of people feared that the Soviet Union would coerce the rest of the world into communism."

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