22 PIOTR H. KOSICKI
can give is that of silence, suffering, patience, and unfailing love,
and this is a voice that not even death can silence.”
The passion and pathos evident in Paul VI’s language should
not, however, be mistaken for a vindication of the idea that Vati-
can II made no difference behind the Iron Curtain. Rather, this
is Ecclesiam suam’s final word on communism: “we have today no
preconceived intention of cutting ourselves off from the adher-
ents of these systems and these regimes. For the lover of truth
discussion is always possible.”64 Only in light of these words can
historians make sense of Paul VI’s pragmatic Ostpolitik, which
through his representative Agostino Casaroli allowed the Holy
See to reach agreements with Communist Hungary and Commu-
nist Yugoslavia, as well as craft the language on human rights for
what would become the Helsinki Final Act of 1975.65
The contrast between these two sets of phrases from the
same passage of the 1964 encyclical underscores the importance
of painting a full picture of the relationship between the Catholic
Church and Communist countries. Neither silence nor dialogue
can fully explain the complex historical interplay between Vati-
can II and the lives of Catholics behind the Iron Curtain. For this
reason, each chapter in this book looks at national-level events
as well as the Vatican, at bishops and laymen, at official decla-
rations and practical decision-making, as it develops a more nu-
anced picture of Vatican II behind the Iron Curtain.
- • •
Gerald P. Fogarty opens the volume with the story of Soviet over-
tures to the Vatican during the pontificate of John XXIII. These
- Polish Catholic journalist Janusz Zabłocki, covering the Third Session in
1964, underscored the importance of this very passage in the encyclical: “While
rejecting that which is unacceptable in atheistic communism, the Church does not
shut the door to dialogue, in which the Council seeks to interest all people of good
will”; Zabłocki, Dzienniki, 1:591. - Stehle, Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 314–74; Marco Lavopa, “L’Ostpolitik
vaticana di Mons. Agostino Casaroli et lo ‘spirito di Helsinki’ (1963–1975),” Democra-
zia e Diritto nos. 1–2 (2013): 510–18.