Vatican II Behind the Iron Curtain

INTRODUCTION 25

an emblematic case of the confrontation between tradition and
modernity in a Catholic environment defined sometimes by grid-
lock, at other times by a united front on behalf of civic freedom.
In all of these cases, aggiornamenti went hand in hand with
waves and spurts of political liberalization. Though mostly short-
lived, civic aggiornamenti magnified the impact of religious aggior-
namento. Every country behind the Iron Curtain was different, yet
even across such diverse cases as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Po-
land, and Yugoslavia one can find copious evidence for societies’
active engagement in the spirit of Vatican II. The Council also had
practical, tangible consequences—both short- and long-term—for
all of these countries, furnishing norms and aspirations that would
come to play a significant role in each of these countries during the
final years of the Cold War. The election of a Polish pope in 1978 lit
a match, but the tinder had been set much earlier for moderniza-
tion, reform, and an embrace of pluralism among Catholic popula-
tions behind the Iron Curtain.67

• • •
  Some of the chapters in this book are based on papers delivered at
  a conference organized by the editor at the University of Virginia
  on December 1, 2012, under the title of “The Second Vatican Coun-
  cil and Communism.” The conference was part of the University
  of Virginia’s Polish Lecture Series, made possible by the Rosenstiel
  Foundation and the American Institute of Polish Culture. Thanks
  for their support are also due to the University of Virginia’s Center
  for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, as well as the
  Jewish Studies Program and departments of History and Slavic
  Languages and Literatures; the Institute of the Humanities and
  Global Cultures; the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought;
  and the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion.

67. For a much more systematic account of John Paul II’s place in this story, see
    George Weigel, The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Com-
    munism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).