The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots. Nancy A. Collins
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we made it to Adare, Ireland, the nearest town to Kilfinny where my father was born. (Surprisingly, I learned it had been the center for the revival of Irish literature, familiar territory for the likes of Yeats and Keats.) Hiring a car, we drove up to the house of our relatives in Kilfinny, a village so small it had a school and a church, but no resident pastor. My folks were overjoyed, however, when, upon seeing us, everyone shouted: “Glory be to God, look who’s here.” Immediately, my father’s cousins insisted that we move out of the hotel and live at their thatched roof cottage — a wonderful experience with food boiled atop the fireplace, tea served at every meal. That first day, however, we spent little time eating since Dad wanted to show us his “college” — a two-room, thatched-roof shack with sod floor that served as grammar school for his three years of formal education. Having to leave school to help support his family, he ended up on an estate in Adare, receiving a shilling — twenty-five cents — a day from the English lord who, owning even the broad stream, declared it illegal for an Irishman to fish in it. Nevertheless, Dad never expressed any anti-English sentiment since the lord had allowed his father, though infirm and unable to work, to live with the family in a small hut. Though the family’s abysmal poverty eventually forced Dad and his older brothers and sisters to immigrate to America, none ever bore a grudge against the English. As the Boss told me: “The English lord never forced my sickly father out of his home.” Standing there that day, I was never prouder of my father.
The trip really tapped into my father’s charitable leanings, albeit not always successful with the proud Irish. After visiting his cousin Mary Leo, we called on the parish priest. “I’m worried about my cousin Mary,” he told the pastor. “She doesn’t complain or ask for help, but I don’t know how she lives or who supports her. If you’ll accept it, I’ll be glad to send money to you each month for her living expenses.” Fixing my father with a withering glance, the priest replied: “Glory be to God, man, doesn’t she have any neighbors?” whereupon our visit ended. (In the evenings we caught up on everyone’s lives. Though most had close relatives in the United States, sending a sizable check each month, our Irish relations were extremely concerned about the decline in morality among the youth. “Don’t you know that they’re drinking cocktails now,” they said. “Did you ever hear of such a thing?”)
All too quickly, our stay came to an end, and we drove to Cork where my parents were catching their boat back home. As it turned out, it was the first time I saw my mother crying. “We’re leaving Phil all alone,” she sobbed. Though sorry to see my parents leave, I was raring to move on with the rest of my European travels. Given Mother’s passion for art and architecture, I knew she’d be back the following summer unless war broke out. And I wasn’t wrong. In July 1938, she indeed returned, this time with my brother Bill. Boundlessly curious, insatiably interested in art, we hit every museum and cultural site we could find. After visiting the basilicas and Vatican museum, we traveled to Florence, Venice, and Dresden, fulfilling mother’s lifelong desire to see Raphael’s Sistine Madonna housed in the town’s art gallery where we rushed straight from the train. My Lord, was it worth it! That glorious painting, the Blessed Mother holding her Divine Child in heaven, the sole object in a grand room, was instantly spellbinding, arresting one’s entire being.
It was in Dresden that we got our first taste of life in Nazi Germany. At the registration desk of a nice hotel, Bill started signing his name on the register. Just then two Nazi officers came up, brusquely shoving him aside. Bill, ever the impetuous lawyer, shoved back, hard. I intervened, stopping the set-to. “You and I can’t handle the whole German Army,” I told him as he calmed down. That evening, as we were leaving the room to join Mother for dinner, the hotel manager appeared at our room. “I saw what happened today,” he said. “Here are the keys to my car. You may use it as long as you are in Dresden.” Clearly, not all the Germans were pro-Hitler. My German extraction mother, meanwhile, was appalled at the behavior of the soldier and Hitler Youth. “These are not the Germans,” she said nearly once an hour, “that were in our family.”
My most enlightening — and frightening — experience happened when I was traveling alone on the Rhine steamer en route from Cologne to Coblenz. I was seated next to an elderly German woman when a group of boisterous, arrogant Hitler Youth passed by. Cautiously, my seatmate turned to me, asking, “You are an American, are you not?” Answering yes, I showed her my passport. When I said that I came from a family of one sister and seven brothers, she happily revealed that she, like my mother, had had seven sons. “We older people,” she sighed, “will never have peace in this country until we have killed our own sons!” Her devastating description of Nazi Germany haunts me to this day. It also confirmed my conviction, based on my visits, that a conflict with Germany was unavoidable. The country was preparing for war with everything, and everyone was under surveillance. Once your train left Italy and stopped in the first German town, German soldiers jumped onboard, rifling through identity papers, books, and magazines, confiscating all reading material, especially foreign-language publications. Even more unnerving, once having crossed the border, everybody greeted each other with: “Heil, Hitler!” a salutation I certainly never returned.
Eventually, we made our way to Paris, then onward to my favorite cathedral in France in Chartres. Keen to see the Cathedral’s world-renowned stained glass windows, the moment was bittersweet as we watched workmen taking them down in order to protect them from bombs. Fervently, we prayed for peace.
In the United States, meanwhile, many intellectuals, including Father Fulton Sheen, were convinced that there would be no war because, as Sheen put it, the “people would not permit it.” Obviously, he had never been to Germany. Had he, he would have realized that the German people had already given their permission — to the Nazis.
For me, the turning point in the rise of Hitler was the collapse of Austria — the Anschluss — in March 1938, since it enabled Hitler to prove to himself, his people, and the world that he could take another nation with neither France nor England coming to its rescue. Certainly he fooled the Viennese Cardinal Theodor Innitzer who, giving in, signed a declaration supporting the Anschluss with the fateful words: “Heil Hitler!” Though Pope Pius XI later forced Cardinal Innitzer to recant his statement, the damage was done. In the summer of 1938, fellow seminarian Butch Burke and I visited Vienna, which was bereft of tourists. The city was dead. At the famous Rathskeller, we were the only dinner guests. Being such rare birds, we got super treatment. When we departed the restaurant, the crowd cheered, leaving us agape and not knowing what to do — a history lesson I’ll never forget. When Winston Churchill called the approaching war “The Gathering Storm,” his image perfectly matched my personal observations. In recent years, trying to evaluate why I am so troubled by hard rock music — especially its constant, pounding beat — I suddenly realized that it reminds me of young Nazi soldiers, pounding along the pavement in unison, intoxicated by their percussive sound.
I suppose that’s the reason that to this day I am always a bit distraught over the utter incapability of the people of our time — the younger people — to comprehend the evil of the tyranny of Communism. Perhaps theoretically they can acknowledge its danger, but it is to be appreciated only in the fullness of its experience — the degradation and torture of people. A complete degradation of the dignity of humanity, a total disregard of human rights. No one can see how bad it is from a book. One has to see it in action.
Mussolini’s efforts to partner with Hitler were pitiful. The Italians could not be fanaticized and always retained an appreciation of Christian culture. In a barbershop in Naples I heard a customer lecture the barber about the advantages for him to join the Fascist party. Finally the man told the barber triumphantly, “The Party would send your son to college without any charge.” The barber replied without a pause, “Yes, and at that point, whose son is he?”
I always enjoyed watching groups of Fascist students demonstrate against the United States. I would stand across the street as they shouted, “Down with the U.S.,” and return their wave as they finished. Then they would walk off, having done their duty for that day. Not surprisingly, I received an anxious letter from my mother. “The papers here say there is rioting in Rome against American students. Are you safe?” Writing back, I assured her that there was no cause for worry.
Mussolini did know how to curry favor with Catholics. He destroyed