Cattolici di Francia e d’Italia dinanzi alla guerra in Vietnam  : verso la rottura del “fronte filoatlantico” (1963-1965)

Abstract

The article examines the attitude of some segments of French and Italian Catholics towards the Vietnam War between the end of 1963 and early 1965, when, under Johnson's presidency, the United States shifted from the assistance of the Saigon government against the Vietcong and their North Vietnamese allies to a direct military intervention in the conflict. The risk that it would degenerate into a third atomic world war reinforced the centrality of peace in the Church of "aggiornamento", accentuating the issues about the legitimacy of "Just War" doctrine, under discussion by Vatican II. The article aims to highlight in particular how, initially, there was nearly unanimous support for the American strategy of containment among Catholics, even though it was declined according to the various sensibilities. Only progressively did US' credibility and image got flawed to the point of significantly diversifying Catholic positions – a process that would lead, in the second half of the decade, to the political polarization of the Catholic debate on the Vietnam War, investigated by the recent historiography on left-wing Catholicism des années 68. Some anticipatory signs of that minority phenomenon have already emerged in this phase among those left-oriented "progressive" Catholics: a growing attention to human rights, a Third Worldist view on international system, the participation to the first militant actions for peace alongside the Marxist Left.