The Rise of Christian Nationalism in the 1930s and Today in the USA: A Conversation with Charles Gallagher, S.J.

This episode with Charles Gallagher, S.J. takes us into some dark history concerning Nazis and the Christian Front, a Catholic lay organization, in Boston and New York in the 1930s and 1940s just prior to and during the early stages of World War II.  The story of Frances Moran, head of the Boston National Front and his Nazi handler, the German consul in Boston, Herbert Wilhelm Scholz is a depressing story. That neither of them ever paid a real price for their espionage and treason makes it more depressing.   The only person who really comes out of this with any sense of goodness is Francis Sweeney, the unknowing British agent, who led the American-Irish Defence Association. Her organization fought anti-semitism and fascism and was funded, Gallagher says, by British intelligence. She was recruited by an American handler, someone Charlie Gallagher believes in later years was an advisor in the oval office.

Charlie's research speaks to the rise of Christian nationalism today and how to respond to it. He spoke of Steve Bannon and the audience he commands and how it is important not to simply write off that audience by thinking of them as "nutcases." How should we respond? We certainly need to engage with the concerns of those who are attracted to autocratic and anti-democratic movements, which does not mean we need to grant their solutions or encourage them in their fears. Charlie points us to the law of love as the antidote. Combined with that essential response, in times of rising hatred and terrorism, we need to name Islamophobia or anti-semitism, or any other hatred, call it out, and find ways to enact love in the midst of human complexity and suffering.

If you want to know more about Charlie’s work, please check out his webpage at Boston College, linked above. There you can read about his education and his many publications. I want to mention a bit about his own history here though before we wrap up.  Charlie formerly worked at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations in 2010, where he was a visiting fellow, teaching undergraduate and doctoral courses on religion and international relations. From 2004 to 2006, he taught in the History Department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 2008, he published Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), which won the John Gilmary Shea Prize from the American Catholic historical Association. In 2017, he was the William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocuast Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.

What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. 

Thanks to Martin Strong and Kevin Eng for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. 

Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me at jmartens@stmarkscollege.ca. Let me know what you think.

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John W. Martens

Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC