From the desk of the pastor April 19, 2026

The Lord be with you. Although many Catholics know much about World War I, very few of us know how the Church operated within it. For the Catholic Church, the war presented some of the most profound moral, pastoral, and diplomatic challenges in its modern history.

When war broke out in the summer of 1914, Pope Pius X was so brokenhearted by the news that he fell gravely ill and died within weeks. His successor, Pope Benedict XV, inherited a Church caught in an almost impossible position. Catholics were fighting on both sides of the conflict — French and Belgian Catholics against German and Austrian Catholics — and any word from Rome risked being interpreted as taking sides.

Rather than choose a political allegiance, Benedict XV chose to work for peace. He declared Vatican neutrality and devoted his pontificate almost entirely to ending the war and alleviating its suffering. In August 1917, he issued a remarkable peace proposal to the warring nations, calling for disarmament, freedom of the seas, and arbitration of disputes. The belligerent governments largely ignored it. He was mockingly called "the Pope of the Boches" by the French and "the French Pope" by the Germans — a telling sign that he was angering everyone equally, and perhaps serving truth most faithfully.

Despite his failed peace mission, Benedict's humanitarian efforts were extraordinary. The Vatican established an international missing persons bureau that processed over 600,000 inquiries about soldiers and prisoners of war. He spent the Vatican's entire financial reserves on relief efforts for refugees, prisoners, and the wounded on all sides. He worked to arrange prisoner exchanges and to send chaplains and aid workers into the most devastated regions of Europe.

For ordinary Catholics in the pews, the war was deeply personal. Millions of Catholic men served in the armies of every major power. American Catholics enlisted in large numbers when the United States entered the war in 1917. The Knights of Columbus established service huts and canteens on both sides of the Atlantic, providing spiritual and material support to soldiers regardless of their faith. Their motto in those years was simple and powerful: "Everyone welcome, everything free."

Catholic chaplains ministered to the dying in the mud of the trenches, offering last rites under artillery fire, hearing confessions in shell craters, and carrying the Eucharist across no man's land. Their witness was one of the most powerful testimonies of faith the modern world had ever seen.

The Great War shook Western civilization to its foundations, and the Church was not spared its trials. But in the witness of Benedict XV, in the courage of its chaplains, and in the service of its faithful, the Catholic Church showed that even in humanity's darkest hour, the light of the Gospel could not be extinguished. Today we pray for our brave soldiers that they be protected and that world leaders learn the wisdom of peace.

In His Sacred Heart,

Fr. John