While the Catholic bishops approved a pastoral letter denouncing racism, they rejected an amendment which would have named the Confederate flag a “hate symbol.”
Historically and officially, the Catholic Church took no position on the Civil War in America, however the pope at the time did voice his desire for peace to the Confederacy in a letter to Jefferson Davis.
Illustrious and honorable sir, greeting:
We have lately received with all kindness, as was meet, the gentlemen sent by your Excellency to present to us your letter dated on the 23d of last September. We have received certainly no small pleasure in learning both from these gentlemen and from your letter the feelings of gratification and of very warm appreciation with which you, illustrious and honorable sir, were moved when you first had knowledge written in October of the preceding year to the venerable brethren, John [Hughes], archbishop of New York, and John [Odin], archbishop of New Orleans, in which we again and again urged and exhorted those venerable brethren that because of their exemplary piety and episcopal zeal they should employ their most earnest efforts, in our name also, in order that the fatal civil war which had arisen in the States should end, and that the people of America might again enjoy mutual peace and concord, and love each other with mutual charity. And it has been very gratifying to us to recognize illustrious and honorable sir, that you and your people are animated by the same desire for peace and tranquillity, which we had so earnestly inculcated in our aforesaid letters to the venerable brethren above named. May it please God at the same time to make the other peoples of America and their rulers, considering seriously how cruel and how deplorable is this internecine war, would receive and embrace the counsels of peace and tranquillity. We indeed shall not cease with most fervent prayer to beseech God, the best and highest, and to implore Him to pour out the spirit of Christian love and peace upon all the people of America, and to rescue them from the great calamities with which they are afflicted. We, at the same time, beseech the God of pity to shed abroad upon you the light of His grace, and attach you to us by a perfect friendship.
Given at Rome at St. Peter’s on the 3d December, 1863, in the eighteenth year of our pontificate.
Pope Pius IX
Some have interpreted this letter as a sign of the Holy Father’s affinity for the Confederacy, but this writer believes it is no more than a call for peace.
Today’s Catholic bishops do well to abstain from taking a position on the Civil War. This is in keeping with history and likely reflects a desire by the bishops not to foment anger on the issue.
