Two-edged Sword
In his article recalling the achievements of Progressio, originally Sword of the Spirit (“Voice for the poor falls silent”, 1 October), Francis McDonagh suggests that between 1940 and 1945 the movement was solely concerned with opposition to fascism in general and Nazism in particular. Horrendous as that threat was, from its very inception, the Sword sought to counteract all forms of totalitarianism. It championed not only the rights of smaller states crushed by fascism, such as Poland, but also defended those which, like Finland, had been attacked by powerful neighbours of the Left.

It is certainly true that the Sword did much to refute Nazi ideology, and that after Italy’s entry into the war there was an urgent need to distance the Church from an association with Mussolini’s fascists. Moreover, when the Soviet Union entered the war, Cardinal Hinsley, Barbara Ward, Christopher Dawson and all those at the helm of the Sword realised, as did Churchill himself, that even though Stalin represented an equally ugly face of despotism, the Soviet Union was now the enemy of Britain’s enemy, and thus an ally.