Parolin: Totalitarianism Springs From Playing God
At the Gregorian, the Vatican Secretary of State called 20th-century tyrannies political religions that dethroned God and warned the temptation endures.
On October 28, 2026, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, opened a two-day international conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on the Holy See’s response to twentieth-century totalitarian systems. Scholars gathered under the title “The Holy See in the Face of Totalitarian Systems in the 20th Century: New Perspectives and Research Directions,” organized by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation and the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences.
In his keynote, Cardinal Parolin said totalitarianism “arises from the human temptation to want to ‘be like God,’ to control how humanity lives and thinks, and to impose one’s own ideological convictions on it.” He criticized regimes that elevate “social class, race, or the state to the altar in God’s place,” charging that they “sacralized their ideological concepts and created political religions, with their own ‘liturgies,’ prophets, martyrs, and ethical norms.” While historical totalitarian systems were defeated, he warned, the underlying temptation remains.
Pius XII, diplomacy, and pastoral limits
Addressing the pontificate of Pius XII and Nazi Germany, including the Holocaust, Cardinal Parolin maintained that the pope condemned wars in a manner “that would not provoke even greater persecution” and exercised “a diplomacy of charity on an unprecedented scale.” Father Nicola Spinato, a theologian from Padua, said the Church “did what it considered possible and sustainable” in those periods, stressing that “Their role is pastoral and ecclesial.” Spinato also examined how the Second Vatican Council articulated the Church’s opposition to racism and every form of discrimination, arguing that “The confrontation with the totalitarianism and racism of the 20th century contributed to the development of the Church's social teaching.”
The conference’s framing asked whether the Church did enough to resist oppressive regimes—from Pius XII through the Council years—while presenting new archival and research perspectives rather than a single verdict.
John Paul II, Poland, and the path from dictatorship
Gianni La Bella of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences said Saint John Paul II “actively intervened to end dictatorships and to promote the return to democracy,” citing the pope’s visit to Chile from April 1 to 6, 1987. Father Albert Warso of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin recalled that after the pilgrimages to Poland in 1983 and 1987, papal influence and laws guaranteeing religious freedom helped open the way for Poland and the Holy See to restore full diplomatic relations on July 17, 1989.
The sessions continue through October 29, keeping the focus on documented diplomacy, pastoral choices, and the Church’s social teaching forged in confrontation with ideologies that sought to replace God.