@inbook{f4c2751225584c24ade7b13ce141634b,
title = "'I have removed the boundaries of nations': Nation switching and the Roman Catholic Church during and after the Second World War",
abstract = "This chapter examines how the Roman Catholic church approached the phenomenon of mass movement between German and Polish national affiliation during and after the Second World War. Previous work on national indifference and on nationalism more broadly has tended to assume that changing nationality was viewed by elite commentators, including religious authorities, as a form of treason and thus strictly censured. Changes in national affiliation might have been common in the twentieth century, but they occurred against the headwinds of moral opprobrium. But Bjork argues that closer scrutiny of Catholic teachings on nationality and of the practical treatment of nation switchers by the Catholic clergy in the aftermath of the Second World War reveals much greater ambiguity and ambivalence. Far from seeing nationality as an ultimate good, and maintenance of nationality as worth any sacrifice, clerical commentators most often validated nation switching as a legitimate moral choice undertaken to protect more fundamental values and forms of community.",
keywords = "National indifference, Nationalism, Poland, Germany, Borderlands, Religion, Catholic Church, Religion and politics",
author = "James Bjork",
year = "2020",
month = sep,
language = "English",
isbn = "9781138503489",
series = "Routledge Studies in Modern European History",
publisher = "Routledge",
pages = "204--224",
editor = "{Van Ginderachter}, Maarten and Jon Fox",
booktitle = "National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe",
}