The 80th Anniversary of V-E Day

On the morning of 7 May 1945, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight E. Eisenhower sent the following message to the Combined Chiefs of Staff announcing the surrender of Nazi Germany and the end of World War Two in Europe:

 
"The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945."

 
The journey to this momentous event had been begun by Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler over twelve years ago and caused immeasurable suffering, death, and destruction of hundreds of millions of people in Europe and North Africa.  In his evil lust for conquest, Hitler and his associates had subjugated Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, Holland, and France, and wreaked havoc everywhere his armed forces went.  Now today we celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the Victory in Europe over evil Nazism.  We pause to reflect on the human cost of the Hitlerites’ evil ambitions.  When the deaths attributable to Imperial Japan’s evil ambitions are included, upwards of 75 million people died in World War Two, including 40 million civilians.  Of those civilians, approximately 6 million Jews died due to Nazi genocidal acts.   

 
Even as we celebrate the end of the War in Europe, we must not forget that our ally the Soviet Union had begun the war as an ally of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.  The Soviets had begun World War Two by helping Hitler conquer Poland and then had attacked Finland and seized the Baltic States.  In light of Hitler’s evil barbarity, it is often overlooked that Soviet Premier Josef Stalin was no less monstrous and no less evil as his spiritual Satanic brother Adolf. 

 
Following the First World War, Our Blessed Mother had warned us about the consequences of not reforming our sinful ways.  On 13 July 1917, she gave the following message to the three shepherd children at Fatima:     “This war will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light, you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.” 

 
The strange and unknown light occurred on 28 January 1938.  Forty-five days later, Hitler sent his troops into Austria and later that year, he seized the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.  

 
As Our Blessed Mother warned, the Second World War was not just about armies fighting each other.  This war was a spiritual struggle as well.   Fulton J. Sheen was one of those who recognized this reality.  At the time of World War Two, Fulton Sheen was a priest and professor of theology and philosophy at Catholic University of America.   He was also the host of a very popular weekly radio show The Catholic Hour.  

 
“This war is not a conflict of systems of politics, though a few superficial minds still think it is; it is a titanic struggle to decide whether the moral law of God shall be the basis of individual and social life, or the physical law of the sword,” wrote Fulton J. Sheen in his 1942 book God and War (pg. 75). 

 
Throughout the war, Fulton Sheen was a courageous and faithful voice of encouragement, using his weekly radio show The Catholic Hour to inspire the faithful during this calamitous war.  And in April 1942 when he penned God and War, the Allied cause was looking very dismal.  Nazi Germany had conquered western Europe and was advancing deep into the Soviet Union.  Imperial Japan had conquered much of China, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines and spread throughout the Pacific.    

 
Much like his predecessor Pope Benedict XV during World War One, Pope Pius XII advocated for peace and human rights.  In his Christmas 1944 Message, Pope Pius XII said, “There is a duty, besides, imposed on all, a duty which brooks no delay, no procrastination, no hesitation, no subterfuge: It is the duty to do everything to ban once and for all wars of aggression as legitimate solution of international disputes and as a means towards realizing national aspirations.”

 
On 9 May 1945, Pope Pius XII gave a radio address marking the end of the War in Europe.  “Here at last is the end of this war which, for almost six years, has kept Europe in the grip of the most atrocious suffering and bitter sadness,” he said.  “A humble and ardent cry of gratitude wells up from the depths of Our heart to "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort" (2 Cor 1:3). But Our canticle of graces is accompanied by a supplicating prayer to implore from divine omnipotence and goodness the end, according to justice, of the bloody struggles in the Far East as well.”

 
On this 80th Anniversary of the end of the War in Europe, we offer our humble gratitude for His Divine Assistance in bringing about this day.  We offer our prayers for the millions of lives affected by the horrors of World War Two.   We beseech our Most Merciful Father’s Divine Assistance in preventing such a calamitous war from ever occurring again.  In Christ Our Lord’s Most Holy Name.  Amen.