the STO, laboratory of the council

Between 1942 and 1943, 600,000 young French people were sent across the Rhine to serve the Nazi war economy. The Compulsory Labor Service (STO) is the best-known form of forced labor organized by the French state:

• In September 1942, he established the requisition of workers designated “volunteers” in the name of a work of “national solidarity”: the return of prisoner peasants. 300,000 men leave in a few months.
• In February 1943, he established the STO, modeled on military service. The age classes from 1920 to 1922 are requisitioned. Public opinion is deeply hostile.
• In the fall of 1943, the Vichy government gave up pursuing this measure in the face of increasing refusals to obey and the development of the maquis fueled in part by the “refractory” members.

The Church of the STO: lay people, young people and activists

On December 20, 1942, Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris, sent a note to the Nazi administration stating: “the episcopate has been contacted by numerous families with requests for religious assistance to their members, who have gone to work in Germany.” Indeed, many requisitioned men deepened their faith during these months or years of painful exile.

In this atypical Church, lay people predominate, notably activists trained by Catholic Action and scouting, movements born during the 1920s with a concern for the re-Christianization of French society. Jean Lépicier, activist of the Young Christian Workers, is one of the 50 “martyrs of the apostolate” beatified in December 2025. He was sent to Cologne from where he wrote in April 1943: “There are good comrades who work with me but they are not all practicing religious so I try to bring them back but it is hard, in the end I will succeed. »

These young Catholics affiliated with movements in France are recreating groups in Germany. In November 1943, Jean wrote: “I met the Jocistes of Cologne where there is a trained section but we don’t talk about it because it is forbidden. » Raphaël Spina, historian of the STO, quotes a JOC activist who sums up his Church experience as follows: “The hierarchical Church, Pope, Bishop had become non-existent. We lived this time in close proximity to the Acts of the Apostles. »

Eucharist in enemy country

For these committed Catholics, communion and confession are pillars of their lives. They are looking for priests. In the same letter from November 1943, Jean recounts having participated in a mass for “the prisoners who died in captivity and the workers who died during the (Allied) bombings of the city of Cologne.” It is a prisoner priest who celebrates it in a cemetery – thousands of priests are prisoners of war.

There are official chaplaincies within the camps. Jean Batiffol, priest of the diocese of Paris, is one of the 50 martyrs. Prisoner in Austria, he is responsible for a chaplaincy which he describes as “a parish of 10 priests and 20,000 souls. » Prisoners and forced workers meet in ceremonies and sometimes in factories.

Jean Batiffol deploys his activity outside the legal framework to meet the needs of forced workers in his region. Using a system of the German administration, 273 prisoner priests, or a fifth of military chaplains, requested in 1943 to obtain worker status in order to be able to join the young people required by the STO.

Finally, some priests leave France clandestinely for the STO under a false identity. The usual conditions for mass or confession are not always met. So, we innovate: we celebrate the Eucharist outdoors or in discreet rooms; well before the introduction of the new missal published in 1970, the use of French (instead of Latin) gained ground in the liturgy; lay people carry communion in boxes so they can share it with comrades; priests confess discreetly, in civilian clothes, on a bench or while walking…

From December 1943, the Nazi administration became concerned about this diffuse Catholic network in the factories, which was more difficult to control than the camp chaplaincy. The ban followed and, during 1944, the arrest of the most prominent groups and people.

Beginnings of Vatican II

Between 1962 and 1965, the Vatican Council, whose 60th anniversary we are celebrating, carried out a major overhaul of the Catholic heritage. Among the main points:

• A renewed understanding of the relationships between laity and priests. The priesthood of priests is at the service of the “common priesthood” of all the baptized. This expression underlines the unity based on baptism between priests and laity as well as the co-responsibility for the mission of the Church.
• The Eucharist at the heart of History. The understanding of the Eucharist deepens: it is presented as communion with Christ “in History”: in other words, it welcomes the cultural context in which it is celebrated – starting with the language of the faithful; it is also understood as a sending on mission into the world, for material and spiritual service to men.

These two points find some of their roots in the experience lived by French Catholics, lay people and priests, in the context of the STO. We must add another consequence of the STO in the Catholic Church in France. The French episcopate had not managed to formulate a clear and unanimous condemnation of the STO. The debates sparked by this requisition in the service of the enemy thus undermined the credibility of the episcopal hierarchy.

The Second Vatican Council will give great importance to bishops: it will emphasize both their common responsibility to guide the Church (which will lead to the institutionalization of episcopal conferences) and their responsibility to take root in the life of the diocese entrusted to them.