In the mind of the clerics who used Vatican II concepts like synodality to make a separate peace with the modern world, the Volkswartbund typified the Church’s failed attempt to use condemnation to uphold the moral and social order. Moral reform based on authority was supposed to take a back seat to the “medicine of mercy” in reforming the culture even if no one knew how this applied to Jews promoting pornography. For the Catholic Church, which was worried about losing more of the faithful, Calmes’s Cologne-based and often-mocked legion of decency had become an unwanted burden…