Sword of the Spirit was a forerunner of the Catholic Institute of International Relations, now Progressio, founded by Cardinal Hinsley in August 1940. It has been suggested that launching Sword of the Spirit was "Probably Hinsley’s most memorable act".[1]
The broader purpose of the movement was to work to put Christian social teachings into effect as an alternative to totalitarianism and extremism of both the Right and the Left. Its more immediate aim was to promote awareness and acceptance of the five Peace Points proposed by Pius XII soon after his election in 1939: the defense of small nations, the right to life, disarmament, some new kind of League of Nations, and a plea for the moral principles of justice and love.[2]
Although founded by the cardinal, the movement was intended as a lay organization. The first vice-president was Christopher Dawson, but practical organization was in the hands of Richard O'Sullivan K.C., Barbara Ward, and Professor A. C. F. Beales of London University.[3]
The aims behind the movement were set out in a letter to The Times (December 21, 1941) signed jointly by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (Cosmo Gordon Lang and William Temple), by Cardinal Hinsley, and by the Moderator of the Free Churches (W. H. Armstrong). Hinsley hoped to make the movement ecumenical, organizing two interdenominational mass meetings in London in May 1941,[4] but in the course of 1941 the Vatican insisted that Catholic and Protestant social movements be segregated,[5] and a parallel movement under the name Religion and Life was inaugurated for non-Catholics.[6]
Sword of the Spirit was subsumed into the Catholic Institute for International Relations in 1965.