Mit brennender Sorge

File:Mit brennender Sorge Speyer JS.jpg

The encyclical Mit brennender Sorge issued by Pope Pius XI was the first papal encyclical written in German.

Mit brennender Sorge ({{#if:GT Mit brennender Sorge.ogg|{{#ifexist:Media:GT Mit brennender Sorge.ogg|<phonos file="GT Mit brennender Sorge.ogg">listen</phonos>|{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "GT Mit brennender Sorge.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handler}}}} {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, in English "With deep [lit. 'burning'] anxiety") is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, issued during the Nazi era on 10 March 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, 14 March).<ref name="cs">"Church and state through the centuries", Sidney Z. Ehler & John B Morrall, pp. 518–519, org pub 1954, reissued 1988, Biblo & Tannen, 1988, Template:ISBN</ref> Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was smuggled into Germany for fear of censorship and was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sundays, Palm Sunday (21 March that year).<ref name="Anton Gill p.58">Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; p.58</ref><ref>"Before 1931 all such messages [encyclicals] were written in Latin. The encyclical Non abbiamo bisogno of June 29, 1931, which condemned certain theories and practices of Italian Fascism, particularly in the realm of education, and denounced certain treaty violations of Signor Mussolini's Government, was the first document of that kind that appeared in a language other than Latin." The Catholic Herald, "First Encyclical in German", PAGE 3, 9 April 1937 [1] Template:Webarchive</ref>

The encyclical condemned breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the German Reich and the Holy See.<ref>Robert A. Ventresca – p.iv of photos, Soldier of Christ</ref> It condemned "pantheistic confusion", "neopaganism", "the so-called myth of race and blood", and the idolizing of the State. It contained a vigorous defense of the Old Testament with the belief that it prepares the way for the New.<ref name="Paul O p.156-157">Paul O'Shea, A Cross too Heavy, p.156-157</ref> The encyclical states that race is a fundamental value of the human community, which is necessary and honorable but condemns the exaltation of race, or the people, or the state, above their standard value to an idolatrous level.<ref>Martin Rhonheimer, The Holocaust: What Was Not Said, First Things 137 (November 2003): 18–28</ref> The encyclical declares "that man as a person possesses rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity must protect against denial, suppression or neglect."<ref>Mit brennnder Sorge, § 30 in English version</ref> National Socialism, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party are not named in the document. The term Reichsregierung (government of the Reich) is used to refer to the Nazi regime.<ref>Mit brennender Sorge Para 3</ref>

The effort to produce and distribute over 300,000 copies of the letter was entirely secret, allowing priests across Germany to read the letter without interference.<ref>The Roman Catholic periodical The Tablet reported at the time "The Encyclical, which took the Nazi Government completely unawares, had been introduced into Germany by the diplomatic bag to the Nunciature, and Monsignor Orsenigo, Apostolic Nuncio in Berlin had arranged for its secret distribution all over the country so that it was read in every Catholic church of the Reich last Sunday, before the Government had time to confiscate and suppress it.", The Tablet, 3 April 1937, p.10 [2] Template:Webarchive</ref> The Gestapo raided the churches the next day to confiscate all the copies they could find, and the presses that had printed the letter were closed. According to historian Ian Kershaw, an intensification of the general anti-church struggle began around April in response to the encyclical.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p.381-382">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; p. 381–382</ref> Klaus Scholder wrote: "state officials and the Party reacted with anger and disapproval. Nevertheless the great reprisal that was feared did not come. The concordat remained in force and despite everything the intensification of the battle against the two churches which then began remained within ordinary limits."<ref name="Scholder, p. 154-155">Scholder, p. 154-155</ref> The regime further constrained the actions of the Church and harassed monks with staged prosecutions for alleged immorality and phony abuse trials.<ref>The Catholic periodical The Tablet reported shortly after the issuing of the encyclical "The case in the Berlin court against three priests and five Catholic laymen is, in public opinion, the Reich's answer to the Pope's Mit brennender Sorge encyclical, as the prisoners have been in concentration camps for over a year. Chaplain Rossaint of Dusseldorf is, however, known as a pacifist and an opponent of the National Socialist regime, and it is not denied that he was indiscreet; but he is, moreover, accused of having tried to form a Catholic-Communist front on the plea that he baptized a Jewish Communist. This the accused denies, and his defence has been supported by Communist witnesses", The Tablet, p. 13, 24 April 1937 [3] Template:Webarchive</ref> Though Hitler is not named in the encyclical, the German text does refer to a "Wahnprophet", which some have interpreted as meaning "mad prophet" and as referring to Hitler himself.<ref name="McGonigle172">McGonigle, p. 172: "the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was read in Catholic Churches in Germany. In effect it taught that the racial ideas of the leader (Führer) and totalitarianism stood in opposition to the Catholic faith; Bokenkotter, pp. 389–392; Historian Michael Phayer wrote that the encyclical doesn't condemn Hitler or National Socialism, "as some have erroneously asserted" (Phayer, 2002), p. 2; "His encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was the 'first great official public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism' and even described the Führer himself as a 'mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance.'"; Rhodes, pp. 204–205: "Mit brennender Sorge did not prevaricate … Nor was the Führer himself spared, for his 'aspirations to divinity', 'placing himself on the same level as Christ': 'a mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance' (widerliche Hochmut)."; "It was not the case that Pius failed to "spare the Führer," or called him a "mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance." The text limits its critique of arrogance to unnamed Nazi "reformers" (John Connelly, Harvard University Press, 2012, "From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965", p. 315, fn 52)</ref>

It was reported at the time that the encyclical was paired and somewhat overshadowed by the anti-communist encyclical Divini Redemptoris of 19 March, in order to avoid the charge that the Pope was indirectly favoring communism.<ref>The Church And Germany, The Catholic Herald, "The Church And Germany", Page 8, 16 April 1937 [4]</ref>

Background

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R24391, Konkordatsunterzeichnung in Rom.jpg

The Reichskonkordat was signed on 20 July 1933 in Rome. (From left to right: German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs Giuseppe Pizzardo, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, Alfredo Ottaviani, and member of Reichsministerium des Inneren (Home Office) Rudolf Buttmann)

Following the Nazi takeover, the Catholic Church hierarchy in Germany initially attempted to co-operate with the new government, but by 1937 had become highly disillusioned. A threatening, though initially mainly sporadic persecution of the Catholic Church followed the Nazi takeover.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; p.332</ref> Hitler moved quickly to eliminate Political Catholicism. Two thousand functionaries of the Bavarian People's Party were rounded up by police in late June 1933. They along with the national Catholic Centre Party, ceased to exist in early July, as the Nazi Party became the only legally permitted party in the country. Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen meanwhile negotiated the Reichskonkordat treaty with the Vatican, which prohibited clergy from participating in politics.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; p.290</ref> Kershaw wrote that the Vatican was anxious to reach agreement with the new government, despite "continuing molestation of Catholic clergy, and other outrages committed by Nazi radicals against the Church and its organisations".<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; p.295</ref>

The Reichskonkordat (Template:Langx) was signed on 20 July 1933 between the Holy See and Germany. According to historian Pinchas Lapide, the Nazis saw the treaty as giving them moral legitimacy and prestige, whilst the Catholic Church sought to protect itself from persecution through a signed agreement.<ref>Three Popes and the Jews, Pinchas Lapide, 1967, Hawthorn Press, p. 102</ref> According to Guenter Lewy, a common view within Church circles at the time was that Nazism would not last long, and the favorable Concordat terms would outlive the current regime (the Concordat does remain in force today).<ref>Lewy, 1964, p. 92</ref> A Church handbook published with the recommendation of the entire German Church episcopate described the Concordat as "proof that two powers, totalitarian in their character, can find an agreement, if their domains are separate and if overlaps in jurisdiction become parallel or in a friendly manner lead them to make common cause".<ref name="Lewy, 1964, p. 93">Lewy, 1964, p. 93</ref> Lewy wrote "The harmonious co-operation anticipated at the time did not quite materialize" but that the reasons for this "lay less in the lack of readiness of the Church than in the short sighted policies of the Hitler regime."<ref name="Lewy, 1964, p. 93"/>

In Mit brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI said that the Holy See had signed the Concordat "in spite of many serious misgivings" and in the hope it might "safeguard the liberty of the church in her mission of salvation in Germany". The treaty comprised 34 articles and a supplementary protocol. Article 1 guaranteed "freedom of profession and public practice of the Catholic religion" and acknowledged the right of the church to regulate its own affairs. Within three months of the signing of the document, Cardinal Bertram, head of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference, was writing in a pastoral letter of "grievous and gnawing anxiety" with regard to the government's actions towards Catholic organisations, charitable institutions, youth groups, press, Catholic Action, and the mistreatment of Catholics for their political beliefs.<ref>The Nazi War Against the Catholic Church; National Catholic Welfare Conference; Washington D.C.; 1942</ref> According to Paul O'Shea, Hitler had a "blatant disregard" for the Concordat, and its signing was to him merely a first step in the "gradual suppression of the Catholic Church in Germany".<ref>Paul O'Shea; A Cross Too Heavy; Rosenberg Publishing; p. 234-5; Template:ISBN</ref> Anton Gill wrote that "with his usual irresistible, bullying technique, Hitler then proceeded to take a mile where he had been given an inch" and closed all Catholic institutions whose functions weren't strictly religious:

It quickly became clear that [Hitler] intended to imprison the Catholics, as it were, in their own churches. They could celebrate mass and retain their rituals as much as they liked, but they could have nothing at all to do with German society otherwise. Catholic schools and newspapers were closed, and a propaganda campaign against the Catholics was launched.<ref>Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; p.57</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Following the signing of the document, the formerly outspoken nature of opposition by German Catholic leaders towards the Nazi movement weakened considerably.<ref>Joachim Fest; Plotting Hitler's Death: The German Resistance to Hitler 1933–1945; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; London; p.31</ref> But violations of the Concordat by the Nazis began almost immediately and were to continue such that Falconi described the Concordat with Germany as "a complete failure".<ref>Falconi, 1967, p. 227</ref>

The Concordat, wrote William Shirer, "was hardly put to paper before it was being broken by the Nazi Government". The Nazis had promulgated their sterilization law, an offensive policy in the eyes of the Catholic Church, on 14 July. On 30 July, moves began to dissolve the Catholic Youth League. Clergy, nuns and lay leaders were to be targeted, leading to thousands of arrests over the ensuing years, often on trumped-up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".<ref name="William L. Shirer p234-5">William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p234-5</ref> Historian of the German Resistance Peter Hoffmann wrote that, following the Nazi takeover:

[The Catholic Church] could not silently accept the general persecution, regimentation or oppression, nor in particular the sterilization law of summer 1933. Over the years until the outbreak of war Catholic resistance stiffened until finally its most eminent spokesman was the Pope himself with his encyclical Mit brennender Sorge … of 14 March 1937, read from all German Catholic pulpits … In general terms, therefore, the churches were the only major organisations to offer comparatively early and open resistance: they remained so in later years.<ref>Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p.14</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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In August 1936 The German episcopate had asked Pius XI for an encyclical that would deal with the current situation of the Church in Germany.<ref>Lewy, 1967, p. 228</ref> In November 1936 Hitler had a meeting with Cardinal Faulhaber during which he indicated that more pressure would be put on the Church unless it collaborated more zealously with the regime.<ref name="Falconi, 1967, p. 228">Falconi, 1967, p. 228</ref> On 21 December 1936 the Pope invited, via Cardinal Pacelli, senior members of the German episcopate to Rome. On 16 January 1937 five German prelates and Cardinal Pacelli agreed unanimously that the time had now come for public action by the Holy See.<ref name="Falconi, 1967, p. 228"/> Pope Pius XI was gravely ill but he too was convinced of the need to publish an encyclical about the Church in Germany as soon as possible.<ref name="Falconi, 1967, p. 229">Falconi, 1967, p. 229</ref>

Authorship

File:Michael von Faulhaber, by Wilhelm Knarr, circa 1936 (2).jpg

Cardinal Michael Faulhaber (around 1936)

A five-member commission drafted the encyclical. According to Paul O'Shea the carefully worded denunciation of aspects of Nazism was formulated between 16 and 21 January 1937, by Pius XI, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) and German cardinals Bertram, Faulhaber and Schulte, and Bishops Preysing and Galen.<ref>Paul O'Shea, A Cross too Heavy, p.156</ref> Cardinal Bertram of Breslau was the chairman of the German Conference of Bishops, and after the Nazi takeover he had favoured a non-confrontational approach toward the government and developed a protest system which "satisfied the demands of the other bishops without annoying the regime".<ref>Joachim Fest; Plotting Hitler's Death: The German Resistance to Hitler 1933–1945; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; London; p.32"</ref> Berlin's Bishop Konrad von Preysing had been one of the most consistent and outspoken critics of the Nazi regime to emerge from the German Church hierarchy.<ref name="Honourable Defeat pp.58-59">Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; pp.58–59</ref><ref name="Konrad Graf von Preysing">Konrad Graf von Preysing; German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 4 September 2013</ref> Munich's Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber had been a staunch defender of Catholic rights.<ref>Theodore S. Hamerow; On the Road to the Wolf's Lair – German Resistance to Hitler; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1997; Template:ISBN; p. 140</ref> The conservative Bishop of Münster, Count Galen, would later distinguish himself by leading the Church's protest against Nazi euthanasia.<ref>Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; p.59</ref>

Cardinal Faulhaber's draft of the encyclical, consisting of eleven large single sheets and written in his own hand, was presented to Vatican Secretary of State Pacelli on 21 January.<ref name="Falconi, 1967, p. 229"/> Falconi said that the encyclical "was not so much an amplification of Faulhaber's draft as a faithful and even literal transcription of it" while "Cardinal Pacelli, at Pius XI's request, merely added a full historical introduction on the background of the Concordat with the Third Reich."<ref name="Falconi, 1967, p. 229"/> According to John-Peter Pham, Pius XI credited the encyclical to Cardinal Pacelli.<ref name="Pham45">Pham, Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession (2005), p. 45</ref> According to historian Frank J. Coppa, Cardinal Pacelli wrote a draft that the Pope thought was too weak and unfocused and therefore substituted a more critical analysis.<ref name="coppa">The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust, Frank J. Coppa, pp. 162–163, CUA Press, 2006, Template:ISBN</ref> Pacelli described the encyclical as "a compromise" between the Holy See's sense that it could not be silent set against "its fears and worries".<ref name="coppa"/>

According to Robert A. Ventresca, professor at King's University College at the University of Western Ontario, Cardinal Faulhaber, who wrote a first draft, was adamant that the encyclical should be careful in both its tone and substance and should avoid explicit reference to Nazism or the Nazi Party.<ref>Robert Ventresca, Soldier of Christ, p.118; "The word National Socialism does not appear at all in the document. The Pope has not tried to give a full analysis of the National Socialist doctrine. That would, indeed, have been impossible, as the Nazi movement is relatively young and it is doubtful whether certain ideas are "official" and essential parts of its doctrine or not.", The Catholic Herald, p. 3, 9 April 1937 [5]</ref> Historian William Shirer wrote that the document accused the regime of sowing the "tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church".<ref name="William L. Shirer p234-5"/> According to Historian Klaus Scholder, the leader of the German Bishops conference, Cardinal Bertram, sought to blunt the impact of the encyclical by ordering that critical passages should not be read aloud. He took the view that "introductory thoughts about the failure of the Reich government to observe the treaty are meant more for the leaders, not for the great mass of believers."<ref name="Scholder p. 159">Scholder, Requiem for Hitler, p. 159</ref>

Content

The numbers conform to the headings used in the Vatican's English translation of the text.

Violations of the Concordat

In the introduction and sections 1–8 of the encyclical Pius XI wrote of his "deep anxiety and growing surprise" on observing the travails of the Catholic Church in Germany with the terms of Concordat being openly broken and the faithful being oppressed as had never been seen before.<ref>Lewy, 1967, p. 156</ref>

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Race

Pius then affirmed the articles of faith that Nazi ideology was attacking. He stated that true belief in God could not be reconciled with race, people or state raised beyond their standard value to idolatrous levels.<ref name="Lewy, 1967, p. 157">Lewy, 1967, p. 157</ref> National religion or a national God was rejected as a grave error and that the Christian God could not be restricted "within the frontiers of a single people, within the pedigree of one single race." (sections 9–13).<ref name="Lewy, 1967, p. 157"/> Historian Michael Phayer wrote:

In Divini Redemptoris, he [Pius XI] condemned communism once again, while in Mit brennender Sorge he criticized racism in carefully measured words. As Peter Godman has pointed out, this was a political decision that ignored the immorality of Nazi racism as it had been discerned by in-house committees at the Vatican. … the encyclical stepped lightly around the issue of racism so as to keep the Concordat intact.<ref>Phayer, Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War, 2008, p. 175-176</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Martin Rhonheimer writes that while Mit brennender Sorge asserts "race" is a "fundamental value of the human community", "necessary and honorable", it condemns the "exaltation of race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state", "above their standard value" to "an idolatrous level".<ref>Faulhaber's original draft of this passage read: "Be vigilant that race, or the state, or other communal values, which can claim an honorable place in worldly things, be not magnified and idolized."</ref> According to Rhonheimer, it was Pacelli who added to Faulhaber's milder draft the following passage (8):<ref name="First things, Rhonheimer">First things, Rhonheimer</ref>

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Against this background to the encyclical, Faulhaber suggested in an internal Church memorandum that the bishops should inform the Nazi regime

…that the Church, through the application of its marriage laws, has made and continues to make, an important contribution to the state's policy of racial purity; and is thus performing a valuable service for the regime's population policy.<ref name="First things, Rhonheimer"/>

Vidmar wrote that the encyclical condemned particularly the purported paganism of the national socialist ideology, the myth of race and blood, and the fallacy of its conception of God. It warned Catholics that the growing Nazi ideology, which exalted one race over all others, was incompatible with Catholic Christianity.<ref name="Vidmar327">Vidmar, pp. 327–331</ref>

11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket"<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Historian Garry Wills, in the context of Jews having traditionally been described as deicides, says that the encyclical affirms Template:" 'Jesus received his human nature from a people who crucified him' – not some Jews, but the Jewish people" and that it was also Pius XI who had disbanded the Catholic organization "Friends of Israel" that had campaigned to have the charge of deicide dropped.<ref>Wills, Papal Sin, p. 19</ref> The charge of deicide against all Jewish people was later dropped during the Second Vatican Council.Template:Fact

Defending the Old Testament

Historian Paul O'Shea says the encyclical contains a vigorous defense of the Old Testament out of belief that it prepared the way for the New.<ref name="Paul O p.156-157"/>

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Claimed attacks on Hitler

There is no mention of Hitler by name in the encyclical but the "mad prophet" described in the text may be a veiled reference to him. The Catholic writer Anthony Rhodes<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>"Anthony Rhodes: Cosmopolitan and well-connected man of letters who write a deeply researched three-volume history of the Vatican", Obituary, The Times, 8 September 2004 [6]Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> wrote in The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators: "Nor was the Führer himself spared [in the encyclical], for his 'aspirations to divinity', 'placing himself on the same level as Christ'; 'a mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance".<ref>The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, pp 204–205</ref> Subsequent works have repeated Rhodes' characterization that Hitler is described as a "mad prophet" in the encyclical.<ref>e.g see Bokenkotter, pp. 389–392</ref>

Historian John Connelly writes:

Some accounts exaggerate the directness of the pope's criticism of Hitler. Contrary to what Anthony Rhodes in The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators writes, there were oblique references to Hitler. It was not the case that Pius failed to "spare the Führer," or called him a "mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance." The text limits its critique of arrogance to unnamed Nazi "reformers".<ref>John Connelly, Harvard University Press, 2012, "From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965", p. 315, fn 52</ref>

Historian Michael Phayer wrote that the encyclical does not condemn Hitler or National Socialism, "as some have erroneously asserted".<ref>Phyaer, 2002, p. 2</ref> Historian Michael Burleigh sees the passage as pinpointing "the tendency of the Führer-cult to elevate a man into god."

The relevant passage in the English version of the encyclical is:

17. …Template:NbspShould any man dare, in sacrilegious disregard of the essential differences between God and His creature, between the God-man and the children of man, to place a mortal, were he the greatest of all times, by the side of, or over, or against, Christ, he would deserve to be called prophet of nothingness, to whom the terrifying words of Scripture would be applicable: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them" (Psalms ii. 3).<ref>Burleigh, p. 191-192</ref>

(The German text uses the term "Template:Italics correction", in which the component Wahn can mean "illusion" or "delusion", while the Italian text uses "un profeta di chimere" (a prophet of chimeras; that is, a prophet as the product of the imagination).)

Historian Susan Zuccotti sees the above passage as an unmistakable jibe at Hitler.<ref>Under His Very Windows, p. 22</ref>

Fidelity to the Church and Bishop of Rome

Pius then went on to assert that people were obliged to believe in Christ, divine revelation, and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome (Sections 14–24).<ref name="Lewy, 1967, p. 157"/>

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Soteriology

Historian Michael Burleigh views the following passage as a rejection of the Nazis' conception of collective racial immortality:<ref name="Burleigh, 2006, p. 191">Burleigh, 2006, p. 191</ref>

24. "Immortality" in a Christian sense means the survival of man after his terrestrial death, for the purpose of eternal reward or punishment. Whoever only means by the term, the collective survival here on earth of his people for an indefinite length of time, distorts one of the fundamental notions of the Christian Faith and tampers with the very foundations of the religious concept of the universe, which requires a moral order. [Whoever does not wish to be a Christian ought at least to renounce the desire to enrich the vocabulary of his unbelief with the heritage of Christian ideas.]

The bracketed text is in Burleigh's book and the German version (section 29), but not in the Vatican's English version: Wenn er nicht Christ sein will, sollte er wenigstens darauf verzichten, den Wortschatz seines Unglaubens aus christlichem Begriffsgut zu bereichern.

Compatibility of humility and heroism

Burleigh also mentions the encyclical's rejection of Nazi contempt for the redemptive value of suffering:<ref name="Burleigh, 2006, p. 192">Burleigh, 2006, p. 192</ref>

27. Humility in the spirit of the Gospel and prayer for the assistance of grace are perfectly compatible with self-confidence and heroism. The Church of Christ, which throughout the ages and to the present day numbers more confessors and voluntary martyrs than any other moral collectivity, needs lessons from no one in heroism of feeling and action. The odious pride of reformers only covers itself with ridicule when it rails at Christian humility as though it were but a cowardly pose of self-degradation.

Christian grace contrasted with natural gifts

28. "Grace," in a wide sense, may stand for any of the Creator's gifts to His creature; but in its Christian designation, it means all the supernatural tokens of God's love... To discard this gratuitous and free elevation in the name of a so-called German type amounts to repudiating openly a fundamental truth of Christianity. It would be an abuse of our religious vocabulary to place on the same level supernatural grace and natural gifts. Pastors and guardians of the people of God will do well to resist this plunder of sacred things and this confusion of ideas.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Defense of natural law

Burleigh views the encyclical as confounding the Nazi philosophy that "Right is what is advantageous to the people" through its defense of Natural Law:<ref name="Burleigh, 2006, p. 192"/>

29. …Template:NbspTo hand over the moral law to man's subjective opinion, which changes with the times, instead of anchoring it in the holy will of the eternal God and His commandments, is to open wide every door to the forces of destruction. The resulting dereliction of the eternal principles of an objective morality, which educates conscience and ennobles every department and organization of life, is a sin against the destiny of a nation, a sin whose bitter fruit will poison future generations.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

The Nazi principle is rejected on the basis that what is morally illicit cannot be of true advantage.<ref name="Lewy, 1967, p. 157" /> Human laws opposed to natural law were described as not "obligatory in conscience".

In his history of the German Resistance, Anton Gill interprets the encyclical as having asserted the "inviolability of human rights".<ref name="Anton Gill p.58" /> Historian Emma Fattorini wrote that the Pope's

indignation was obviously not addressed at improbable democratic-liberal human rights issues, nor was there a generic and abstract appeal to evangelical principles. It was rather the Church's competition with the totalitarian regression of the concept of Volk that in the Nazi state-worship totally absorbed the community-people relationship<ref>""Mit brennender Sorge", the cry of Pius XI", Emma Fattorini, Reset Dialogues on Civilizations, 25 November 2008 [7]</ref>

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Thomas Banchoff considers this the first explicit mention of human rights by a Pope, something the Pope would affirm the following year in a little-noticed letter to the American Church. Banchoff writes: "the church's full embrace of the human rights agenda would have to wait until the 1960s".<ref>"Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights", Thomas Banchoff, Robert Wuthnow, Oxford University Press, pp. 291–292, 2011. Template:ISBN</ref>

Defense of Catholic schooling

The encyclical also defends the natural rights of parents in the education of their children, and describes as "void of all legality" the "notorious coercion" of Catholic children away from Catholic schooling into interdenominational schools, part of Nazi attempts to monopolize education (sections 33–37).<ref name="Lewy, 1967, p. 157" /><ref>Burleigh, 2005, p. 192</ref>

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Call to priests and religious

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Call to parents

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Moderation of the encyclical but with warnings

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Release

The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Catholic Church documents. Because of government restrictions, the nuncio in Berlin, Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, had the encyclical distributed by courier. There was no pre-announcement of the encyclical, and its distribution was kept secret in an attempt to ensure the unhindered public reading of its contents in all the Catholic churches of Germany.<ref name="brendon511">Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s, p. 511 Template:ISBN</ref> Printers close to the church offered their services and produced an estimated 300,000 copies, which was still insufficient. Additional copies were created by hand and using typewriters. After its clandestine distribution, the document was hidden by many congregations in their tabernacles for protection. It was read from the pulpits of German Catholic parishes on Palm Sunday, 21 March 1937.<ref>Bokenkotter 389</ref>

Nazi response

The release of Mit brennender Sorge precipitated an intensification of the Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 381">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; pp. 381–82</ref> Hitler was infuriated.<ref name="Anton Gill p.58" /> Twelve printing presses were seized, and hundreds of people sent either to prison or the concentration camps.<ref name="Anton Gill p.58" /> In his diary, Goebbels wrote that there were heightened verbal attacks on the clergy from Hitler, and wrote that Hitler had approved the start of trumped up "immorality trials" against clergy and anti-Church propaganda campaign. Goebbels' orchestrated attack included a staged "morality trial" of 37 Franciscans.<ref name=Kershaw381>Ian Kershaw p.381-382</ref> On the "Church Question", wrote Goebbels, "after the war it has to be generally solved … There is, namely, an insoluble opposition between the Christian and a heroic-German world view".<ref name=Kershaw381 />

The Catholic HeraldTemplate:'s German correspondent wrote almost four weeks after the issuing of the encyclical that:

Hitler has not yet decided what to do. Some of his counsellors try to persuade him to declare the Concordat as null and void. Others reply that that would do immense damage to Germany's prestige in the world, particularly to its relations with Austria and to its influence in Nationalist Spain. Moderation and prudence are advocated by them. There is, unfortunately, no hope that the German Reich will come back to a full respect of its Concordat obligations and that the Nazis will give up those of their doctrines which have been condemned by the Pope in the new Encyclical. But it is well possible that a definite denunciation of the Concordat and a rupture of diplomatic relations between Berlin and the Holy See will be avoided, at least for the time being.<ref name="archive.catholicherald.co.uk">"First Encyclical in German", Catholic Herald, 9 April 1937</ref>

The Catholic Herald reported on 23 April:

It is understood that the Vatican will reply to the note of complaint presented to it by the German Government in regard to the Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge. The note was not a defence of Nazism, but a criticism of the Vatican's action at a time when negotiations on the relations between the Vatican and Germany were still in being. It would seem that the Vatican, desirous of finding a modus vivendi, however slight the chance of it may appear, wishes to clear up any possible misunderstanding. On 15 April Cardinal Pacelli received Herr von Bergen, the Reich Ambassador at the Holy See. This was the first diplomatic meeting since the publication of the Encyclical.<ref>"German 'Traitor' Priests", Catholic Herald, 23 April 1937</ref>

The Tablet reported on 24 April 1937:

The case in the Berlin court against three priests and five Catholic laymen is, in public opinion, the Reich's answer to the Pope's Mit brennender Sorge encyclical, as the prisoners have been in concentration camps for over a year. Chaplain Rossaint, of Dusseldorf; is, however, known as a pacifist and an opponent of the National Socialist regime, and it is not denied that he was indiscreet; but he is, moreover, accused of having tried to form a Catholic-Communist front on the plea that he baptized a Jewish Communist. This the accused denies, and his defence has been supported by Communist witnesses.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The (censored) German newspapers made no mention of the encyclical. The Gestapo visited the offices of every German diocese the next day and seized all the copies they could find.<ref name="brendon511" /> Every publishing company that had printed it was closed and sealed, diocesan newspapers were proscribed, and limits imposed on the paper available for Church purposes.

The true extent of the Nazi fury at this encyclical was shown by the immediate measures taken in Germany to counter further propagation of the document. Not a word of it was printed in newspapers, and the following day the Secret Police visited the diocesan offices and confiscated every copy they could lay their hands on. All the presses which had printed it were closed and sealed. The bishops' diocesan magazines (Amtsblatter) were proscribed; and paper for church pamphlets or secretarial work was severely restricted. A host of other measures, such as diminishing the State grants to theology students and needy priests (agreed in the Concordat) were introduced. And then a number of futile, vindictive measures which did little to harm the Church …<ref>Rhodes, p. 205</ref>

According to Carlo Falconi: "The pontifical letter still remains the first great official public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism, and the Pope's courage astonished the world."<ref name="Falconi p. 230">Falconi, p. 230.</ref>

Historian Frank J. Coppa wrote that the encyclical was viewed by the Nazis as "a call to battle against the Reich" and that Hitler was furious and "vowed revenge against the Church".<ref name="coppa" />

Klaus Scholder wrote:<ref>Scholder, pp. 154–155.</ref>

Whereas the reading of the encyclical was widely felt in German Catholicism to be a liberation, state officials and the Party reacted with anger and disapproval. Nevertheless the great reprisal that was feared did not come. The concordat remained in force and despite everything the intensification of the battle against the two churches which then began remained within ordinary limits.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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According to John Vidmar, Nazi reprisals against the Church in Germany followed thereafter, including "staged prosecutions of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity".<ref name="Vidmar254">Vidmar, p. 254.</ref> One hundred and seventy Franciscans were arrested in Koblenz and tried for "corrupting youth" in a secret trial, with numerous allegations of priestly debauchery appearing in the Nazi-controlled press, while a film produced for the Hitler Youth showed men dressed as priests dancing in a brothel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Catholic Herald reported on 15 October 1937:

The failure of the Nazi "morality" trials campaign against the Church can be gauged from the fact that, up to the beginning of August, the Courts were only able to condemn 74 religious and secular priests on such charges. The total number of religious and secular priests in Germany, according to the Catholic paper Der Deutsche Weg, is 122,792. The justice of such condemnations as the Nazis were able to obtain is more than suspect.<ref>"National Socialist Culture", Catholic Herald, 15 Oct 1937</ref>

A pastoral letter issued by the German bishops in 1938 says "Currency and morality trials are put up in such a way which shows that not justice but anti-Catholic propaganda is the main concern".<ref>"Justice and Christianity Identified", Catholic Herald, Set 9 1938</ref>

Catholic response

Ian Kershaw wrote that during the Nazi period, the churches "engaged in a bitter war of attrition with the regime, receiving the demonstrative backing of millions of churchgoers. Applause for Church leaders whenever they appeared in public, swollen attendances at events such as Corpus Christi Day processions, and packed church services were outward signs of the struggle of … especially of the Catholic Church – against Nazi oppression". While the Church ultimately failed to protect its youth organisations and schools, it did have some successes in mobilizing public opinion to alter government policies.<ref>Ian Kershaw; The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation; 4th Edn; Oxford University Press; New York; 2000; pp 210–11</ref> Anton Gill wrote that, in 1937, amidst the harassment of the church and following the hundreds of arrests and closure of Catholic presses that followed the issuing of Mit brennender Sorge, at least 800,000 people attended a pilgrimage centred on Aachen – a massive demonstration by the standards of the day – and some 60,000 attended the 700th anniversary of the bishopric of Franconia – about equal to the city's entire population.<ref name="Anton Gill p.58"/>

The Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), wrote to Germany's Cardinal Faulhaber on 2 April 1937 explaining that the encyclical was theologically and pastorally necessary "to preserve the True Faith in Germany." The encyclical also defended baptized Jews, still considered to be Jews by the Nazis because of racial theories unacceptable to the Church. Although the encyclical does not specifically mention the Jewish people,<ref>Martin Rhonheimer, What was not Said Template:Webarchive</ref> it condemns the exaltation of one race or blood over another, i.e. racism.<ref>Mit brennnder Sorge, §§ 8, 10, 11, 17, 23 in English version</ref>

Following the issuing of the document, The Catholic Herald opined that this "great Encyclical in fact contains a summary of what most needs preserving as the basis for a Christian civilisation and a compendium of the most dangerous elements in Nazi doctrine and practice."<ref>"The Church And Germany", Catholic Herald, 16 April 1937</ref> and that:

Only a small portion of the Encyclical is against Germany's continuous violations of the Concordat; the larger part refers to false and dangerous doctrines which are officially spread in Germany and to which the Holy Father opposes the teaching of the Catholic Church. The word National Socialism does not appear at all in the document. The Pope has not tried to give a full analysis of the National Socialist doctrine. That would, indeed, have been impossible, as the Nazi movement is relatively young and it is doubtful whether certain ideas are "official" and essential parts of its doctrine or not. But one thing is beyond any doubt: If you take away from the National Socialist "faith" those false dogmas which have solemnly been condemned by the Holy Father in his Encyclical, the remainder will not deserve to be called National Socialism.<ref name="archive.catholicherald.co.uk"/>

Austrian Bishop Gfoellner of Linz had the encyclical read from the pulpits of his diocese. The Catholic Herald reported:

The Bishop of Linz (Mgr. Gfoellner) who has always taken a very strong anti-Nazi and anti-Socialist stand in the district of Austria where there has been most trouble with both views, said before the reading of the document: "The fate of the Church in Germany cannot be a matter of indifference to us; it touches us very nearly." After indicating the reasons the Bishop added that the dangers of German Catholics were also the dangers of Austrian Catholics: "What I wrote in my pastoral of January 21, 1933. It is impossible to be at once a good Catholic and a good National-Socialist,' is confirmed today." Mgr. Gfoellner asked all Catholic parents to keep their children away from any organisation which sympathised with the ideology condemned by the Pope.<ref>"Austrian Bishop's Plain Words: Can't Be Good Nazi and Good Catholic", Catholic Herald, 16 April 1937 [8]</ref>

In April 1938 The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano displayed for the first time "the historic headline" of "Religious Persecution in Germany" and reflected that what Pius XI had published in Mit brennender Sorge was now being clearly witnessed: "Catholic schools are closed, people are coerced to leave the Church … religious instruction of the Youth is made impossibleTemplate:Nbsp... Catholic organisations are suppressedTemplate:Nbsp… a press campaign is made against the Church, while its own newspapers and magazines are suppressedTemplate:Nbsp…"<ref>"HISTORIC HEADLINE 'Religious Persecution in Germany'", Catholic Herald, 6 May 1938 [9]</ref>

Assessments

The historian Eamon Duffy wrote:

In a triumphant security operation, the encyclical was smuggled into Germany, locally printed, and read from Catholic pulpits on Palm Sunday 1937. Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety) denounced both specific government actions against the Church in breach of the concordat and Nazi racial theory more generally. There was a striking and deliberate emphasis on the permanent validity of the Jewish scriptures, and the Pope denounced the 'idolatrous cult' which replaced belief in the true God with a 'national religion' and the 'myth of race and blood'. He contrasted this perverted ideology with the teaching of the Church in which there was a home 'for all peoples and all nations'. The impact of the encyclical was immense, and it dispelled at once all suspicion of a Fascist Pope. While the world was still reacting, however, Pius issued five days later another encyclical, Divini Redemptoris, denouncing Communism, declaring its principles "intrinsically hostile to religion in any form whatever", detailing the attacks on the Church which had followed the establishment of Communist regimes in Russia, Mexico and Spain, and calling for the implementation of Catholic social teaching to offset both Communism and 'amoral liberalism'. The language of Divini Redemptoris was stronger than that of Mit brennender Sorge, its condemnation of Communism even more absolute than the attack on Nazism. The difference in tone undoubtedly reflected the Pope's own loathing of Communism as the "ultimate enemy."<ref>Duffy, Saints and Sinners, a History of the Popes. Yale University Press. Template:ISBN. (paperback edition) p. 343</ref>

Carlo Falconi wrote:

So little anti-Nazi is it that it does not even attribute to the regime as such, but only to certain trends within it, the dogmatic and moral errors widespread in Germany. And while the errors indicated are carefully diagnosed and refuted, complete silence surrounds the much more serious and fundamental errors associated with Nazi political ideology, corresponding to the principles most subversive of natural law that are characteristic of absolute totalitarianisms. The encyclical is in fact concerned purely with the Catholic Church in Germany and its rights and privileges, on the basis of the concordatory contracts of 1933. Moreover the form given to it by Cardinal Faulhaber, even more a super-nationalist than the majority of his most ardent colleagues, was essentially dictated by tactics and aimed at avoiding a definite breach with the regime, even to the point of offering in conclusion a conciliatory olive branch to Hitler if he would restore the tranquil prosperity of the Catholic Church in Germany. But that was the very thing to deprive the document of its noble and exemplary intransigence. Nevertheless, even within these limitations, the pontifical letter still remains the first great public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism, and the Pope's courage astonished the world. It was, indeed, the encyclical’s fate to be credited with a greater significance and content than it possessed.<ref>Falconi, 1967, pp 229–231</ref>

Historian Klaus Scholder observed that Hitler's interest in church questions seemed to have died in early 1937, which he attributes to the issuing of the encyclical and that "Hitler must have regarded the encyclical Mit brennender sorge in April 1937 almost as a snub. In fact it will have seemed to him to be the final rejection of his world-view by Catholicism".<ref>Scholder, p. 152, p. 163</ref> Scholder wrote:

However, whereas the encyclical Divini Redemptoris mentioned Communism in Russia, Mexico and Spain directly by name, at the suggestion of Faulhaber the formulation of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was not polemical, but accused National Socialism above all indirectly, by a description of the foundations of the Catholic Church … As things were every hearer knew what was meant when it mentioned 'public persecution' of the faithful, 'a thousand forms of organized impediments to religion' and a 'lack of teaching which is loyal to the truth and of the normal possibilities of defence'. Even if National Socialism was not mentioned by name, it was condemned clearly and unequivocally as an ideology when the encyclical stated 'Anyone who makes Volk or state or form of state or state authorities or other basic values of the human shaping of society into the highest of all norms, even of religious values … perverts and falsifies the divinely created and divinely commanded order of things.'<ref name="Scholder, p. 154-155"/>

Scholder adds that:

The time of open confrontation seemed to have arrived. However, it very soon emerged that the encyclical was open to different interpretations. It could be understood as a last and extreme way by which the church might maintain its rights and its truth within the framework of the concordat; but it could also be interpreted as the first step which could be and had to be followed by further steps.<ref name="Scholder p. 159"/>

Martin Rhonheimer wrote:

The general condemnation of racism of course included the Nazis' anti-Semitic racial mania, and condemned it implicitly. The question, however, is not what the Church's theological position with regard to Nazi racism and anti-Semitism was in 1937, but whether Church statements were clear enough for everyone to realize that the Church included Jews in its pastoral concern, thus summoning Christian consciences to solidarity with them. In light of what we have seen, it seems clear that the answer to this question must be No. In 1937 the Church was concerned not with the Jews but with entirely different matters that the Church considered more important and more urgent. An explicit defense of the Jews might well have jeopardized success in these other areas.

He further writes

Such statements require us to reconsider the Church's public declarations about the Nazi concept of the state and racism in the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. Not only were Church declarations belated. They were also inadequate to counter the passivity and widespread indifference to the fate of Jews caused by this kind of Christian anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, especially when it was combined with newly awakened national pride. The encyclical, then, came far too late to be of any help to Jews. In reality, however, the Church's statements were never really designed to help the Jews. The "Catholic apologetic" described above is something developed after the fact and has no roots in the historical record. Indeed, given the dominant view of the Jews in the Nazi period, it would have been astonishing if the Church had mounted the barricades in their defense. As we shall see, the failure of Church statements about Nazism and racism ever to mention the Jews specifically (save in negative ways) corresponds to an inner logic that is historically understandable—but no less disturbing to us today.<ref>"The Holocaust: What Was Not Said", First Things 137 (November 2003): 18–28.</ref>

Guenter Lewy wrote:

Many writers, influenced in part by the violent reaction of the Nazi government to the papal pronouncement, have hailed the encyclical letter Mit brennender Sorge as a decisive repudiation of the National Socialist state and Weltanschauung. More judicious observers have noted the encyclical was moderate in its tone and merely intimated that the condemned neopagan doctrines were favored by the German authorities. It is indeed a document in which, as one Catholic writer has put it, "with considerable skill, the extravagances of German Nazi doctrine are picked out for condemnation in a way that would not involve the condemnation of political and social totalitarianism{ … While some of Pius' language is sweeping and can be given a wider construction, basically the Pope had condemned neopaganism and the denial of religious freedom – no less and no more<ref>Lewy, Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, 1964, p. 158-159</ref>

Catholic holocaust scholar Michael Phayer concludes that the encyclical "condemned racism (but not Hitler or National Socialism, as some have erroneously asserted)".<ref>Phayer 2000, p. 2</ref> Other Catholic scholars have regarded the encyclical as "not a heatedly combative document" as the German episcopate, still ignorant of the real dimension of the problem, still entertained hopes of a Modus vivendi with the Nazis. As a result, the encyclical was "not directly polemical" but "diplomatically moderate", in contrast to the encyclical Non abbiamo bisogno dealing with Italian fascism.<ref>"Church and state through the centuries", Sidney Z. Ehler & John B Morrall, pp. 518–519, org pub 1954, reissued 1988, Biblo & Tannen, 1988, Template:ISBN</ref>

See also

• Religion in Nazi Germany
• Humani generis unitas
• Summi Pontificatus

Sources

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• Rohrbacher, Peter (2016). The Race Debate in the Curia in the Context of “Mit brennender Sorge” In: Fabrice Bouthillon, Marie Levant (Hrsg.): Un pape contre le nazisme? L'encyclique "Mit brennender Sorge" du pape Pie XI. (14 mars 1937). Actes du colloque international de Brest, 4–6 juin 2015. Editions Dialogues, Brest 2016, S. 93–108.
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External links

• Mit brennender Sorge on Vatican.va Template:In lang (The section numbering differs from the German version.)
• Mit brennender Sorge on Vatican.va Template:In lang
• "'Morality Trials' In The Third Reich" Template:Webarchive The Tablet 20 June 1936
• "An Open Letter to Dr. Goebbels" Template:Webarchive, The Tablet 17 July 1937