Mit brennender Sorge
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Mit brennender Sorge (German for "With burning anxiety") is a Roman Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, March 14).[1] The encyclical listed breaches of an agreement signed with the Church, and included criticism of racism and other aspects of Nazi ideology.
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[edit] Background and consequences
The encyclical was drafted by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber with an introduction added by Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) dealing with the historical background of the Concordat with the Catholic Church and the Third Reich. This encyclical condemned particularly the paganism of the national-socialism ideology, the myth of race and blood, and the fallacy of their conception of God. It warned Catholics that the growing Nazi ideology, which exalted one race over all others, was incompatible with Christianity. [2][3] According to Martin Rhonheimer it was Pacelli who added to Faulhaber's milder draft the following passage:
Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God.[4]
Carlo Falconi asserted that the final encyclical was "not so much an amplification of Faulhaber's draft as a faithful and even literal transcription of it".[5] According to Frank J. Coppa, Cardinal Pacelli wrote a draft that the Pope thought was too weak and unfocussed and therefore substituted a more critical analysis.[6] At the time Pius XI credited the encyclical to Cardinal Pacelli.[7] 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".[6]
Martin Rhonheimer writes that whilst 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.”[8] Against this background to the encyclical Faulhaber suggested in an internal Church memorandum that the bishops should inform the government “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.”[9]
The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Roman Catholic Church documents. It was read in all parish churches of Germany. 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.
According to Vidmar Nazi reprisals against the Church in Germany followed thereafter, including "staged prosecutions of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity".[10] In contrast Wolfgang Benz and Thomas Dunlap point out that these "priest trials" took place between 1935-1937.[11] Frank J. Coppa asserts 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".[6] According to Catholic scholars Ehler and Morrall the initial Nazi response to the encyclical, a cry for the denunciation of the Concordant due to the Popes interference ("but on second thoughts the Government did not do so"), the persecution of the Church lessened in subsequent years with the attitudes of both sides stabilising during the war. This was was in part influenced by the number of Catholics who now came under the orbit of German control in the wake of the Anschluss and the extension of occupied territories, leading to a Catholic population that now at least equalled that of Protestants. After the war the Concordat remained in place and the Church was restored to its previous position.[1]
[edit] Assessments
Scholars have disagreed over the extent to which the encyclical challenged the Nazi regime. It contained references to 'an insane and arrogant prophet", interpreted by scholars such as Bokenkotter and Vidmar as a reference to Adolf Hitler and has been described by these authors (using Falconi 1967 as the source) as "the first great official public document to dare to confront and critize Nazism".[12][13][14][15] Falconi also asserted however, that the offering of a "conciliatory olive branch" to Hitler if he would restore the "tranquil prosperity" of the Church deprived the document of its "noble and exemplary intransigence".[16] Catholic holocaust scholar Michael Phayer concludes that the encyclical "condemned racism (but not Hitler or National Socialism, as some have erroneously asserted)".[17] Other Catholic scholars have regarded the encyclical as "not a heatedly combative document" as the German episcopate 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.[1]
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b c "Church and state through the centuries",Sidney Z. Ehler & John B Morrall, p. 518-519, org pub 1954, reissued 1988, Biblo & Tannen, 1988, ISBN 0819601896
- ^ Vidmar, pp. 327–33l
- ^ Falconi 1967, p. 229
- ^ "The Holocaust: What Was Not Said", First Thing Magazine, November 2003, retrieved 30 June 2009[1]
- ^ Falconi 1967, p. 229
- ^ a b c "The papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust", Frank J. Coppa, p. 162-163, CUA Press, 2006, ISBN 0813214491
- ^ Pham, Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession (2005), p. 45, quote: "When Pius XI was complimented on the publication, in 1937, of his encyclical denouncing Nazism, Mit Brennender Sorge, his response was to point to his Secretary of State and say bluntly, 'The credit is his.' "
- ^ 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, are not magnified and idolized.”
- ^ "The Holocaust: What Was Not Said", First Thing Magazine, November 2003, retrieved 30 June 2009[2]
- ^ Vidmar, p. 254.
- ^ "A concise history of the Third Reich", Wolfgang Benz, Thomas Dunlap", p. 125-126, University of California Press, 2006, ISBN 0520234898
- ^ Bokenkotter, pp. 389–392, quote "And when Hitler showed increasing belligerance toward the Church, Pius met the challenge with a decisiveness that astonished the world. His encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge was the 'first great official public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism' and 'one of the greatest such condemnations ever issued by the Vatican.' Smuggled into Germany, it was read from all the Catholic pulpits on Palm Sunday in March 1937. It exposed the fallacy and denounced the Nazi myth of blood and soil; it decried its neopaganism, its war of annihilation against the Church, and even described the Fuhrer himself as a 'mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance.' The Nazis were infuriated, and in retaliation closed and sealed all the presses that had printed it and took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy."
- ^ Rhodes, p. 205, quote "Mit brennender Sorge did not prevaricate. Although it began mildly enough with an account of the broad aims of the Church, it went on to become one of the greatest condemnations of a national regime ever pronounced by the Vatican. Its vigorous language is in sharp contrast to the involved style in which encyclicals were normally written. The education question was fully and critically examined, and a long section devoted to disproving the Nazi theory of Blood and Soil (Blut und Boden) and the Nazi claim that faith in Germany was equivalent to faith in God. There were scathing references to Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century and its neo-paganism. The pressure exercised by the Nazi party on Catholic officials to betray their faith was lambasted as 'base, illegal and inhuman'. The document spoke of 'a condition of spiritual oppression in Germany such as has never been seen before' of 'the open fight against the Confessional schools and the suppression of liberty of choice for those who desire a Catholic education'. 'With pressure veiled and open,' it went on, 'with intimidation, with promises of economic, professional, civil and other advantages, the attachment of Catholics to the Faith, particularly those in government employment, is exposed to a violence as illegal as it is inhuman.' 'The calvary of the Church': 'The war of annihilation against the Catholic Faith'; 'The cult of idols'. The fulminations thundered down from the pulpits to the delighted congregations. Nor was the Fuhrer himself spared, for his 'aspirations to divinity', 'placing himself on the same level as Christ'; 'a mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance' (widerliche Hochmut). ... 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..."
- ^ Falconi, p. 230, quote "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."
- ^ Vidmar, p. 327 quote "Pius XI's greatest coup was in writing the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge ("With Burning Desire") in 1936, and having it distributed secretly and ingeniously by an army of motorcyclists, and read from the pulpit on Palm Sunday before the Nazis obtained a single copy. It stated (in German and not in the traditional Latin) that the Concordat with the Nazis was agreed to despite serious misgivings about Nazi integrity. It then went on to condemn the persecution of the church, the neopaganism of the Nazi ideology-especially its theory of racial superiority-and Hitler himself, calling him 'a mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance.'
- ^ Falconi 1967 p. 230
- ^ Phayer 2000, p. 2
[edit] Bibliography
- Bokenkotter, Thomas (2004). A Concise History of the Catholic Church. Doubleday. ISBN 0385505841.
- Chadwick, Owen (1995). A History of Christianity. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0760773327.
- Falconi, Carlo (1967). The Popes in the Twentieth Century. Feltrinelli Editore. 68-14744.
- Pham, John Peter (2006). Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195178343.
- Phayer, Michael (2000). The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21471-8.
- Rhodes, Anthony (1973). The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators (1922-1945). Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Vidmar, John (2005). The Catholic Church Through the Ages. Paulist Press. ISBN 0809142341.
