MIT BRENNENDER SORGE
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON THE CHURCH AND THE GERMAN REICH
MARCH 14, 1937
Introduction
This version of the encyclical has been annotated by Eucardio Momigliano and, in a short historical note, he explains the reasons of Pio XI's letter:
« To understand better the meaning and the importance of this encyclical, it will be useful to recall, the historical circumstances which determined it. The first manifestation of Hitler's administration seemed inspired by a clear religious conservatism ( his party claimed to aim at a "positive Christianity"); but it immediately became clear that nazi doctrine intended to replace Christian faith with a new "German faith". Since July 1933, in Eisenach, a group of exponents of the party clearly declared this intention, propounding some theories dealing with a sort of "religion of race" in which eugenics, mystical theology, natural sciences, philosophy, religious feelings and politics merged and mingled. It was an authentic paganism, causing concern in the German Church.
Hitler's administration -
which had stipulated an agreement with the Holy See on 30th July 1933
- took restrictive measures towards catholic associations, raged
against denominational schools and educated young people to racist
and antichristian standards. In 1935, relations between the State and
the Church became really strained. In 1936, in Dusseldorf and in
Rhineland, leaders of catholic youth were arrested. This fight was
for the Roman Church a deep disappointment, after the hopes aroused
by the agreement. That's why Pio XI dictated the above encyclical to
protest against the oppression of German Catholics and to condemn
doctrines imposed by nazism. The encyclical was written in German to
render more explicit its inspiration and destination».
[Eucardio Momigliano]
(Tutte le encicliche dei
sommi pontefici, raccolte e annotate da Eucardio Momigliano, Milano,
dall'Oglio editore, 1959, nota p. 1065).
Since September 1930 the catholic church had forbidden the concession of sacraments to nazis and the enrolment of Catholics to the National Socialist Party of German Workers. This prohibition fell on 23rd march 1933, when Hitler, who was in power, asserted in front of Reichstag that: «in the two Christians confessions there were important elements for the conservation of national traditions... and he said that] he would respect agreements reached between confessions and the administrations of nations» and that «their rights wouldn't have been damaged». Five days after the Episcopal conference in Fulda he said that those general prohibitions and admonitions were not necessary anymore. (1) While on the one hand the diplomacy of III Reich was searching for agreements and support from Catholic church (in September 1933 was ratified an agreement, by which Hitler thought he had reached the total conquest of power), on the other hand, a new "German faith" was being formulated, a sort of neopaganism, a religion based on the myth of race. The Nazis tendency already had its manifestation in 1930, with the invitation to Christians to reject the Old Testament, imposing on them almost a declaration of anti-semitism, and the work of Alfred Rosenberg, who was a theorist of the party, was called "The myth of XX century", propounded a neopaganism, which would have inevitably conflicted with Christian tradition. It is very difficult to estimate how far these neopaganist theories were diffused in the Nazi hierarchy, in the SS and in members of the party. It is likely to believe that these ideas were synthesised into anti-Semitic slogans, expressed in a context of Christian culture. Had these myths, ideas and theories, still alive not only in German culture, but also in a lot of minority active in western countries, such a wide diffusion as to involve the majority of Germans? Or was it more a passive acceptance by Christian population, who saw in these manifestation just a particularity of Nazism, a darnel which was growing up with the wheat? Did the Church think that the Reich's merits in the fight against liberalism, bolshevism and Marxism which didn't include God, and aimed at the moralisation of Germany, widely exceeded the demerits of some neopaganist fringes? The praises of the Reich sung by Mgr. Steinmann, Berning, Alois Hudal, Gröber, Jäger ... were related to this form of nationalistic authoritarianism engaged in the fight against common enemies, liberalism and Marxism. To these Hitler added a third in the margin of the agreement: «The agreement - Hitler specified - offers a possibility to Germany and a lot of trust is given to it, a trust that is necessary for the urgent fight against international Judaism» (2)
And so the encyclical. We have to premise that it is of a particular literary genre, peculiar not just in its rhetoric, but even in its aim. It comes from the old tradition of apostolical letters and it represents a central moment in the magesterium of the Church. So, the text aim to the teach, the Pope's recall to catholic orthodoxy. It is directed to bishops who will transfer the teaching to the clergy and to the community, through pastoral letters. That's why the language used is sometimes really gener, because it is directed to all the bishops. It is their duty to translate this teaching into concrete act, in different forms for different situations taking into account every ecclesiastical reality. That's why the writer uses such a generic language that sometimes seems ambiguous, talking more about principles than about contingent situations.
Uniquely in two thousand years, the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge is the only one which wasn't written in Latin but in German to underline the peculiarity of the situations, that is the one of the Germany Reich, and to emphasise its importance. In the text the frequent the use to references to sacred books, are used in a contextual way, and have to be read according to the official exegesis. The language used is the religious and theological one, even if there are a lot of allusions to the contingent situation - often these references are not direct but they are allusive, as, for example, in reference to the Old Testament, or to the prohibition to use the Holy text in schools, imposed by the Reich. It is not specified who this prohibition was made by; neither is underlined the typical antisemitical nature of this measure. Jewish people are never mentioned, but it talks about the people of the old Covenant and of the crucifiers.
In the introduction, Pio XI refers to the report received from the episcopacy regarding Germany's situation. He is pleased to learn that the catholic people walk in the truth but, at the same time, is concerned, fearing that a lot of people could abandon their catholic faith to follow Nazi ideology.
The Pope chronicles briefly
the agreement of 1933, ( n.3) underlining two important features:
«Hence, despite many
and grave misgivings, We decided not to withhold Our consent for We
wished to spare the Faithful
of Germany, as far as it was humanly possible, the trials and
difficulties they would
have
had to face, given the circumstances, had the negotiations fallen
through», German Catholics from the regime's reprisals.
«We wished to make it
plain, Christ's interests being Our sole object, that the pacific
hand of Mother Church would be extended to anyone who did not
actually refuse it», to underline how Church is not prejudiced
against any regime, even to the Nazi one, so long as it doesn't call
into question Christian principles and Catholic Church's autonomy.
Afterwards he underlines how
the Church has always searched for peace, even when others have
sought reasons for religious conflict a reference
to
some fringe elements of the Nazi party, especially to the neopaganist
theories of Rosenberg. He uses the image of darnel and wheat from the
parable in Matthew (XIII, 24 - XIII, 30). Then the Pope
clarifies his thought. He doesn't want to condemn the whole of Nazism
(the wheat) because of some elements which are unacceptable to the
Catholic religion (the darnel) but he vindicates respect for the
agreement and, like the master of the parable, he doesn't wont to
pull up the darnel in order not to damage the harvest.
Leaving Matthew's image, the Church wants to maintain and to strengthen good relationships with Nazism, in respect of the agreement, even if it realised that there are fringe which are elements unacceptable to Catholicism. But Church wants to avoid a condemnation which could damage even good elements of Nazism, whether people or ideas. At the same time the Church fears for those Catholics enrolled in the party and forming part of it who risk losing their catholic faith, for a new form of faith based on principles of race supremacy and on the exaltation, almost religious, of the III Reich.
A return to the agreed concordat is hoped for, even after measures against catholic schools. In the opinion of the hierarchy, German Catholics are surrounded by enemies who want to deny their religious freedom and challenge their faith. The Pope reaffirms the principles of true faith in God, against pantheistic and pagan affirmations of old Germanism, "denying divine knowledge and its Providence, which «with strength and sweetness governs the world from end to end» (Sap. VIII, 1)". He confronts the problem of racial idolatry, affirming that earthly values, like race or people, the nation etc., are elements of natural law (these words are used in the original version: der irdischen Ordnung = natural order) can't be divinized into a form of idolatry. Here he considered race as a fundamental element of natural law and "the recognition of the validity of the race problem (which had «in natural order» it was written «an essential and important place» [die innerhalb der irdischen Ordnung einen wesentlichen und ehrengebietenden Platz behaupten]) was reduced, in its conformism, to worrying developments. On the question of ìblood and territorial baseî (postulated as basic principles of natural law) the church hierarchy seemed to abandon even the purely theological reservations of traditional Catholicism. It is difficult to say whether concessions made were dictated more an effort to negotiate a modus vivendi with the Nazi State or to the surfacing of an ideological anti-Jewish sentiment which had long been latent in many of the Catholic Prelates and burst forth in the heightened climate of an orgy of nationalism.î (3)
Pio XI, after having reaffirmed the necessity of pure faith in God, respecting divine law, reasserts the condemnation of the error of those who talk of a national God, of a national religion and «who undertake the foolish attempt of confining within the limitations of one people the Creator of the world, king and Legislator of Peoples. Before him all the nations are as small as drops of water in a basin (Is. XL, 15) » (4)
In this encyclical we can recognise the condemnations of race idolatry (5), but it doesn't enter into the specifics of the problem of racism, much less anti-semitism.
The absolute necessity of faith in Jesus Christ is reaffirmed, quoting Matthew's and John's Gospels (Matth. II, 27; Ioan. XVII, 3; Ioan. II, 23 ) and the letter to the Hebrews ( Hebr. I, 1) as well. This is the premise of a long discourse on the importance of the Old Testament and against the Nazi prohibition of teaching it in schools, just alluding to facts, without being specific them, but reaffirming the general principles of its essential and fundamental function in Christianity.
«Whoever wishes to see
banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise
doctrines of the
Old
Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan
of salvation, and makes limited and
narrow
human thought the judge of God's designs over the history of the
world: he denies his faith in the true
Christ,
such as He appeared in the flesh, the Christ who took His human
nature from a people that was to
crucify
Him; and he understands nothing of that universal tragedy of the Son
of God who to His torturer's
sacrilege
opposed the divine and priestly sacrifice of His redeeming death, and
made the new alliance the goal of
the
old alliance, its realisation and its crown» (6).
On the one hand the essential
doctrine of the church is reaffirmed, but on the other hand
anti-Judaism and religious prejudices against Jews (which were still
alive in the preconciliar church of 1937) clearly emerge.
September 1999
Andrea Tournoud
___________________________
(1) Giorgio Vaccarino, Le chiese cristiane di fronte a Hitler, in Nuova Antologia, Firenze, Aprile - Giugno 1998, a. 133, fasc. 2206.; sul medesimo argomento vedi anche: G. LEWY, I nazisti e la Chiesa, Il Saggiatore, Milano, 1965, p. 396; G. MICCOLI, Santa Sede e Terzo Reich, in L'altra Europa, 1922-1945, Giappichelli, Torino, 1967; ecc.
(2) Giorgio Vaccarino, op. cit.
(3) Giorgio Vaccarino, op. cit.
(4) Mit brennender Sorge, n. 11.
(5) Vedi: Noi ricordiamo: una riflessione sulla Shoah, cap. III, Città del Vaticano, Marzo 1998.
(6) Mit brennender Sorge, n.
16.