The Entity by Eric Frattini

Author:Eric Frattini [Frattini, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780312375942
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2008-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

14

RISE OF THE TERROR (1934–1940)

Thus sayeth the Lord: Woe to the city, rebellious and polluted, to the tyrannical city! I will remove from your midst the proud braggarts, and you shall no longer exalt yourself .

—Zephaniah 3:1 and 3:11

T he Nazis’ rise to power provoked a strong reaction among the upper reaches of the Catholic hierarchy in Germany. The new regime responded to growing protests from the bishops by trying to pacify them in order to gain time to entrench the Nazi party in all organizations and mechanisms of power, including the Church.

Shortly after Adolf Hitler was named chancellor on January 29, 1933, Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen began secret meetings with Eugenio Pacelli. Pope Pius XI did not learn of these meetings until two years later, when he received a report from the Holy Alliance classified as “top secret.” 1

In these talks, which were first informal and then secret, von Papen and Pacelli crafted the major points that would make up the famous concordat signed by Berlin and the Vatican on July 20, 1933. That agreement committed the Reich to allowing free and public practice of the Catholic religion, recognized the Church’s independence, guaranteed it the right to freely appoint its religious officials, and authorized the Vatican to create theology majors in all German universities. But each of these clauses came with conditions. The state could veto bishops’ nominations for political reasons. Once appointed, bishops had to swear loyalty to the Reich and the Fuehrer.

The Holy Alliance learned that Pacelli, at the last minute, had decided to include in the concordat a stipulation that no clergyman could belong to any political party or organization. Franz von Papen accepted this point without understanding why Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli so ardently desired it. 2

A variety of historians and researchers have characterized the signing of this concordat as an acceptance and, in part, a degree of support for Hitler’s Nazi regime by the Holy See. Really, it was more of a concession on the part of Pacelli—the future Pius XII—than of Pius XI. To the former Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, failing to negotiate a concordat with Hitler meant abandoning the Catholics of Germany to persecution. Also, when the document was signed in 1933, the Nazi government had not yet instituted its policy of terror nor the barbarities that soon began.

Pius XI condemned Nazism and its leaders in his encyclical Mit brennender Sorge , dated March 14, 1937. As had Mussolini in Italy, Hitler wanted some kind of religious recognition of his regime to increase his international prestige, and there was no better way to do this than by signing a concordat with the Holy See. By early 1939, the situation was very different. Nazi atrocities began to extend beyond the German border. Pius XI then prepared a new text, which he planned to read in the presence of all the Italian and German bishops on the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Lateran Pacts. Because of the supreme pontiff’s untimely death the day before that anniversary, his plan was not fulfilled.

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