With searing concern

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Cover of the circular Pius XI. on the situation of the Catholic Church in the German Empire
First page of the encyclical With burning concern , edition from the Speyer diocese , with a resolution from Bishop Ludwig Sebastian , printed in the Jägerschen Druckerei Speyer , which was therefore expropriated.
Pius XI., Photo from 1939

With Burning Concern is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI. It is written in German. The encyclical was signed on March 14, 1937 and published on March 21. The papal circular deals with the distressed situation of the Roman Catholic Church in the then German Empire and condemns the politics and ideology of National Socialism .

prehistory

The starting point for writing was the situation of the Catholic Church in Nazi- dominated government after the conclusion of the Reich Concordat of 1933. It was due to the policies of Hitler and his Reich government again and again to protest the Holy See of about the right guaranteed in Article 31 of the Concordat operating freedom Catholic organizations that were threatened by measures of conformity . Furthermore, the papal diplomacy repeatedly gave its concern about difficulties in denominational schools and the training of priests as well as the denial of God z. B. through the writings of the leading NSDAP ideologist Alfred Rosenberg expression. When numerous letters of complaint from the German bishops and a personal interview by the Archbishop of Munich and Freising Michael von Faulhaber with Adolf Hitler were unsuccessful, the general assembly of the Bishops' Conference in January 1937 discussed how to proceed. The bishops were unable to reach an agreement as to whether the previous policy of letters of complaint should be continued or whether one should go public. The latter position was represented in particular by the Bishop of Munster Clemens August Graf von Galen and the Bishop of Berlin Konrad Graf von Preysing .

The position, situation and attitude of the Catholic Church changed considerably with the transfer of power to the NSDAP and the conclusion of the Reich Concordat in 1933. Up until this year there was a completely negative attitude towards National Socialism. In some dioceses, members of the NSDAP were neither admitted to the sacraments nor buried in church.

When Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, and the NSDAP became the ruling party, a large part of the clergy feared losing the favor of those in power. In a pastoral appeal of the Fulda Bishops' Conference from 28./29. March 1933, the believers were exhorted "to be faithful to the lawful authorities and to conscientiously fulfill their civic duties".

Hitler and the Catholic Church concluded the Reich Concordat on July 20, 1933 . This contract guaranteed the church free exercise of religion, religious instruction as a regular subject in schools and protection of their clergy, orders and Catholic organizations. At the same time, however, it obliged them to only work on a cultural, spiritual and charitable level. Active involvement in politics was therefore ruled out. Hitler's goal was to overcome the concerns of critics and church circles, to secure approval and loyalty and to be able to record a success in foreign policy. With this skillful diplomacy he did not have the Holy See against him for the time being. In connection with the conclusion of the Concordat, Cardinal Faulhaber found clear words about the attitude of Pope Pius XI. Regarding Hitler and Nazi Germany: "In reality, Pope Pius XI was the best friend, in the beginning even the only friend of the new Reich. Millions abroad were initially waiting and suspicious of the new Reich and only trust the new Reich through the conclusion of the Concordat new German government. "

The Concordat gave the Catholic associations a respite, as the repression against them actually subsided for a short time. Even if the National Socialists resumed the fight against association Catholicism a few weeks after the conclusion of the Concordat, the agreements in Article 31 protect the associations insofar as they escaped complete conformity until the end of the regime and were able to maintain organizational remnants of independence, despite their membership steadily decreased due to pressure from the regime. The political abstinence of the associations was, of course, a prerequisite for continued existence. In fact, the large social organizations, for example, increasingly withdrew into the interior of the church.

On the other hand, moral trials began in 1936 against members of the order and priests on charges of various sexual crimes ( homosexual activity , sexual abuse of children or wards , etc.), which were intended to discredit the church as a whole and to portray clergymen in general as immoral and corrupting youth. Ecclesiastical letters of complaint were ignored, religion was abused for propaganda ( National Socialist Christmas cult , Hitler prayers , conversion of church organizations into party organizations) and the church's freedom of action was severely restricted.

Origin and distribution of the encyclical

When the conflict between the government of the German Empire and the Catholic Church intensified, Pope Pius XI, at the urging of Cardinals Karl Joseph Schulte and Michael von Faulhaber and the Bishops Konrad Graf von Preysing and Clemens August Graf von Galen , decided to write a pastoral letter to cause. Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. , commissioned Cardinal von Faulhaber in January 1937 to write a draft. A few days later, Pacelli received the draft, which Faulhaber himself described as “imperfect and probably quite useless”, and used it as a basis. He expanded the version to include a long introduction concerning the Reich Concordat, and heightened the criticism of the behavior of the Reich government and its ideological positions. The originally intended pastoral letter was to become an encyclical to the whole Church.

On March 12, 1937, the document was secretly brought into the Reich and handed over to Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo . After the nunciature passed the letter on to the bishops, they were responsible for distributing it in their dioceses. They proceeded with the utmost secrecy. Printing works were darkened at night, and copies of the text were hidden. In most dioceses, copies were sent to all clerics, in the dioceses of Munich, Münster and Speyer, special prints were made in large editions (an estimated 300,000). On Palm Sunday , March 21, 1937, the encyclical was read out in all Catholic parishes.

The publication of the encyclical was forbidden by the Francoist regime of Spain, which, despite the emphasis on Catholicism at the time , was seeking rapprochement with the Axis powers .

content

The encyclical is divided into an introduction, ten main parts that deal with individual issues or address specific addressees, and the conclusion.

introduction

In the introduction the Pope points out "with burning concern and increasing alienation" the growing affliction of the Church in the country:

“Venerable brothers! Greetings and Apostolic Blessings! For some time now, we have been observing with burning concern and increasing astonishment the path of suffering of the Church, the growing distress of the confessors who remain faithful to her in spirit and deed in the midst of the country and the people, to St. Boniface once the good news of Christ and the Brought kingdoms of God. "

Following on from the Reich Concordat, which was concluded despite some misgivings, the behavior of the Reich Government is described as "machinations that from the beginning had no other goal than the extermination struggle". The Reich government had made the reinterpretation of the treaty, the undermining of the treaty, and finally the more or less public breach of contract the law of action.

Pure belief in God

The first main part opposes the use of the term “ believing in God ” by those in power. Who, in pantheistic vagueness, equates God with the universe, who puts gloomy fate in the place of personal God or who makes race or the people or the state or the form of government, the bearers of state authority or other basic values ​​of human community formation, does not belong to the highest norm to the believers in God. The Pope expresses appreciative admiration for those who fulfilled their Christian duty against an aggressive neo-paganism that was often favored by influential parties .

“Anyone who, according to the allegedly old Germanic pre-Christian notions, puts gloomy, impersonal fate in the place of personal God, denies God's wisdom and providence, which rules powerfully and kindly from one end of the world to the other and guides everything to a good end. Such a person cannot claim to be counted among the believers in God. "

The Pope turns against the National Socialist racial doctrine:

“This God gave His commandments in a sovereign manner. They apply regardless of time and space, country and race. Just as God's sun shines over everything that bears a human face, so His law also knows no privileges and exceptions. Rulers and ruled, crowned and uncrowned, high and low, rich and poor are equally under His Word. From the totality of His creative rights flows according to his being the totality of His claim to obedience to the individual and to all kinds of communities. This claim to obedience encompasses all areas of life in which moral questions require the discussion of God's law and thus the integration of changeable human statutes into the structure of the unchangeable divine statutes. "

Pure faith in Christ

The second main part explains that no belief in God will remain pure and unadulterated in the long run if it is not supported by belief in Jesus Christ . No one could lay any other foundation than that which was laid, Jesus Christ. But who

“Wanting to see biblical history and the doctrinal wisdom of the Old Covenant banished from church and school, blasphemes the Word of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, makes narrow and limited human thinking the judge of divine historical planning. He denies faith in the real Christ, who appeared in the flesh, who accepted human nature from the people who were to nail him to the cross. "

In this context it is emphasized that the books of the Old Testament - rejected as "Jewish" by the National Socialists - are an organic part of God's revelation. Only blindness and arrogance could turn a blind eye to the treasures that the Old Testament holds. Clearly turned against the cult of the person of Hitler, the Pope calls anyone who, in misjudgment of the difference between God and creature, dares to place any mortal next to or above Christ, a delusional prophet.

“Anyone who, in sacrilegious misunderstanding of the gaping essential differences between God and creature, between God man and the children of man, dares to place any mortal, and if he were the greatest of all times, next to Christ, or even above and against him, must allow himself to be said that he is a delusional prophet, to whom the word of scripture is shockingly applied: He who lives in heaven laughs at you. "

Pure faith in the church

After a more detailed explanation of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the unity of the church, the third main part states that faith in Christ cannot remain pure and unadulterated without faith in the church, the “pillar and foundation of truth”. The church is home and refuge for peoples of all times and nations.

But it is not enough to belong to the church, the believers must also be living members in it. Only a Christianity that reflects on itself in all its members, stripping away all externalization and secularization, taking the commandments of God and the Church seriously, proving itself in love for God and active neighborly love, will be able and must be a model for the deeply ill world if not unspeakable misfortune and a decline that leaves all imagination behind. The calls to withdraw from the church, which is demanded by the Catholic officials in particular as a form of loyalty to the current state with veiled and visible coercive measures, intimidation and the prospect of economic, professional, civic disadvantages, must also be demanded by the faithful at the cost of serious earthly sacrifices Betrayal of baptismal vows will be rejected. Whoever hopes to combine an external exit from the church with an internal adherence to faithfulness to the church must be warned by the scriptural words "Whoever denies me before people, I will also deny my father"

Pure belief in the primacy of the Pope

The fourth part explains that belief in the Church would not remain pure and unadulterated without belief in the primacy of the Pope . Real and legal authority is everywhere a bond of unity, a source of strength, a guarantee against decay and fragmentation, a guarantee for the future; "In the highest and most lofty sense where, as only in the Church, such authority is promised the grace of the Holy Spirit, His insurmountable assistance."

Pius sharply condemns the ideal and lure image of a German national church:

“When people who are not even united in their belief in Christ hold up against you the ideal and enticing image of a German national church, know: it is nothing but a negation of the one church of Christ, an obvious apostasy from the missionary command addressed to the whole world that only a universal church can satisfy and live up to. The historical path of other national churches, their spiritual rigidity, their grasp or bondage by earthly forces show the hopeless sterility to which every branch of the vine that separates from the living vine of the church falls with inescapable certainty. "

No reinterpretation of sacred words and concepts

The reinterpretation of basic religious concepts is the subject of the fifth section. There, for example, the terms revelation are defended against equating with the whispers of blood and race, faith against being played off against trust in the future of the people, and immortality in the Christian sense against the interpretation of collective life in the continued existence of the people.

Moral doctrine and moral order

In the sixth part it is stated that no coercive power of the state and no purely earthly, even if taken in themselves high and noble ideals are able in the long run to replace the ultimate and decisive impulses coming from the belief in God and Christ. Surrendering the moral doctrine to a subjective opinion of the people, which changes with the times, opens the door to corrosive forces.

Recognition of natural law

The seventh part deals with the fact that every positive right set by the legislature must be checked for its moral content. Judging by this, the sentence “what is good for the people is what is right” should be rejected. Positive law is useful not because it is useful, be it morally good, but because it conforms to the moral law. Detached from this basic rule, the principle that law is what is useful to the people must mean the eternal state of war between the various nations. In this context, the right to profess one's faith and the right to educate and choose schools are cited as components of natural law.

To the youth

The eighth main part is expressly aimed at young people - and thus formally outside the target group, because the encyclical is addressed to the bishops according to the customs of the time. With reference to the Hitler Youth , which is not expressly mentioned , it is said with clear reference to the church anathema :

"If someone wanted to preach to you a different Gospel than that which you received on the knees of a pious mother, from the lips of a believing father, from the teaching of an educator who was faithful to his God and his Church - 'let him be excluded'."

It is a self-evident legal claim of parents and children that state compulsory organizations for young people are cleansed of all activities hostile to Christianity and the Church. There is heroism not only in the much-vaunted heroic greatness, but also in moral struggle. The expectation is expressed that devout Catholic youth will also assert their right to Christian Sunday sanctification in the state compulsory organizations.

To the priests and religious

In the ninth part, the Pope addresses the clergy and religious of both sexes, encourages them and encourages them to persevere in the service of the truth. He expresses his thanks and paternal appreciation to those who kept the fidelity promised to their bishops at the time of ordination and who, because of their exercise of the pastoral duty, brought suffering and persecution into the prison cell and the concentration camp.

To the lay faithful

The last and tenth main part is aimed at the laity and greets "the immeasurably large crowd" of those who have not been robbed of their devotion to the cause of God by the suffering of the Church in Germany, "none of their tender love for the Father of Christianity, nothing of their obedience to bishops and priests, nothing of their joyful willingness to remain loyal in the future [...] to what they believed and acquired from their ancestors as a sacred inheritance. "

The more the opponents tried to deny and gloss over their dark intentions, the more vigilant mistrust and vigilance aroused by bitter experience are appropriate. No earthly violence can release parents from the bond of responsibility that binds them to their children.

Enough

The final part addresses the bishops as the actual addressees. The Pope assures you that he has weighed every word of the encyclical so as not to become complicit in untimely silence and not to harden those who walk on the path of error with unnecessary severity. In conclusion, the Pope calls God to witness that he is guided by no deeper desire than the restoration of true peace between church and state in Germany. But if there is no peace, then the Church will defend her rights and freedoms.

Consequences of the publication

The National Socialists were surprised by the reading of the encyclical, but they reacted quickly: During Holy Week, the first house searches and arrests were made. Twelve printing works that had been involved in the printing and distribution of the encyclical were expropriated without compensation. A number of monasteries and denominational schools as well as several theological faculties and universities had to close.

In April 1937, following orders from Hitler and Goebbels, there was a renewed wave of morality proceedings against priests and religious, for which the Nazi propaganda exaggerated individual cases into “symptomatic manifestations”. The public should be taught that the church must be excluded from the education of the youth and trust in the church should be undermined. Corrections were only possible from the pulpit. As a result, the private Catholic schools were dissolved or taken over by the state in 1937/38. The clergy were no longer allowed to give religious instruction in elementary and vocational schools.

In addition, apart from the removal of the Bishop of Rottenburg Joannes Baptista Sproll from his diocese, spectacular measures were avoided. The course pursued since 1935 against the Catholic press, associations and schools with the aim of constantly pushing the Church back from public and political life was maintained. Most of the organizations - especially the youth associations - were dissolved by 1939, their publications were banned and their property confiscated.

Scientific reception

In his book "The Catholic Church and the Holocaust", the American historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen argues that the encyclical was primarily directed against violations of the Concordat. The encyclical did not condemn National Socialism as such.

“This encyclical is often mistakenly used as evidence of the dislike of the Church, Pacellis or Pius XI. against National Socialism or portrayed as a radical condemnation of National Socialism. In fact, the encyclical clearly and emphatically opposed violations of the Concordat [...]. "

Goldhagen's thesis again met with criticism from church circles. Hans Joachim Meyer , then President of the Central Committee of German Catholics , called the book an “agitatory pamphlet” in which the negative points were emphasized and the positive points disputed or devalued. Walter Brandmüller , President of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Studies , saw this as a falsification of the encyclical.

According to the historian Rainer Kampling , the effects of the encyclical were minor because - unlike the church condemnations of communism - it did not prohibit collaboration with the regime. There were no more declarations of the Holy See against National Socialism, although the situation of the Church in the Reich did not improve and the persecution of the Jews increased into the Holocaust .

See also

literature

  • Heinz-Albert Raem: Pius XI. and National Socialism. The encyclical “With burning concern” of March 14, 1937 (= contributions to research on Catholicism. Series B: Treatises ). Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 1979, ISBN 3-506-70734-5 (also dissertation, University of Bonn 1977).
  • Michael F. Feldkamp : Pius XII. and Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-34026-5 (excerpts from Google Books ).
  • Rainer Bendel (Ed.): The Catholic Guilt? Catholicism in the third Reich between arrangement and resistance (= Scientific Paperbacks. Volume 14). 2nd, revised edition. Lit, Berlin et al. 2004, ISBN 3-8258-6334-4 (excerpts from Google Books) .
  • Peter Rohrbacher: The encyclical "With burning concern", Zollschan, Pacelli and the Steyler missionaries. In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history . Volume 109, 2014, No. 3-4, pp. 198-225 ( online ).
  • Fabrice Bouthillon, Marie Levant (Ed.): Un pape contre le nazisme? L'encyclique "With burning worry" du pape Pie XI. (14 March 1937). Actes du colloque international de Brest, June 4–6, 2015. Editions Dialogues, Brest 2016.
  • Helmut Moll : The encyclical of Pius' IX. “With burning concern” (March 14, 1937) in the mirror of witnesses of faith of the Nazi era. In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history. Volume 113 / 1–2, 2018, pp. 131–150.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deschner, Karlheinz: The rooster crowed again . Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf / Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-430-12064-0 , p. 919 .
  2. ↑ Hans Günter Hockerts , The Morality Processes Against Catholic Members of the Order and Priests 1936/1937. A study on the National Socialist rulership technique and the church struggle , Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1971
  3. ^ Carlos Collado Seidel : Franco. General - Dictator - Myth. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-17-021513-9 , p. 157.
  4. ↑ Rudolf Lill, Heinrich Oberreuter: Falling in power and seizure of power , Bavarian State Center for Political Education , Munich 1983, p. 260f
  5. ↑ Daniel Jonah Goldhagen: The Catholic Church and the Holocaust - an investigation into guilt and atonement . Knowledge Buchges., Darmstadt 2002, ISBN 978-3-88680-770-3 , pp. 64 f .
  6. ^ Joachim Meyer, President of the ZdK, at an event organized by Siedler Verlag on Sunday, October 13, 2002 , accessed on January 10, 2012.
  7. ↑ Walter Brandmüller : The silence of the Pope . Cicero Online November 18, 2009, accessed January 10, 2012.
  8. ^ Rainer Kampling: With burning concern (Pope Pius XI., 1937) . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus . Vol. 6: Publications . De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-030535-7 , p. 455 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).