Zenit – the Rome-based news agency – pointed me to some interesting documents unearthed by the Pave the Way Foundation.
Its representative Michael Hesemann found a large series of documents from 1930 to 1933.The documents indicate that any Catholic who joined the Nazi party, wore the uniform or flew the swastika flag would no longer be able to receive the sacraments.
This policy set three years before Hitler was elected chancellor made clear that the teachings of the Church were incompatible with Nazi ideology.
“The documents clearly show an ideological war between the Catholic Church and National Socialism already in the pre-war decade,” Hesemann explained. “The German bishops and the Roman Curia considered the Nazi doctrine not only as incompatible with the Christian faith, but also as hostile to the Church and dangerous to human morals, even more than Communism.”
Among the documents is a handwritten letter from a leading member of the Nazis, Hermann Goering, requesting a meeting with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII), which was flatly refused.
There are also documents asking for a removal of the excommunication, which was also denied.
The Pave the Way Foundation is a non-sectarian public trust dedicated to removing obstacles to religious understanding. From their website, you can access documents and videos – vast quantities of them. These include interviews with survivors, documents from the Vatican Archives, newspaper clippings from the time, interviews with KGB agents who acknowledge their part in developing (in the 1960s) a myth about Pope Pius’ role etc etc etc.
Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it. Moreh Nevuchim
I love the quote by Nevuchim, which should be required reading for all those on Being Frank!
KA
This is odd indeed. These documents were open and no one ever found them until now, even when so many scholars scoured the archives, and even when the Vatican itself attempted to clear Pius’ name by publishing 11 volumes of documents? The Vatican didn’t think these were important or relevant?
The explanation is that this is another attempt to mislead. Pure and simple, this is disinformation. It is intended to make the lay public believe that the German Church opposed the Nazis. This is a half truth, because even though it is true that the church had a ban on membership to the Nazi Party, and that those who persisted in becoming members of the party even after warning them were to be denied admission to the sacraments, the ban was in effect only until shortly after Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and after Cardinal Pacelli, then to become Pope Pius XII, made overtures to Hitler which led to the signing of the Reichskonkordat shortly afterwards. This article and Pave The Way Foundation are not making this all-important point on timing clear, and I think it’s appropriate they are asked why. So, Mr. Hasemann is technically correct when he states, “The documents clearly show an ideological war between the Catholic Church and National Socialism already in the pre-war decade. The German bishops and the Roman Curia considered the Nazi doctrine not only as incompatible with the Christian faith, but also as hostile to the Church and dangerous to human morals, even more than Communism.” Again, this was true before 1933 when Hitler took power. After that, the German Catholic Bishops said,
“Without therefore departing from the condemnation of certain religious and moral errors voiced in our earlier measures, the episcopate believes it has ground for confidence that the general prohibitions and admonitions mentioned above need no longer be regarded as necessary.”
Once the German bishops had lifted the ban, that opened the floodgates to membership in the party and millions of Catholic Germans joined. From that point onwards the growth of the party and the pursuit of its evil policies went on unimpeded. The Church never saw fit to clearly denounce these policies, not even once the nature and extent of the genocide those policies led to became clearly understood. And as opposed to the swift and generalized excommunication of all Communists in the world in one stroke, which the Church had no qualms to do after the war, the Church never threatened to excommunicate nor excommunicated any Catholics who were part of the genocidal rampage against the Jews. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Bormann, and many others in the Nazi hierarchy died as Catholics.
Gabriel Wilensky
—————————————————————————————————
Author
Six Million Crucifixions:
How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust
http://www.SixMillionCrucifixions.com
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sixmillionbook
Become a Fan on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/SixMillionCrucifixions
—————————————————————————————————
Thank you, Gabriel, for that thorough critique, and for the information about the Concordat between the church and the Nazi regime.
Saying that, I don’t find anything sinister in knowing that the church would deal with a government when it wouldn’t deal with a political party.
I understand that the 11 volumes you refer to relate to the war period – 1939 to 1945. The Church has acknowledged that it became far more cautious once the Nazi government started flexing its muscles – and documents reflecting that are on the site I referred to above – as are many other documents from a variety of sources.
People should look and make up their own minds.
Can I just correct one error? Excommunication doesn’t make a person a non-Catholic. This is a common perception, but it isn’t true. Excommunication is a pastoral response, designed to prevent others from making the same error and encourage the sinner to repent.
But ‘being a Catholic’ is a state conferred by baptism – and it can’t be removed. Even if a person ceases to believe anything the Church teaches – even if they are the worst of sinners, the possibility of repentance always remains.
So yes, those Nazis who had been baptised Catholic remained Catholic. But by their actions they ceased to be Catholics in good standing.
Okay, I’ve now looked up the Riechskonkordat, and found that it was part of a series of 18 documents that Pacelli signed with German states in order to safeguard the Church’s right to run schools and produce publications.
Gabriel’s comment that: ‘The Church never saw fit to clearly denounce these policies’ is disinformation, pure and simple:
Joyfulpapist, I was not referring to Nazi opposition to the Church, or Church activities like schools, etc., when I was talking about Nazi “evil policies”… Sure, the Church complained about the Nazi effort to remove crucifixes from classrooms, and even about the Euthanasia Program. But it never saw fit to denounce the serious civil rights violations of the Jewish community, nor the deportations, nor the extermination.
Also, excommunication is a form of religious censure that deprives the member of membership in the Church. For believing Catholics, who had hammered in their heads that “there is no salvation outside the Church”, this would have been a frightening prospect.
Gabriel
There seem to be a number of documents on the Pave the Way site that do denounce these violations – but on an individual basis; not the overall church-wide – thou shalt not – of the 1930-1933 statements.
The Vatican claims – and in the years after the war most people accepted – that the Pope kept public silence because he feared even greater persecution of priests and religious than was already happening, and also persecution of the faithful laity.
I’m guessing you don’t accept that argument – and indeed, he may have been wrong. But the work he promoted to save lives tends to suggest to me that he was sincere, even if he was frightened (not – you note – on his own behalf, but on behalf of his people; he refused to leave Rome even when warned that Hitler had sent instructions to kidnap him). Indeed, there were savage reprisals against Catholics every time the Pope made a public statement.
I also accept your contention that the heresy of anti-semitism was deeply embedded in German society. But you will know that there was no Catholic equivalent of the 600,000 strong, Protestant, anti-semitic, German Christian movement
You have once again repeated the fallacy that excommunication deprives a member of membership of the Church. Excommunication deprives someone temporarily of the right to participate in the sacraments.
I agree that faithful believers would be frightened of such a sanction. But faithful believers would also have known that actions such as those of the Nazis and SS incurred automatic excommunication anyway. 8,000 of Germany’s 21,000 priests openly clashed with the Reich. Many of them died, as did many religious and lay whose crime lay in trying to protect Jews or other persecuted people.
And, of course, there is an endless succession of pastoral letters from the German bishops which would have made it clear to faithful believers what the expectation was:
Some examples
1933
1941
September 1943: