Editing Pope Pius XII (section)

===''Reichskonkordat'' and ''Mit brennender Sorge''===
{{See also|Reichskonkordat|Mit brennender Sorge}}
[[File:PioXI et Pacelliinaugurazioneradiovaticana.jpg|thumb|left|170px|Pius XI (center) with Cardinal Pacelli (front left), the radio transmission pioneer [[Guglielmo Marconi]] (back left) and others at the inauguration of [[Vatican Radio]] on 12 February 1931]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R24391, Konkordatsunterzeichnung in Rom.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Pacelli ''(seated, center)'' at the signing of the ''[[Reichskonkordat]]'' on 20 July 1933 in Rome with ''(from left to right)'': German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-Chancellor [[Franz von Papen]], Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs [[Giuseppe Pizzardo]], [[Alfredo Ottaviani]], and Reich minister [[Rudolf Buttmann]]]]

The ''Reichskonkordat'' was an integral part of four [[concordat]]s Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary because the German [[federalism|federalist]] Weimar constitution gave the German states authority in the area of education and culture and thus diminished the authority of the churches in these areas; this diminution of church authority was a primary concern of the Vatican. As Bavarian nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the [[Bavarian Concordat (1924)|Bavarian authorities in 1924]]. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.<ref name="Volk">Ludwig Volk, Die Kirche in den deutschsprachigen Ländern in: ''Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, Band VII'', p. 539</ref><ref>Donald J. Dietrich, p.&nbsp;92, Syracuse University Press, 2003; {{ISBN|0-8156-3029-8}}</ref> [[Free State of Prussia|Prussia]] showed interest in negotiations only after the Bavarian concordat. However, Pacelli obtained less favorable conditions for the church in the [[Prussian Concordat]] of 1929, which excluded educational issues. A concordat with the German state of [[Republic of Baden|Baden]] was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with [[First Austrian Republic|Austria]] in 1933.<ref>Volk, pp. 539–544</ref> A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten-year period 1922–1932.<ref>They included: [[Concordat of 1922|Latvia 1922]], Bavaria 1924, [[Concordat of 1925|Poland 1925]], [[French Third Republic|France]] I., 1926, France II. 1926, Lithuania 1927, [[First Czechoslovak Republic|Czechoslovakia]] 1928, Portugal I 1928, Italy I 1929, Italy II 1929, Portugal II 1929, Romania I 1927, Prussia 1929, Romania II 1932, Baden 1932, Germany 1933, [[Concordat of 1933|Austria 1933]]. See P. Joanne M.Restrepo Restrepo SJ. ''Concordata Regnante Sanctissimo Domino Pio PP.XI. Inita'' Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Roma, 1934.</ref>

The ''[[Reichskonkordat]]'', signed on 20 July 1933, between Germany and the Holy See, while thus a part of an overall Vatican policy, was controversial from its beginning. It remains the most important of Pacelli's concordats. It is debated, not because of its content, which is still valid today, but because of its timing. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli's main objectives as secretary of state, because he had hoped to strengthen the legal position of the church. Pacelli, who knew German conditions well, emphasized in particular protection for Catholic associations (§31), freedom for education and Catholic schools, and freedom for publications.<ref>Ludwig Volk, "Die Kirche in den deutschsprachigen Ländern" in: ''Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, Band VII'', pp. 546–547</ref>

As [[nuncio]] during the 1920s, he had made unsuccessful attempts to obtain German agreement for such a treaty, and between 1930 and 1933 he attempted to initiate negotiations with representatives of successive German governments, but the opposition of Protestant and Socialist parties, the instability of national governments and the care of the individual states to guard their autonomy thwarted this aim. In particular, the questions of denominational schools and pastoral work in the armed forces prevented any agreement on the national level, despite talks in the winter of 1932.<ref>Ludwig Volk ''Das Reichskonkordat vom 20. Juli 1933'', pp. 34f, 45–58</ref><ref>Klaus Scholder ''The Churches and the Third Reich'' volume 1: especially Part 1, chapter 10; part 2, chapter 2</ref>

[[Adolf Hitler]] was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and sought to gain international respectability and to remove internal opposition by representatives of the church and the Catholic [[Centre Party (Germany)|Centre Party]]. He sent his vice chancellor [[Franz von Papen]], a Catholic nobleman, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat.<ref>Volk, pp. 98–101</ref><ref>Feldkamp, pp. 88–93</ref> On behalf of Pacelli, Prelate [[Ludwig Kaas]], the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with von Papen.<ref>Volk, pp. 101, 105</ref> The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on 10 September 1933.<ref>Volk, p. 254</ref> Bishop [[Konrad von Preysing]] cautioned against compromise with the new regime, against those who saw the Nazi persecution of the church as an aberration that Hitler would correct.<ref>Krieg, Robert A., ''Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany'', p. 112</ref>

Between 1933 and 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of the ''Reichskonkordat''. Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including Cardinal [[Michael von Faulhaber]], to help him write a protest of Nazi violations of the ''Reichskonkordat''; this was to become Pius XI's 1937 encyclical, ''[[Mit brennender Sorge]]''. The encyclical was written in German and not the usual [[Latin]] of official Catholic Church documents. Secretly distributed by an army of motorcyclists and read from every German Catholic Church pulpit on [[Palm Sunday]], it condemned the [[paganism]] of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] ideology.<ref name="Vidmar327">Vidmar, pp. 327–31</ref> Pius XI credited its creation and writing to Pacelli.<ref name="Pham45">Pham, 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.{{'"}}</ref> It was the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization and resulted in persecution of the church by the infuriated Nazis who closed all the participating presses and "took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy".<ref name="Bokenkotter389">Bokenkotter, pp. 389–92, 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 Führer 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."</ref> On 10 June 1941, the Pope commented on the problems of the ''Reichskonkordat'' in a letter to the [[Bishop of Passau]], in Bavaria: "The history of the Reichskonkordat shows, that the other side lacked the most basic prerequisites to accept minimal freedoms and rights of the Church, without which the Church simply cannot live and operate, formal agreements notwithstanding".<ref>74.A l'Eveque de Passau, in "Lettres de Pie XII aux Eveques Allemands 1939–1944, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1967, p. 416</ref>