Monday, August 8, 2016

Concordat between Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, 1933 and Attempted Concordat with Soviet Union (1920s)




According to the summary in Wikipedia - "The Reichskonkordat  ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State (and later Pope Pius XII) Eugenio Pacelli on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government. It was ratified September 10, 1933 and it has been in force from that date right up until the current day.  [My emphasis].The treaty guarantees the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office Article 16 states they're required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution. The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards leading to protest from the Church including in the 1937 Mit brennender Sorge encyclical of Pope Pius XI. The Nazis planned to eliminate the Church's influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities." [end of Wikipedia quote]

The 1933 Concordat has always been controversial among historians - for  obvious and perfectly respectable reasons - but has also been used by anti-clerics to suggest that the future Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli who signed in his capacity as  Secretary of State to Pius XI, was some kind of Nazi supporter (or "Hitler's Pope" as John Cornwell put it). What is almost invariably ignored in these discussions  is that Achille Ratti (who became Pius XI in 1922) and Eugenio Pacelli who would succeed him as Pius XII in 1939, had been heavily involved in trying to negotiate a Concordat with the Soviet Union in the 1920s! In fact it was Pius XI's predecessor Pope Benedict XV, who employed  Achille Ratti (then Papal Nuncio to Poland) to contact Lenin on behalf of persecuted Catholic and Orthodox clergy. ***

Like the Nazis in 1933, the newly created Soviet Union in the 1920s was trying to make itself respectable in the international community while at the same time, the Catholic Church was trying to protect the rights of Catholics in these newly minted totalitarian states. The Vatican's attempt to come to terms with the Soviet Union should be open to the same objections as its negotiations with the Nazi regime but in practice the former negotiations are almost invariably ignored. No doubt this is partly due to the failure of the negotiations with the Soviets, but is this really the main reason? Surely historians who express very negative views of the Reichskonkordat and impugn the motives of Pope Pius XI and his Secretary of State, should at least refer to their previous behaviour in relation to the Soviet Union; was THAT motivated by sympathy with Communist dictatorship.??

Again to quote Wikipedia (this time on the subject of Holy See - Soviet Union Relations )

"Worried by the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union, Pius XI mandated Berlin nuncio Eugenio Pacelli to work secretly on diplomatic arrangements between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. Pacelli negotiated food shipments for Russia, and met with Soviet representatives including Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican. Despite Vatican pessimism and a lack of visible progress, Pacelli continued the secret negotiations, until Pius XI ordered them to be discontinued in 1927, because they generated no results and were dangerous to the Church, if made public." ........

The article continues:
"Pius XI described the lack of reaction to the persecution of Christians in such countries as the Soviet Union, Mexico, Germany and Spain as a "conspiracy of silence". In, 1937 the Pope issued the encyclical Divini Redemptoris, which was a condemnation of Communism and the Soviet regime." He did name a French Jesuit to go to the USSR and consecrate in secret Roman Catholic bishops. It was a failure, as most of them ended up in gulags or were otherwise killed by the communist regime."

Note that 1937 was also the year in which Pius XI published his condemnation of Nazi ideology and practice in Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Sorrow.) [A five-member commission drafted the latter encyclical. According to Paul O'Shea the carefully worded denunciation of aspects of Nazism was formulated between January 16–21, 1937, by Pius XI, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) and German cardinals Bertram, Faulhaber and Schulte, and Bishops von Preysing and von Galen.]

One of the few  who does deal with the attempted Concordat with the Soviet Union is the British historian Michael Burleigh in his 2006 book Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda. (see Chapter 3: "The Churches in the Age of Dictators.)  Again I quoted from Burleigh's book in a discussion on the Politics.ie website in January 2012 (see under). In contrast to some of the other points I made, there was little or no reaction to this one; presumably this is because most people have no idea that the Vatican engaged in these negotiations!

Rory Connor
Updated 11 August 2016

*** As per the Wikipedia article Pope Benedict XV and Russia   "During the winter of 1918–1919, some "twenty [Orthodox] bishops were murdered together with thousands of priests and religious". ... Several Orthodox bishops from Omsk and Simbirsk wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XV, as the Father of all Christianity, describing the murder of priests, the destruction of their churches and other persecutions in their areas."

Politics.ie History Forum "Nazis, The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse"
8th January 2012, 03:47 PM#78
Kilbarry1 Kilbarry1 is offline

Vatican Concordats


While I'm at it, the following quotation from Burleigh's book concerns the attempts of two future popes - Pius XI (Achille Ratti) and Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) to negotiate a Concordat with the Soviet Union in the 1920s. It throws an interesting light on the frequent denunciations of the Vatican concordat with Nazi Germany in 1933.

Vatican concordats with governments do not imply approval of the governments. Of course there is a danger that a vicious dictatorship will use the agreement in order to boost its international standing - and that is precisely what the Soviet government was trying to do in the early 1920s. Indeed negotiations with the Vatican broke down because several governments - including both Britain and fascist Italy(!) - recognised the Soviet Union in 1924 and the Soviets no longer needed an agreement with the Vatican. However the future Pope Pius XII continued to negotiate even "when the execution in Leningrad of a Polish Catholic priest complicated matters" !!

.... Both nuncios, Ratti in Warsaw and the younger Pacelli in Munich (until 1925, when he moved to Berlin as nuncio to the German Reich), were closely involved in Rome's diplomatic initiatives with the Soviets. The Vatican initially welcomed the fall of the Romanovs, believing that this would herald a new era of freedom and opportunity for the Roman Catholic Church in the debris of the Tsarist Empire. Benedict XV employed Ratti to contact Lenin on behalf of persecuted Catholic and Orthodox clergy.

In late 1921, the Vatican offered the Soviet Union humanitarian assistance hurriedly incorporating a broader secret agreement which, capitalising on the disarray of the Orthodox Church would - they imagined - have enhanced Roman Catholic activities in Russia. The aid was provided but the wider agreement remained a dead letter. Assisted by the German Government which saw relations with Russia as a means of terminating Germany's pariah status, the archbishop of Genoa held talks with the Soviet foreign affairs commisar Chicherin on board an Italian cruiser with a view to negotiating a concordat. A further series of meetings took place at Rapallo, based on Vatican calls for freedom of conscience and Soviet demands for diplomatic recognition. Effortlessly overcoming the extreme distaste for German (Jewish) Bolsheviks that he is alleged to have expressed in 1919, Pacelli met Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Union's (Jewish) foreign minister, at the Berlin villa of the brother of the German ambassador to Moscow. 

When Mussolini recognised the Soviet Union on 8 February 1924, and was quickly followed by, among others, Britain, Norway, Austria, Greece and Sweden, the Soviets ceased to regard negotiations with the Vatican as important except for the question of aid. Pacelli continued to negotiate with the Soviets in Berlin until mid-August 1925 when the execution in Leningrad of a Polish Catholic priest complicated matters. However he met Chicherin twice in 1925 and 1927, discovering that his Soviet interlocutors were prepared to concede less and less, and such talks abruptly stalled under Stalin, to whom the Vatican was an irrelevance.


From Sacred Causes by Michael Burleigh - Chapter 3 "The Churches in the Age of Dictators", section II - "The Vatican, Communism and Fascism" page 164



Saturday, August 6, 2016

"Hitler's Table Talk", Christianity and the Catholic Church


Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944 
introduced by Hugh Trevor-Roper
Hitler's Table Talk is the title given to a series of World War II private monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler -at the dinner table - to his closest associates, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944. Hitler's remarks were recorded by Heinrich HeimHenry Picker, and Martin Bormann, and later published by different editors in different languages the most well known version being that by the English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper first published in 1953. The monologues clearly reveal Hitler's hatred and contempt for Christianity and the Catholic Church - not that this has prevented generations of anti-clerics from claiming that Adolf Hitler lived and died a faithful Catholic! 

The following are some extracts from "Hitler's Table Talk" as utilized by myself in a 2012 discussion with a rather typical Irish "liberal" who uses the pen-name LongLiberal. The discussion was on the Politics.ie website and my own pen-name is Kilbarry1. Basically I am quoting from Hitler's comments made privately to his closest associates while LongLiberal depends on his public observations in Mein Kamph and in his speeches. I point out that Hitler had a lot to say in public about his desire for peace and I wonder if LongLiberal takes THOSE comments seriously!


I summarise my own view as follows:

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".)



Rory Connor
updated 7 August 2016

Politics.ie History Forum "Nazis, The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse"

8th January 2012, 06:24 PM

Kilbarry1 Kilbarry1 is offline
Quote Originally Posted by LongLiberal View Post
Simply, no. 
There are no parallels in this country. One aspect is talking about 1930's Germany and the other is 21st century Ireland. You seem to be trying to push some sort of idea that the Catholic Church were in opposition to Hitlers Nazi regime, which is simply laughable. 
Firstly, the Vatican kept very very quiet during the Holocaust, why is that? 

Hitler himself was a Roman Catholic and often throughout Mein Kampf spoke about "doing god's work". He was baptised and never renounced his baptism. All soldiers in the SS would place three fingers in their belt to signify the Holy Trinity. 
Also, and most significantly the Cardinal Arch-Bishop of Munich, Adolf Bertram, held a special mass in 1939, when Hitler escaped assassination, to celebrate "the fortunate release of the Fuhrer". ........

.
I'm not sure why it is necessary to keep on refuting this nonsense. It has been done before - by myself and others - on the Politics.ie website and the book "Hitler's Table Talk" was first published in 1953. However here it is again.

Extracts from "Hitler's Secret Conversations" (aka "Hitler's Table Talk") regarding Christianity

The book Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc.first edition, 1953, contains definitive proof of Hitler's real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, "Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944", which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:

Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)

14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)

9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)

27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".)





8th January 2012, 08:33 PM

LongLiberal LongLiberal is offline
Quote Originally Posted by Kilbarry1 View Post
I'm not sure why it is necessary to keep on refuting this nonsense. It has been done before - by myself and others - on the Politics.ie website and the book "Hitler's Table Talk" was first published in 1953. However here it is again.

Extracts from "Hitler's Secret Conversations" (aka "Hitler's Table Talk") regarding Christianity

The book Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc.first edition, 1953, contains definitive proof of Hitler's real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, "Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944", which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:

Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)

14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)

9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)

27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".)

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1



Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1


Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5


What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8



Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1



In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap. The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11




In a public address in Munich - 

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."



Stuttgart address February 15th 1933 - 

"Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity"





8th January 2012, 10:39 PM

Kilbarry1 Kilbarry1 is offline

LongLiberal

Regarding your quotations from "Mein Kamph" and Hitler's public speeches, do you understand that the book "Hitler's Table Talk" consists of officially recorded notes of his private conversations with his confidantes at the dinner table during the years 1941 - 44. (Martin Bormann was one of the note-takers.) These represent proof of Hitler's REAL views. Regarding his PUBLIC statements - he made an awful lot about his desire for peace; do you believe those?