Concordat

[Mom_of_one]

In 1933, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli signed a Concordat with the German Reich. Why did the Catholic Church enter into this Concordat? What were the reasons behind entering into the Concordat?

The Church has entered into other Concordats in the past. Why? For what reasons?

 

[Alethiaphile]

In 1933, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli signed a Concordat with the German Reich. Why did the Catholic Church enter into this Concordat? What were the reasons behind entering into the Concordat?

The Church has entered into other Concordats in the past. Why? For what reasons?

As you probably know, Cardinal Pacelli, who was then Secretary of State for the Vatican, became Pope Pius XII in 1939.
An interesting note is that Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism, and recently declared a saint, wrote a letter to Pius XI, the pope at the time, urging him not to make any agreements with the Nazis.
Ostensibly the reasons were to protect the legal rights of the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany. In return, the Vatican in effect agreed not to oppose the Third Reich from its pulpits. Several bishops and priests who went ahead and publicly denounced the Nazis were disciplined by the Vatican. On the other hand, the Nazis began violating the Catholic church’s rights in violation of the Concordat practically before the ink was dry.
The Catholic Church also negotiated a Concordat with the Fascist Italian government c. 1929, allowing it to keep Vatican City as a sovereign state. The Vatican never negotiated a Concordat with a Communist government.
The 1933 Concordat had the tragic consequences of silencing Catholic political opposition to the Third Reich, during a period when it was just beginning to consolidate its power and might have been defeated. By 1935, the Nazis were firmly in power and no longer vulnerable.

 

[DavidFilmer]

In 1933, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli signed a Concordat with the German Reich. Why did the Catholic Church enter into this Concordat? What were the reasons behind entering into the Concordat?

A concordant is like a treaty (but treaties are made between nation-states, and, until rather recently, the Vatican has not been viewed as a nation-state in modern history). The Holy See makes concordants for the same reason nations make treaties - to formalize an agreement. The particular concordant you refer to (by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII) is known as the “Reichskonkordat,” the text of which can be found here. As you can see, the agreement insures the rights of Catholics to practice their religion, and protects Catholic institutions from government interference. It assured that clerics could not be forced to join any particular political party.

Of course, the Nazis did not uphold many of these agreements, prompting the 1937 encyclical from Pope Pius XI, “Mit brennender Sorge” (“With Burning Concern”).

Some folks later argued that, although the Reichskonkordat did not endorse any Nazi ideals, it gave some measure of international credibility to the Nazi regime (by the simple fact that the Apostolic See had engaged in negotiations with the Nazis). This is probably an accurate perception (although certainly not intended at the time). But the Church did what she thought best at the time to protect her interests (ie, the Catholic Faithful) in Germany. It was a bit of a no-win situation. Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber said, “With the concordat we are hanged, without the concordat we are hanged, drawn and quartered.”