THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JANUARY 24, 1941.
The Catholic Church
The attitude of the Papacy to- wards the German Reich or any other State can best be explained in terms of its function, which is essentially a simple onc. The Pope is the head of an institution whose task it is so to guide men's lives in this world that they may attain to salvation in the next.
&
Hitler
By Warren Irvin
the intrusion of the party into the religious sphere would be render. ed more difficult.
The Catholic Church considers it to be necessary for salvation Lo believe certain doctrines, to adopt a number of religious prae- tices which follow from this be- lief, and to observe શ definite It did not succeed in this aim, moral code. She claims an ex- but since neither Pope nor Bishops illusions any clusive right to tench these duc had been under trines and to remind her subjects about the dangerous tendencies in of the moral laws and she de National Socialism, they were not mands freedom for them to prac- unprepared for the struggle which tice their religion externally, but followed. she is indifferent to forms of gov-
ernment so long as these things are safeguarded.
In
During the troubled years since 1933, the Papal policy has remain el constant A perfectly correct Before National Sorialisat at attitude towards the government tained to power, the Papacy was has been maintained, bremuse not directly concerned. The Ger- spile of Nazi faithlessness there is man Bishops, acting in their pro
De Pathinal Beompatibility be- per sphere as guardians of Faith tween the existence of a totalitar- and Morals, condemned the doc- an government and the continu- trine of the new movement, not
ed mission of the Churchi. ably in the instruction.
But cach particular interference Bavarian Bishops to their clergy with the Church's mission, every on February 11, 1931.
breach of the Concordat, has met with resistance and protest. And has National Socialist doctrine
>
The
This attitude of the Bishops av-
Solzbacher cording to Wilhelm was expressly approved by the Pope.
as
for
been condemned in the most tut- compromising fashion, For the Papacy. In their instruction they stated
the that they had no wish to discuss Catholic Church, false doctrine. the political and governmental the advocacy of a way of life con- aims of National Socialism but trary to Christian teaching, is in were anxious about its cultural finitely more dangerous than the aims, which rejected the essentials worst political tyranny. Naturally of the Christian Faith, and its she deplores the effects of such attempts to replace this by a new tyranny, especially in the relige Weltanschauung view of the ious sphere, but it is not her task world; the Christianity of which to remove tyrants, while it is pre- the Nazis speak is not the Chris- eminently her task to mainlait tianity of Christ.
purity of doctrine.
The Concordat And Consistency
all attempts to deny it or make it appear rullder than it really was; there had rarely been such a fierce and painful persecution or one so tragic in its effects.
The Papal utterances were largely repetitions of earlier statements.
of 1938