Concordats of Nuncio (then) Pacelli

The Reichskonkordat was an integral part of four concordats Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary, because the German federalist Weimar constitution gave the states authority in the area of education and culture, which were of main concern to Vatican policy. As Bavarian Nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the Bavarian authorities in 1925. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.[48] 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 Baden was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with Austria in 1933. [49] A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922-1932.[50]

This concordat with Hitler of 1933 was one of the most misunderstood documents of recorded history and contains numerous overtones . Pius' many years as a nuncio/diplomat taught him well concerning the radical German mentality of that era and he used the knowledge to gain a safety buffer for Catholic institutions in the heart of a Pagan maze of bestial corruptions in which he knew there could be only "antithesis" and no compromise with Christianity. This is indicative of his later condemnatory encyclicals concerning Nazism. It reverberated all over the world in its implications and the protective shell afforded the Church breathing time and survival in a sea of evil . Little did Hitler know what he was preserving, a lifeboat, to be sure. Was he supposed to know, providentially, I mean? Was this prepared by a Higher power? Just a musing of mine.

The Reichskonkordat, signed on July 20, 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 (1) protection for Catholic associations (§31), (2) freedom for education and Catholic schools, and, (3) freedom for publications.[51]
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.[52][53]
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. He sent his vice chancellor Franz von Papen, a Catholic nobleman and former member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat.[54] On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, Prelate Ludwig Kaas, the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen.[55] The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on September 10, 1933.[56]