Mit Brennender Sorge

Amazing is the way certain documents and writings innocuously penetrate our history in ways we cannot fathom .Little do we realize their momentous impact at the tim e of their appearance, not until generations later. Such is the papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge where Pius XI denounces the Nazi state and also anti semitism with the phrase "Spiritual Semites" as a term of honor, I should say.

Note this quote and elsewhere Pius XI condemns anti semitism. This profoundly affected the stance of Pius XII and his entrance and exit on the stage of world history was decisive . His beloved mentor Pius XI set the tone . He took his name and that sent a message to the world that Pius XII was to carry on in his mentor's footsteps:

^ Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages (2005), pp. 327–33, quote: "Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites."

Mit brennender Sorge (German for "With burning concern") is a Roman Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, March 14). The encyclical criticized Nazism, listed breaches of an agreement signed with the Church and condemned antisemitism. Drafted by the future Pope Pius XII, who was in Munich at the time of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch[1], it warned Catholics that the growing Nazi ideology, which exalted one race over all others, was incompatible with Christianity. Pius XI himself had elsewhere condemned anti-semitism in more explicit terms.[2]

It was the only encyclical in German and had to be kept secret as the following quote makes explicit:

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge#cite_note-Vidmar327-1

The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Roman Catholic Church documents. It was addressed to German bishops and was read in all parish churches of Germany. Pope Pius XI credited its creation and writing to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII. There was no pre-announcement of the encyclical, and its distribution was kept secret in an attempt to ensure the unhindered public reading of its

contents in all the Catholic Churches of Germany.

The next paragraphs condemn event the notion of national gods as idolatrous and out of sync with divine order.:

8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds...10. This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word. From the fullness of the Creators' right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. This obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever-changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God.11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xl, 15).

Note the Nazi reaction and reprisal due to the reading of this document:

^ Chadwick, A History of Christianity (1995), pp. 254–5

After Mit Brennender Sorge was disseminated throughout German Catholic parishes, Nazi persecution of the Church in Germany began by "outright repression" and "staged prosecutions" of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity. In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2500 monks and priests while scores more were sent to concentration camps.

http://http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

Note this text from Mit Brennender Sorge and the clear implication of unmistakable references to the juggernaut of ongoing Nazi tyranny.

If, then, the tree of peace, which we planted on German soil with the purest intention, has not brought forth the fruit, which in the interest of your people, We had fondly hoped, no one in the world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to lay the blame on the Church and on her Head. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the "enemy" of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies.