Pastoral Letter on True and False Nationalism — Gföllner, 1933

Bishop of Linz, Johannes Gföllner, critically examines the National Socialist project, identifying what is of legitimate value but, on the whole, ultimately rejecting it

Author’s Biography

Johannes Maria Gföllner (b. 1867)¹ was a Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Linz from 1915-1941. He enjoyed an extensive ecclesiastical and academic career, entering the Freinberg seminary in 1879 and completing studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, earning doctorates in both philosophy and sacred theology. After his ordination in 1893, Gföllner served in various pastoral and educational roles, including several chaplaincies and as a prince’s tutor to Archduke Karl Stephan of Austria. By 1910, he was a professor of pastoral theology in Linz, later becoming editor-in-chief of the Theological-Practical Quarterly. In 1915, Emperor Franz Joseph appointed him Bishop of Linz, and he was consecrated the same year. Gföllner would remain an ardent traditionalist even after the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918.

As bishop, Gföllner oversaw the completion and consecration of the Linz Cathedral in 1924 and convened a diocesan synod in 1928. Politically active, he distanced the diocese from the Christian Social Party and dissolved its influence by integrating the Catholic People’s Association into Catholic Action, paving the way for the authoritarian Catholic regime of Engelbert Dollfuss to flourish.

On January 21, 1933, Gföllner published the well-known pastoral letter which is the substance of this post and translated below. Just nine days later, Adolf Hitler would assume power in Germany. The letter, available in English for likely the first time, was originally entitled Hirtenbrief über wahren und falschen Nationalismus. This pastoral letter on true and false nationalism affirmed antisemitic beliefs, such as courageously calling for legal and administrative measures against Jewish influence, in addition to maintaining that nationalism, properly understood, was a legitimate endeavor and welcomed by the Church. That said, the Bishop of Linz had severe criticism for the program of National Socialism, specifically its errant beliefs about religion and its exaggeration of race and nationality. From Gföllner’s position, he summed up his thoughts in saying “it is… impossible to be both a good Catholic and a true National Socialist.” This rejection of National Socialism in January of 1933 is curious for a couple of reasons, namely for its timing and the subsequent concordant between the Holy See and the German Reich, struck in the summer of that same year—only months later—and then officially ratified in the autumn. This official treaty with National Socialist Germany, the Reichskonkordat, established a modus vivendi with the Catholic Church, which continued, albeit not without serious difficulties, through the end of the Second World War. The other circumstance that makes the letter interesting is that Cardinal Innitzer, a prominent Viennese prelate, had prevented the Austrian episcopate from agreeing to the publication of the same letter in 1932.²

Gföllner also authored the Austrian bishops’ 1933 winter pastoral letter against National Socialism. Five year later he would sign the Anschluss with the entire Austrian episcopate which can be seen below, though his opposition to National Socialism never faltered. The essence of this opposition is captured by his choosing not to personally greet Adolf Hitler during his 1938 visit to Linz. In 1941 Bishop Gföllner would go on to his eternal reward, having served his Church and nation well.

1938 Unified Statement of the Bishops of Austria on the Election (source)

Editors’ Introduction

This letter marks the third installment of a serious, Catholic analysis of National Socialism and 1930s Germany, brought to you by The Journal of American Reform. If you have not already, consider our published treatment from another Austrian prelate, Bishop Alois Hudal, who specifically analyzed the project on the questions of Race and the Jewish Question. What is remarkable is that the doctrinal analysis of Gföllner and Hudal is nearly identical, in that they both identify German radicalism and the “nationalization of religion” as incompatible with Catholic thought, while still affirming the positive aspects of the National Socialist program. Where they differed, however, was in the practical approach the Church and its members should take in regard to the regime. Hudal, for his part, arguing for rapprochement and a purification of National Socialism to eliminate its problems and further promote the good, while Gföllner argued decisively against any effort at reconciliation. Hopefully, as we continue this investigation with further analysis, more data will be revealed to shed light on this weighty historical question, namely was rejection or rapprochement the right practical approach? For the serious Catholic today who rightfully deplores liberalism—in all its forms—two related questions also come to mind: what value, if any, is to be gleaned from the program, leaders and movement of National Socialism, and what ought to be the general attitude towards the same?

Now, without further delay, we are pleased to present Bishop Gföllner’s 1933 pastoral letter.

Text: Hirtenbrief über wahren und falschen Nationalismus, (1933)

Letter Introduction

Johannes Maria — Bishop of Linz

By the mercy of God and the grace of the Apostolic See sends greetings and blessings in the Lord to the most reverend clergy and all Christian believers.

Dear Christian believers!

The Great World War was a great war among nations. The Savior had already said: “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”³ False, exaggerated nationalism had long since divided the nations. After the murderous war of nations, the peaceful League of Nations was created, to which more than 50 world states belong; but true, lasting peace among nations is by no means guaranteed by this. First, degenerate nationalism must disappear; only then can the Christian Good News resound: “On earth peace, good will toward men.”⁴

Nationalism has degenerated into a kind of heresy of our time; popes and bishops have repeatedly warned against it. The pastoral office also imposes on me the pastoral duty to speak clearly and openly about it, before even wider circles are seized and swept away by the error of modern nationalism. I do not have politics in mind in the slightest, but merely the unadulterated truth of Christianity; nor am I thinking of the individual supporters and friends of nationalist parties and movements, but am merely examining the program and basic ideas. As we Austrian bishops already declared in our joint pastoral letter of February 7 last year, “We must also say a word about National Socialism, since a considerable number of otherwise good Catholics join it in the best of convictions and expect salvation and rescue from it. We must speak of him all the more since its program is not limited to the field of politics, but extends into the field of religion.”

I now state four fundamental truths that characterize true and false nationalism and which should therefore serve as guiding stars and landmarks for all who are of good will.

First Fundamental Truth: Humanity is a unified Family.

The entire human race descends from Adam and Eve, the first human couple. This is Catholic teaching, and “none now dispute the unity of the human race,” Pius XI succinctly and clearly declares in his circular letter of January 6, 1928.⁵ Adam was the first man, Eve the first woman, the “mother of all living.”⁶ The Book of Wisdom (10:1) and Christ’s saying⁷ confirm this fundamental idea of ​​the Mosaic creation account, and Paul emphatically repeats it on the Areopagus in Athens: “And [God] has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”⁸ Thus, there were no other human couples before Adam or alongside Adam and Eve; rather, all human races and types of peoples trace their origins back to the same forefather, Adam, and the same foremother, Eve.

Therefore, all races and nations are only tribes and branches that sprouted from the same root; therefore, all people are brothers and sisters; therefore, the entire earth with its approximately 1.8 billion people is one large family of nations, all connected by the same blood and the same origin, all equally endowed with the same human nature and with the same natural rights, no people inherently noble and the other inferior. Therefore, the holy doctor of the Church, Augustine, speaks of the Church with the words: “Through your teaching of the forefathers, you unite citizens, states, indeed all people not merely into one great society, but in a sense into one great family.”⁹ This familial relationship also requires a sense of family; and the basic prerequisite for this sense of family is, first and foremost, justice. There are inalienable human rights for both civilized and primitive peoples; disenfranchisement is and remains inhumane rape, even if it dates back centuries and brought so many material advantages; for the Church has rejected the view: “Right [law] consists in the material fact. The injustice of an act when successful inflicts no injury on the sanctity of right.”¹⁰ Yes, even defeated peoples can be brought to their knees, but they must not be disenfranchised or set aside as less entitled, and national minorities must not be denied the protection of international law. St. Germain and Versailles still contain the gravest injustice that demands reparation, if it is not to directly challenge God’s justice.

The perfection of the family spirit, however, is love of neighbor. Our “neighbor” is every person, friend and enemy, and therefore also every people and every nation. Racial hatred is unchristian; national hatred is against the second main commandment of Christian love, which reads: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Even the Old Testament prophet Malachi complains and asks: “Have we not all one father? has not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?”¹¹ Christ also set forth the following demand as the highest commandment for the great family of nations: “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.”¹² Whoever therefore promotes hatred of nations and stirs up national animosity, thinks and acts like the pagan Greeks and Romans in a barbaric, i.e., crude and cruel way. Universal love of humanity, and therefore also love of nations, is the fundamental law of genuine Christianity. The Holy Father therefore explains succinctly in his circular letter of May 3 of this year: “Now if this excessive love of self and of one’s own [exaggerated nationalism], by an abuse of the legitimate care for our country and an undue exaltation of the feelings of piety towards our own people (which piety is not condemned but hallowed and strengthened by the right order of Christian charity) encroaches on the mutual relations and the ties between peoples, there is hardly anything so abnormal that it will not be regarded as free from fault; so that the same deed which would be condemned by the judgment of all when it is done by private individuals, is held to be honest and worthy of praise when it is done for the love of the country. In this way, a hatred, which must needs be fatal to all, supplants the Divine law of brotherly love which bound all nations and peoples into one family under one Father who is in Heaven.”¹³

However, National Socialism sorely lacks this spirit of Christian charity; indeed, in its writings and leading works, in speeches and meetings, it practically calls for “angry hatred” and “fanatical chauvinism”¹⁴ against other formerly hostile peoples. But like socialist class hatred, National Socialist racial hatred is just as incompatible with true Christianity as fire and water cannot be united. Members of one and the same human family must not fight one another with irreconcilable hatred and a thirst for revenge, but must themselves be able to forgive and forget real injustice. Christianity is the religion of love, not revenge; the latter is the business of God, who solemnly declared in the Old¹⁵ and New Testaments:¹⁶ “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay in due time.”

Second Fundamental Truth: True Christian Nationalism is willed by God and approved by the Church.

As in every family, so too in the family of nations, differences in physical and spiritual respects prevail. Physical characteristics and peculiarities, e.g., skull shape, skin color, and hair, change over time due to climate, diet, lifestyle, and other causes, thus forming different human races. Although not essential, these physiological racial characteristics are often closely connected with spiritual peculiarities, for example, a common language, a common culture as a result of historical development, and common customs and traditions. This spiritual-physical character, which is peculiar to a larger group of people and distinguishes them from others, is traditionally and popularly referred to by the word nation, and one therefore speaks of national language, national customs and traditions, national culture, and the like. If the nation then becomes vividly aware of these common national elements, then national feeling and national consciousness arise, which are expressed in national poems and national songs, national anthems and national celebrations, national costumes and national colors; sometimes it even bubbles over with a certain, justified national pride.

Now, is all this natural and reasonable? Is it also Christian? Without a doubt! The Creator of the human race wanted to allow the entire richness and great diversity of human nature, which He had endowed with the most diverse virtues, to be expressed in all this. All these together were to create an overall picture for the greater glory of Him who, when creating the first man, had said: “Let us make man in Our image and likeness.”¹⁷ Every nation should contribute in its own way and peculiarity to the common praise of God, but all nations together should sing a magnificent hymn of praise, as John, the seer on Patmos, heard it in the mysterious “New Song”, which culminated in the confession: “O God, you have redeemed us with your blood from every tribe and tongue, from all peoples and nations.”¹⁸ Appreciation and love, indeed enthusiasm and elation for one’s own nation, are rooted in the innermost essence of human nature, therefore willed by God, the Creator of nature himself, and therefore also natural and reasonable, justified, and genuinely human.

But the Church also fully recognizes and approves of this correctly understood nationalism. The supernatural order of grace does not abolish the natural order, but only transfigures and ennobles it, as the present Holy Father speaks in his circular letter of May 3 of this year of “justified patriotism and legitimate national feeling” that “not only does not disapprove of the correct conception of Christian charity, but sanctifies and enlivens it.”¹⁹ Sacred history is particularly rich in examples of this. Hardly any people clung to their nationality with such fervor and love as the chosen people of the Old Covenant. During their harsh seventy years of captivity, the exiled Israelites sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept at the thought of their homeland, Zion. Urged by their victors to sing them one of their native hymns, they melancholy hung their harps on the willows in the center of the country—how could they possibly have sung the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Jerusalem, the pinnacle of their joy, forgotten—no, never; they could sooner forget their right hand than their tongue would have stuck to the roof of their mouth.²⁰ “How then true love of country rushes so movingly from the harp strains of the Davidic Psalms, like it resounds jubilantly from the Magnificat of the Mother of God that the Lord has taken care of Israel, his servant. How wonderfully profound is the patriotism of the Savior! He places his entire life and work within the framework of his native customs, traditions, and habits: he speaks the dialect of his people, clothes his teachings in images and parables taken from native nature or national history, he feels for his people, for its greatness and humiliation, speaks with melancholy of Israel’s dark futureless-ness, weeps over Jerusalem that it has not recognized what has brought it peace; and this love for his own fatherland bursts forth in a truly moving way in the scene when he looks out from the Mount of Olives at the city and its magnificent temple: at the thought that all this glory, the pride of the nation, is about to sink into ruins, he sheds bitter tears; so deeply does the fate of his people affect him. Yes, it was his land, the Promised, Holy Land, his fatherland, which once encompassed his life and his work.”²¹

The Church has adopted, maintained, defended, and sanctified this patriotism of the Master. The Church allows each people its own peculiarity; it adapts to each nation with tender and wise consideration; it even partially allows the popular language to be used in worship and church liturgy, albeit only exceptionally and when special circumstances suggest it. Indeed, it demands and defends the latter impartially against violent suppression in the religious instruction of children and in preaching to the faithful, as Pius XI repeatedly did and only very recently so decisively recognized for the Germans in South Tyrol, from whom attempts have recently been made to completely rob them of this natural right.²²

Yes, the Church, far removed from the colorless and shallow internationalism of social democracy, is rather, the best guardian and most sincere friend of genuine national identity, down-to-earth love of homeland and ardent patriotism, whose firmest foundation it nurtures and cultivates. Saint Thomas Aquinas²³ explains love of the fatherland as a dutiful exercise of virtue, justice and piety, to which, above all, patriotic loyalty belongs. According to Christian opinion, traitors to the fatherland, from the faithless Greek Ephialtes to the latest national Judases, who have brought immeasurable woe upon our land and people, rightly belong where the immortal Italian Dante has sent them — to the lowest ring of hell.²⁴ Religion and Christianity even demand, under certain circumstances, the sacrifice of life in a just war out of genuine patriotism, and Christian nations therefore rightly hold the graves and monuments of fallen warriors in high esteem.

But nationalism, in itself willed by God and approved by the Church, becomes unnatural and unchristian when it degenerates, as is unfortunately often the case today. In this context, one must particularly point to National Socialism, which degenerates into racial materialism and culminates in the “blood myth”; for that means judging the human race exclusively according to physical characteristics, disregarding higher spiritual values. It is truly exaggerated racial madness to believe that “both the strength and the weakness of man lie in blood alone”²⁵ and that what is not a good race in this world is “chaff”;²⁶ it is frivolous racial madness to equate the blood purity of the Aryan with the paradisiacal innocence of our forefathers, but to compare the Fall with racial mixing,²⁷ to describe “the sin against blood and race as the original sin of this world;²⁸ it is merciless racial madness to simply promote the “sterilization of defective people as the most humane act of humanity”²⁹ in the interest of a healthy human race. All of this is a relapse into abhorrent paganism and views racial purity from purely materialistic perspectives. It is equally un-Christian to contemptuously reject Church missionary work in pagan countries out of racial madness.³⁰ The National Socialist racial standpoint is completely incompatible with Christianity and must therefore be decisively rejected.

This also applies to the radical racial anti-Semitism preached by National Socialism. To despise, hate, and persecute the Jewish people solely because of their ancestry is inhumane and anti-Christian; the Church has always condemned such “pogroms” and defended the Jewish people against unjust hatred. As recently as in a Roman decree of 1928, it literally states: “The Catholic Church has always prayed for the Jewish people, the bearer of the divine promises up to Jesus Christ, despite, indeed precisely because of, their subsequent blindness. Moved by this love, the Apostolic See has protected this people against unjust mistreatment, and just as it deplores all envy and jealousy among nations, it condemns in a special way hatred against the people once chosen by God, namely, that hatred which is commonly designated by the word ‘anti-Semitism’.”³¹ It is also completely incompatible with this position of the Church to reject the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament from an anti-Semitic standpoint; The Old and New Testaments form an inner unity according to the principle of St. Augustine: “The New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament, the Old Testament reveals itself in the New Testament.”³²

However, the Jewish international world spirit is distinct from Jewish people and the Jewish religion. Undoubtedly, many God-alienated Jews exert an extremely harmful influence in almost all areas of modern cultural life. Economy and trade, business and competition, legal practice and medical practice, social and political upheavals are often permeated and corrupted by materialistic and liberal principles that primarily originate from Judaism. The press and advertisements, theater and cinema are frequently filled with frivolous and cynical tendencies that poison the Christian soul to its core and are just as predominantly nourished and spread by Judaism. Degenerate Judaism, in alliance with world Freemasonry, is also the primary bearer of Mammonistic capitalism and the primary founders and apostles of socialism and communism, the harbingers and pacesetters of Bolshevism. Combating and breaking this harmful influence of Judaism is not only a good right, but a strict duty of conscience for every convinced Christian. It is only to be hoped that, on the Aryan and Christian sides, these dangers and harms caused by the Jewish spirit would be more fully appreciated, combated more consistently, and not, openly or covertly, imitated and encouraged. In earlier times, particularly in Italian cities, the Jewish population was assigned a separate residential area, a so-called ghetto, in order to banish the Jewish spirit and influence as far as possible. Modern times, while not needing to expel Jews from the country, should build a strong dam in legislation and administration against all the intellectual filth and immoral mud that threatens to flood the world, primarily from Judaism. It should be fully acknowledged that there are noble characters in Judaism as well.

Does National Socialism therefore only want to promote this intellectual and ethical anti-Semitism in taking up its program, nothing prevents it from doing so; but then National Socialism should not forget that the Catholic Church, above all, is the strongest bulwark against the spiritual onslaught of Jewish atheism, and National Socialism should not stir up racial anti-Semitism through its arrogant idolization of the Aryan race. It is not “through the German spirit that the world will be healed,” but salvation and recovery for the peoples of the earth exist only in one name, in the name of Jesus, as Peter already proclaimed.³³

Third Fundamental Truth: Nation and state are different, and the state is above the nation.

The individual nation only achieves stability, prosperity, and security when it is also politically united into a state. The nation initially embodies only an idea; only the state gives it full life and expression. There are, as history teaches, various possibilities. A nation can disintegrate into several independent states, or it can, as a whole, constitute a single, national state, or it can be fragmented and simultaneously subject to several states; finally, several nations can be united into a national state, just as the former Austrian Dual Monarchy united numerous nations under the same ruling house

It should certainly not be denied that national unity brings many advantages to the state, in particular it powerfully promotes harmony and strong solidarity, as the poet says: “We want to be a single people of brothers, not separating us in need or danger.”³⁴ The unification of a nation into a political community is therefore in itself a good that may also be striven for by legitimate legal means.

On the other hand, one can also see advantages in the political unification of different nations into a common state. Racial hatred and national animosity are so great today, especially, that they constantly threaten world peace. What would happen if nations were to completely break away from one another and separate politically! The political unification of different nations also has advantages for cultural progress that should not be underestimated. Every nation has its bright and dark sides, its virtues and faults. The good and bad qualities are often distributed in such a way that the shortcomings of one nation are offset by the advantages of the other. The Spaniards are praised for their chivalry, the French for their nobility, the Italians for their artistic sense, the Germans for their thoroughness. The same phenomenon recurs here that can be observed among individuals. Through the political unification of several nations, the individual nations are protected from petty narrow-mindedness in their mutual assessment; their perspective is broadened. However, if the border posts of nations also become border posts of states, narrow-minded national isolation breaks down all too easily. This applies to all exaggerated national endeavors, including “Pan-German Germanization.” The words of St. Stephen of Hungary are worth heeding: “An empire where only one language and one national character prevails is weak and fragile.”³⁵

In this respect, history and well-earned rights ultimately decide. The nation does not have the right, in the name of the principle of nationality, to simply destroy political states and, unconcerned about historical rights, to bring about national unification in the nation-state; and no state has the right merely in the interest of national unity, for example under the title of a so-called “irredentist”, to forcibly and unlawfully tear members of one’s own nation away from another state and to annex and incorporate them through national annexation. And if another state wishes to suppress such violent action through its assistance, it cannot be prevented from doing so by citing the so-called principle of non-intervention, which the Church has rejected.³⁶ Or one would have to profess the entirely false opinion that “the violation of any oath, however sacred, and any act, however criminal and shameful, contrary to eternal law, is not only not condemnable, but perfectly permissible and highly praiseworthy if done out of love of the fatherland,” a tenet of the absolute principle of nationality, which the Church has also expressly rejected.³⁷ An extreme principle of nationality, which recognizes and acknowledges only nationally limited states, is at least very questionable, because it cannot be realized without a manifest violation of historical rights and therefore without morally impermissible means.

All of these are not political reflections, but merely moral and legal principles that also bind nations and states; for there is no “absolute” state morality dependent on God and natural law; there are no “sovereign national” rights that, in the name of the people and the nation, could come into conflict with those immutable divine statutes that the Church proclaims in the name of God.

In this respect, too, National Socialism must subject its program of the “Third Reich” to a thorough examination of conscience, and it will then have to admit its contradiction with the above-mentioned Christian principles on more than one point. On the basis of these principles, it is also impossible to display such pathologically deep hatred against former Austria as erupts again and again in the main work of the leader of National Socialism. The Austrian idea has at least as much right as the German idea; it must not be sullied or denigrated. Greater Austria was the embodiment of Christian nationalism in its most ideal form and is still enthusiastically held today by the noblest and most understanding men. If one may feel German, then one may at least with equal right feel Austrian, for the nation is not absorbed into the state, and a great, glorious past must not be misunderstood in the name of a small, narrow-minded national idea.

Fourth Fundamental Truth: Above all nationalism stands religion, which is not national, but supranational.

The nation is not the highest, and the state must not be idolized either; the highest thing for every nation is and remains religion. “National heroes” and state idols are not absolute entities; in many ways, they resemble the Philistine god Dagon, who sank into the dust before the Ark of the Covenant of the one true God.³⁸ A people that idolizes the national idea falsifies the concept of genuine religion, which is never national, always supra-national.

But religion is not a private matter, is not left to the purely subjective discretion of the individual, but is objective truth and statute. What genuine, true religion is, therefore, is not determined by man, least of all by the “absolute state” or the “sovereign nation and race,” but solely by God himself and, in his name and on his behalf, the true Church founded by him; and there is throughout only one true, genuine Church founded by Christ throughout the world, and that is the Catholic Church with its infallible teaching authority, with its supreme shepherd, the Roman Pontiff, with its Catholic dogmas and moral teachings, with its Catholic legal statutes, means of grace, and institutions. This Catholic Church, the sole bearer of true religion, is guided in its religious teachings and demands not by national viewpoints, not by a narrow-minded racial standpoint, but solely by divine revelation, which bears the character of a Catholic universalism encompassing all nations.

While Old Testament revelation was still bound to a single “chosen” people, the bearer of messianic promises, this national barrier fell of its own accord on the founding day of the Catholic Church, on the first Christian Pentecost in Jerusalem Parthians and Medes, Alemanites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judah and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya and Italy, Cretans and Arabs³⁹ — a colorful mixture of peoples, but united in the same faith, bound by the same love in Christ, diverse in tongues and yet all full of understanding for the same cause and language of the apostles, truly, that is the ideal image of the Catholic family of peoples, in which the Catholic programmatic word of the world apostle Paul is fulfilled: “There is neither pagan nor Jew, neither barbarian nor Scythian, neither slave nor free, but all and in all only Christ.”⁴⁰ And the best expert on this Pauline, truly Catholic, supranational universalism, St. John Chrysostom, summarizes this program in the words: “Where the nobility of faith prevails, there is no distinction between barbarians and Hellenes, between strangers and citizens, but all are on the same level of dignity; for the Gospel is common property of all, it knows neither class distinctions nor national precedence, nor anything else of the sort.”⁴¹ For this very reason, the true Church bears the designation Catholic, i.e., universal, because it is founded for all time, therefore also for our twentieth century, because it is founded for all countries, therefore also for all of Europe, because it is founded for all nations, therefore also for the German nation as well as for the Romansh and every other nation, without reduction or concession on essential points, without national ties, without entanglement with race, and without narrowing down between national dividing lines.

It was a truly Catholic event and experience when, on Pentecost Sunday last year, the account from the Acts of the Apostles about the miracle of tongues at the first Pentecost was broadcast through the modern microphone of the Vatican radio station in twenty-four world languages ​​to the entire civilized world, beginning with the Latin of the Church, then in turn in the languages ​​of the English, Chinese, Danes, French, Germans, Greeks, Irish, Norwegians, Italians, Japanese, Spaniards, Slovenes, Swedes, Dutch, Poles, Romanians, Serbo-Croats, Hungarians, Indians, Syrians, Arabs, Chaldeans, Malabars, Sinhalese, and finally the language of the inhabitants of the Pamirs in Inner Asia.

Truly, nothing is more repugnant to Catholic Christianity than the nationalization of religion. Such attempts have always ended miserably throughout the history of the Church, usually with a schismatic break-away-from-Rome movement, which is synonymous with complete apostasy from genuine Christianity, beginning with the Greek Orthodox schism and the unfortunate schism under Luther, French Gallicanism and German Febronianism, up to the latest efforts for a German national church, such as is demanded by leaders of National Socialism as a desirable goal. All these narrow-minded national efforts are in open contradiction with the fundamental dogma of the Catholic Church, the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, who is the living center and unified gathering point of all Catholic nations and without whom the universal Church disintegrates, atrophies, and perishes into countless particular churches. Any national church is thoroughly un-Catholic. Therefore, the Church has rejected the statement: “National Churches may be established that are removed from the authority of the Pope and completely separated from him.”⁴²

This also applies to the efforts of National Socialism to Germanize Christianity and create a German national church in the so-called “Third Reich”; for that is ultimately the meaning of Section 24 of the National Socialist program, which states: “We demand the freedom of all religious denominations in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend against the moral and ethical sensibilities of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of positive Christianity without confessionally binding itself to a particular confession.”

This program point is initially vague, unclear, and ambiguous beyond measure; but if anywhere, then in a program, open, clear, and unambiguous language is appropriate; or is Pope Gregory the Great wrong when he says: “The wisdom of this world consists in concealing the true meaning with words?”⁴³

Apart from the fact that there is indeed a German nation, but no Germanic race, this program point degrades religion to a servant, indeed a slave, of the state. The existence of the state should be the primary consideration for whether a religious confession is granted freedom at all but the state is not the judge of religion, which neither primarily nor ultimately pursues state goals, and true, genuine religion never endangers the existence of a Christian state. Therefore, the Catholic Church can least of all calmly accept the accusation or even the suspicion that it endangers the existence of the state. To even express such a fear or possibility is a grave slander, indeed a complete misunderstanding of the Church, its teachings and institutions, its endeavors and intentions. The entire history of the world and the Church cannot produce a single piece of evidence, a single historically proven fact, from which the dangerous nature of the Catholic Church to the state could be even remotely feared or suspected.

Only hateful cultural warriors, only blind supporters of the so-called “absolute, omnipotent state” in the past and present have invented this slogan, spread this historical lie in unscientific works, in shallow newspaper articles, in phrase-filled speeches at assemblies without any semblance of proof; only chauvinistic nationalism can see in the church a danger to the nation, an enemy of the people and the state.

Another dogmatic error lies in “the demand for freedom of all religious confessions in the state”; fundamentally speaking, this demand is unchristian. This means nothing other than equating all religious confessions with one another, recognizing them as equally good and equally justified, in other words, placing truth and error, light and darkness, good and evil on the same level. Or is it no longer helpful in our time for the Catholic religion to be the sole state religion to the exclusion of all other cults? To assert this in principle would be in open contradiction with the declaration of the Church.⁴⁴ Or “has it really done good if it were legally established in certain Catholic countries that the public practice of any worship was permitted?” The Church also condemns this principle most emphatically.⁴⁵ Unlimited freedom of conscience and worship, i.e., demanding state recognition or tolerance of all religions and cults, is an unchristian principle of liberalism. Gregory XVI⁴⁶ described this freedom of conscience and worship as an “insanity” one hundred years ago. Truly, it is not wrong to assert that the state freedom of all cults and the full freedom granted to all to publicly express every opinion and view contributes more easily to the corruption of the morals and hearts of peoples and to the spread of the plague of indifferentism.⁴⁷ To advocate the freedom of all religious confessions in a party program that nevertheless sets out principles is to demand dogmatic tolerance of all errors, which is incompatible not only with divine revelation and with genuine Catholicism, but also with common sense.

Something else, however, is the practical or political tolerance of different denominations within the state, which under certain circumstances, especially in our time, is not only morally permissible but can even be a moral duty. Since in modern states there are usually several churches or denominations, civil freedom cannot be granted to the Catholic Church alone to the exclusion of all others without incurring the most serious consequences. The equal, religiously mixed state must grant civil rights to all denominations as long as their teachings are not dangerous to the state and do not offend public morality. Leo XIII confirmed this Catholic principle⁴⁸ in his circular letter on the state of November 1, 1885, with the words: “The Church does not judge those heads of state who, with a view to achieving a great good or averting a great evil, patiently accept that the various forms of worship in the state each take their place.” While the Church is fundamentally intolerant of any error, in practice it practices extensive civil and political tolerance according to the words of St. Augustine: “Love man, but hate vice.”⁴⁹ And with St. John Chrysostom, it still professes the principle today: “We must reject and refute heretical teachings, but love men and pray for their salvation.”⁵⁰

If the National Socialist program then declares that religious beliefs in the state will only be recognized to the extent that they do not violate the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race, this also means a nationalization of religion and morality. The standard for moral and ethical sense is never race, but always and exclusively dogma or doctrine; without dogma or doctrine, there is no genuine morality at all, and morality is not rooted in a dark “feeling” but in clear “knowledge”, in understanding “consciousness” and the “will” guided by it. With the same right with which the Germanic “race” emphasizes its own moral and ethical sense, every other race, or rather nation, will then also be allowed to emphasize it; morality or morality is thus nationalized and elevated to the standard for just as many national religions.

Truly Catholic morality is subordinated to national feeling, but this eliminates any supranational morality or ethical principle that binds all peoples equally. And finally: who determines and decides whether a religion corresponds to or contradicts racial ethical and moral feeling? Religion and ethical principle would become interchangeable with the plaything of national hypersensitivity and national political whims and power aspirations. This National Socialist morality is therefore completely incompatible with the Catholic concept of morality, completely un-Catholic, and completely unacceptable from the standpoint of the Catholic religion.

Even more decisively to be rejected is the “positive Christianity” advocated in the same program point, which, however, is not confessionally tied to any particular confession. What is this positive Christianity proclaimed by the National Socialists? A completely vague expression that means everything and nothing. Religious program points of parties must be unambiguous and clear, not ambiguous, double-minded, or unclear. In truth, there is only one “positive” Christianity, and that is Catholic Christianity. Everything else is fragments, attenuations, aberrations, and negations, in truth “negative” Christianity.

Furthermore, a Christianity that is “confessionally not bound to any particular confession” is a universal Christianity, a colorless and contentless construct that is neither Catholicism nor Christianity in the sense of Christ. A dogma-free, interdenominational Christianity is a contradiction in terms; genuine Christianity is always confessional, is always bound to a very specific confession, and for the Catholic, is precisely Roman Catholic Christianity with its dogmas and very specific statutes; genuine Christianity and a specific confession cannot be separated. Pope Pius XI condemned this so-called positive Christianity in a striking and decisive manner in his solemn circular letter of January 6, 1928,⁵¹ in which he rejects so-called “Pan-Christianity” or “General Christianity,” which wants to make a distinction between “fundamental” and “non-fundamental” beliefs and that fantasizes and dreams of a union of positive Christians, without any commitment to the Pope and the dogmas of the Catholic Church; he describes this as “a grave error that completely rejects the foundations of the Catholic faith” and regrets that even a number of Catholics are attracted by this hope. Anyone who advocates a non-denominational, so-called positive Christianity either does not know what it is about or is a disguised apostle of the “Away from Rome” movement. In the name of the Catholic Church, we therefore decisively reject the National Socialist slogan of positive Christianity and defend ourselves against any open or covert attempt at nationalizing or Germanizing Christianity. The attempt at a German national church would be the beginning of a Kulturkampf (culture war) that would tear the German nation apart even more than it already is.

While Section No. 24 of the National Socialist program still suffers from some ambiguity, various unambiguous passages from official party literature shed bright light on it and dispel the last doubts about the actual religious goals of National Socialism.

Christianity is accused of having destroyed the pagan altars in fanatical intolerance; of having brought the first spiritual terror into the much freer ancient world, a terror that still oppresses and dominates the world and that can only be broken again through coercion and terror.⁵² This is a vile slander. Of the Catholic Church, it is further said that “its doctrinal system comes into collision on some points, and sometimes quite unnecessarily, with exact science and research. But the Church is nevertheless not prepared to accept even one to sacrifice a single syllable of its tenets; rather, it rigidly adheres to dogmas once laid down.”⁵³ The former is an unproven assertion, the latter a complete lack of Catholic understanding.

There is continued babble about “Jewish-Jesuit leadership of the Catholic Church.”⁵⁴ Papacy and Church are described as “abstract ideas”, the writings of the Old Testament are ranked behind German fairy tales and legends, and the mood is being created for a “new worship community, whereby the denomination is initially irrelevant”;⁵⁵ it is demanded that in the “Third Reich”, “only those religious denominations may enjoy the constitutional protection of free religious practice whose religious writings are written entirely in German and made generally accessible to all members of the people”⁵⁶ — thus, no more room for the Roman-Latin service with the Latin Mass and Latin rite for sacraments and ecclesiastical functions!

In a document officially recommended⁵⁷ by the party, it is openly asserted that the central, highest values ​​of the Roman (and Protestant) Church, as negative Christianity, do not correspond to our soul, that they stand in the way of the organic forces of the Nordic-racially determined peoples, that they must make way for them, and that they must be re-evaluated in the sense of a Germanic Christianity — truly a language that leaves nothing to be desired in terms of clarity and openness, and in which the elimination of “negative Roman Christianity” in favor of a Germanic national church is openly demanded. Yes, even more! It is emphasized that negative and positive Christianity have always been in conflict and are wrestling even more bitterly in our days than before, that “positive” Christianity is once again awakening the forces of Nordic blood, while the negative Christianity (i.e., the Roman Church) insists on its Syrian-Etruscan tradition, on abstract dogmas and ancient customs.⁵⁸ And whoever still has the slightest doubt about the hostile attitude of National Socialism towards the Catholic Church should note the final demand, which reads: “Today a new faith is awakening, the myth of blood..., the belief that Nordic blood represents that mystery which has replaced and overcome the old sacraments.”⁵⁹ This is an open declaration of war on Rome and Catholicism in a leading work, which has been formally recommended by the party,⁶⁰ although the most diverse requests demanded the retraction of these ideas.

At least we now know clearly what National Socialism thinks of Catholicism, Rome, and the Church: it is negative Christianity, which must be eradicated root and branch and make way for a German-ethnic religion. Is it any wonder, then, that the attitude of the National Socialist Party in public bodies was often un-Catholic? They voted against concordats, against denominational schools, but for the impunity of dueling and student duels, completely contrary to Catholic principles and declarations.

Already in our joint pastoral letter of February 7 of last year, we Austrian bishops declared about the National Socialist program: “Many program points allow for the most diverse interpretations and are therefore confusing. But written and oral statements by well-known leaders explain these program points in such a way that their extraordinarily hostile attitude toward the Catholic religion and the Catholic Church becomes clear to the whole world.”

After all this, we can only make the final judgment about National Socialism: The National Socialism is internally ill from materialistic racial madness, an un-Christian nationalism—from a nationalistic conception of religion—from mere pseudo-Christianity; we therefore reject its religious program. All convinced Catholics must reject and condemn it; for if, according to the declaration of Pope Pius XI, “it is impossible to be both a good Catholic and a true socialist,”⁶¹ then it is also impossible to be both a good Catholic and a true National Socialist.⁶²

The idea of ​​true nationalism certainly has its value, but only within the framework of the religious idea What is needed more than ever in our time, therefore, is not the idea of ​​nationalism, but the idea of ​​religion, faithful adherence to the unity of the Catholic Mother Church, which in the holy season of Easter asks God the Lord “to grant to the faithful one mind and one heart,”⁶³ and “to unite all the different nations in the confession of his name.”⁶⁴ Let us therefore, following the exhortation of St. Paul, “strive diligently to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace; one body and one Spirit, just as we are called to one hope of our calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in us all.”⁶⁵ Let us all, individuals and nations, be united in that Eucharistic League of Nations which the Lord Himself, the Author and God of Peace, instituted in His Most Holy Sacrament; No sacrament symbolizes and brings about unity among Christians as much as the Most Holy Eucharist, of which St. Augustine says: “Precisely for this reason our Lord Jesus Christ has presented his Body and his Blood in those things which are brought into unity from his multitude of things; for the one (bread) is made one from many grains, the other (wine) flows from many grapes into one.”⁶⁶ Paul had already praised this unifying power of the Most Holy Eucharist with the words: “We, being many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread.”⁶⁷

Our motto should always be: Loyally Catholic and loyal to Rome; only in this Roman Catholic loyalty are the true interests of our German people best protected. Catholics who are enemies of Rome are also enemies of the people, without knowing or wanting it; genuine Germanness, on the other hand, is inextricably linked, historically and ideologically, with the See of Peter. The German people were greatest at the time when they stood most loyally to Rome. The apostasy from Rome was the beginning of their national decline.

Nation and religion should go hand in hand and thus serve one and the same Lord and God; whoever divides them is therefore an enemy of God and the nation. The kingship of Christ is destined for all nations and peoples of the earth. The highest commandment of all nations, however, is the word of the Psalmist: “Praise the Lord, all peoples! Praise him, all nations! For his mercy has been shown to us mightily, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.”⁶⁸ Amen.

Given in Linz, on January 21, 1933.

Johannes Maria Gföllner

Bishop of Linz.

END.

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1. The bulk of the biographical information can be found on Bp. Gföllner’s Wikipedia page in German.

2. Diocese of Linz, Der Anschluss 1938 und die Position des Linzer Bischofs Johannes Maria Gföllner.

3. Matt. XXIV, 7.

4. Lk. II, 4.

5. Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, (1928), para. 1.

6. Gen. III, 20.

7. Matt. XIX, 4.

8. Acts XVII, 26.

9. De mor eccl. cath. I c. 30.

10. Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, (1864), prop. 59, 61.

11. Mal. II, 10.

12. Jn. XIII, 34-35.

13. Pope Pius XI, Caritate Christi Compulsi, (1932), no. 4.

14. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, pg. 714, 475.

15. Deut. XXXII, 35.

16. Rom. XII, 19; Heb. X, 30.

17. Gen. I, 26.

18. Apoc. V, 9.

19. Caritate Christi Compulsi, no. 4.

20. Ps. CXXXVI, 1-6.

21. Huonder, Zu Füßen des Meisters. 38. Betrachtung.

22. At an audience with Cardinal Piffl and Bishop Berning. Osnabrück.

23. ST II-II, q. 101, art I.

24. Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto 32, 70 to Canto 33, 91.

25. Mein Kampf, pg. 372.

26. Mein Kampf, pg. 324.

27. Mein Kampf, pg. 324, 359.

28. Mein Kampf, pg. 272.

29. .Mein Kampf, pg. 279.

30. Mein Kampf, pg. 446.

31. Pope Pius XI, Holy Office Decree on the Abolishment of the Association commonly called “Amici Israel”, (1928).

32. St. Augustine, On Instructing the Unlearned, chap. 4.

33. Acts. IV, 15.

34. William Tell by Schiller (Rösselmann, Act 2).

35. O. Klopp, Political History of Europe since the Migration Period, II., p. 368. (One language and one nation, imbecile and fragile, is established.)

36. Syllabus, prop. 62.

37. Syllabus, prop. 64.

38. 1 Kgs. V, 4.

39. Acts. II, 9-11.

40. Col. III, 11.

41. St. John Chrysostom, 3rd Homily on the Epistle to the Romans.

42. Syllabus, prop. 37.

43. St. Gregory the Great, Exposition on the book of Job or Morals 1. 10 c. 16 in c. 12 Job.

44. Syllabus, prop. 77.

45. Syllabus, prop. 78.

46. Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, (1832), no. 14.

47. Syllabus, prop. 79.

48. Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, (1885),

49. St. Augustine, Sermon XLIX, 5.

50. St. John Chrysostom, On Anathemas, 4.

51. Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, (1928), no. 9.

52. Mein Kampf, pgs. 506-7.

53. Mein Kampf, pgs. 512-3.

54. National Socialist Library. Issue 20, pg. 10.

55. National Socialist Library. Issue 22, pg. 8.

56. National Socialist Library. Issue 35, pg. 5.

57. Alfred Rosenberg, Myth of the 20th Century, p. 203.

58. Myth of the 20th Century, p. 78.

59. Myth of the 20th Century, p. 111.

60. National Socialist Library. Issue 22.

61. Pope Pius XI, Quadregesimo Anno, (1931), no. 120.

62. L’Osservatore Romano, October 11, 1930, n. 238: “Belonging to the National Socialist Hitler Party is incompatible with the Catholic conscience, just as belonging to socialism of all shades in general is incompatible with it.”

63. Dom. III. post Pascha.

64. Feria V. post Pascha.

65. Eph. IV, 3-6.

66. Gospel of John. Lecture no. 17.

67. 1 Cor. X, 17.

68. Ps. CXVI.