Concordat

Socialite, luxury-loving Franz von Papen is no Nazi. In the Hitler Cabinet he keeps his Vice Chancellorship (a decorative sinecure) chiefly because he is a Papal Chamberlain and because Germany's new Nazi masters suppose him to be an ''intimate friend" of His Holiness Pope Pius XI. All last week Herr von Papen was enjoying himself in Rome. He loves nothing quite so much as supping in state at a Cardinal's Palace with twinkling candles on the table and viands of the best. Every day Vegetarian Hitler called up to ask how the negotiations were going with Papal Secretary of State Cardinal Pacelli. They were going splendidly. Papal Chamberlain von Papen cheerfully reported, and, sure enough, by the end of the week he initialed a concordat with the Holy See.

Before the initialing took place German Catholics were forced to bow the political knee to Adolf Hitler, hoping all the while that the concordat would safeguard their religious rights. As a peace offering to the Nazis, they dissolved their Catholic Centre Party, the Party which fought Prince Bismarck so stoutly three generations ago. the Party which gave to the German Republic one of its greatest Chancellors, pale, ascetic, tremendously hard-working Bachelor Heinrich Bruening (TIME, April 7, 1930 et seq.). Seventy-three Catholic Centre Deputies of the German Reichstag and 68 in the Prussian Diet were refused permission to join the Nazis last week and became ''men without a party." Most of them were expected to resign their seats. The decree of the Catholic Centre executives dissolving the party was piteously abject. They begged that Catholic dignitaries be "protected from slander" in the Nazi Press and that physical property belonging to Catholic Centrist Party headquarters be not confiscated. "A political revolution." they declared, "has placed German state life on a completely new basis which leaves no room for party activity. The German Centre Party, therefore, dissolves itself in agreement with Chancellor Hitler--the dissolution to take effect immediately."

Thus the last non-Nazi party in Germany folded up and Chancellor Hitler completely achieved his political objective, the "Totalitarian (One Party) State."

Not Abandoned. From his office at the Vatican, slim, sensitive-fingered Papal Secretary of State Cardinal Pacelli kept assuring German Catholics through statements to the Roman Press that their enforced political sacrifices were not in vain.

"On account of the exclusion of Catholics as a political party from the public life of Germany," read one of these statements, "it is all the more necessary that the Catholics . . . find in the diplomatic pacts between the Holy See and the Nazi Government guarantees which can assure them at least the maintenance of their position in the life of the nation. German Catholics . . . cannot reprove the Vatican for having abandoned them in a moment of crisis."

The proof of this claim was in the German-Papal concordat. It consists of 35 articles, provides notably for the Catholic education of all children of Catholic parents in Germany. In districts where Catholics are in a majority the public schools shall be Catholic. Elsewhere Catholic children will attend separate Catholic schools. Thus Pope Pius retains in Germany a firm grip on what he likes to call "the dear youth."

As in most concordats, the Church agrees to keep her priests out of politics, but considering the present violent, extemporaneous character of Nazi justice in German courts they were granted important guarantees. Even in Nazi Germany magistrates will have no power to force from Catholic priests the secrets of the confessional, though they may browbeat Protestant parsons at pleasure. Finally the concordat, first ever signed by the Government of all Germany with the Holy See, supersedes, though it does not abolish the previous concordats existing between the Vatican and the German States of Prussia, Baden and Bavaria.

"Unconditional Service?" In Berlin the acts of Adolf Hitler after the concordat was signed showed that he, reared a Catholic, still has a healthy respect for Rome. He promptly let out of jail all Catholic priests held on political charges. Moreover, he rescinded a whole batch of decrees under which Catholic organizations had been dissolved, permitted them to reorganize. These acts showed where the Chancellor's heart inclined, but his voice as usual was raised in triumphant bombast.

"It appears to me," he cried, "that through the conclusion of the concordat sufficient guarantees have been given that German citizens of the Roman Catholic faith will henceforth put themselves unconditionally in the service of the new-Nazi State!"

Most German clerical observers seemed to feel that the Nazi State had yielded just enough to Rome to avoid open struggle with a potentially dangerous enemy. Meanwhile non-Nazi Protestants were ruthlessly hounded last week. Theological students at the Berlin University were told: "You will never get a pastorate unless you join the 'German Christians'" (Nazi Protestants). All over Germany non-Nazi pastors received notice that "You have only until July 15th to join the German Christians." After that non-joiners were expected to be forcibly deprived of their pastorates.

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