The Twists And Turns In The Transition Of Catholicism To Modernization

Signed on July 20,1933,the Reichskonkordat is not only the concordat between the Vatican and Nazi Germany,but also the sole state-level treaty in the history of German-Vatican relations.The background,signing process and text of this treaty reflect the Vatican's historical experience in the exchange with Germany,as well as the tortuous process of modernization of the Catholic Church itself.During the 90-year interval between the two Vatican councils,the Holy See always pursued a conservative development line centered on Ultramontanism,seeking the interests of the Church while contacting with the secular countries of the West.Ironically,the enactment of this strategy led to a series of fierce contradictions between the Holy See and newly unified German Empire,which eventually escalated into a conflict of politics and religion known as."Kulturkampf'.This conflict,running through the 1870s and 1880s,not only profoundly influenced the trend of German-Vatican relations,but also forced the Vatican to adjust its conservative strategy.During the 1920s and 1930s,the Vatican expanded papal political power and secured the rights as well as interests of local catholic churches by widely signing modernized concordats with secular states.Following this diplomatic strategy,the Holy See hoped to sign a similar treaty with the German central government,but failed.Since then,the Nazi Party had grown explosively in the Weimar Republic and eventually took power in early 1933.In order to crack down on the Catholic political parties and glorify the new regime,Adolf Hitler took the initiative to send a invitation to the Vatican for concordat negotiation.Though hostile to Nazi ideology,the Vatican saw Hitler's coming to power as a good chance to consolidate and even expand the interests of the German church,which made two sides quickly signed the Reichskonkordat.As far as the text is concerned,the Nazi regime made great concessions by fully satisfying the Vatican's requirements for the independence of the church and the promotion of religious education.Hitler,however,just regarded the treaty as a contingent political tool,and soon afterwards persecuted the Catholic Church.From 1933 to 1939,the Vatican and Nazi Germany engaged in a diplomatic offensive and defense war with the focus of the Reichskonkordat.But for the sake of self interest,neither of them was willing to break up with each other completely.After the outbreak of World War II,German-Vatican relations improved and the German Catholic Church survived the war because of its significance to army's morale.On the one hand,the Reichskonkordat provided a legal basis which allowed the Church to protect itself.It effectively defended the Nazi assault on the German Church and maintained the church's primary organizational system in the Third Reich · On the other hand,in order to secure the validity of the Reichskonkordat,the Vatican had to strive to maintain diplomatic relations with the Nazi Germany and lost its moral autonomy.When Nazi government started to persecute Jews,the Vatican's protest was weak as the safety of the church's interests dominated the Vatican's policy toward Germany.During World War ?,Nazi antisemitic policies escalated to the Holocaust,but the Vatican remained "silent",daring not to publicly denounce the atrocities.After the war,one of the main objectives of the Vatican's German policy was maintaining the legal status of the Reichskonkordat.As a result of Pius XII's insistence,the concordat continued to enter into force in the western occupation zones and became an integral part of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957.Eventually,at the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965,the Holy See decided to reform the Catholic Church in an effort to adapt itself to the modern world which had changed drastically since the end of World War II.Affected by internal self-reflection and external pressure of public opinion,the Catholic Church apologized for its cowardice during the Holocaust and eradicated the long-standing Catholic antisemitism.