Speculation was rife in many quarters today as to the significance of the officially announced interview in Bavaria between Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Michael Cardinal Faulhaber, who has long been regarded as one of Hitler’s irreconcilable opponents.
In some circles the opinion was expressed that the meeting foreshadowed a rapprochement between the Nazi regime and the Catholic Church, especially along the lines of a common fight against Communism.
CATHOLICS SEEN LOSERS BY RAPPROCHEMENT
In a copyrighted dispatch from Munich, published in the New York Herald Tribune today, Cardinal Faulhaber’s visit with Chancellor.
Hitler was seen as a preparatory step toward a reconciliation between Hitler and the Vatican. Presence at the interview of General Franz von Epp, Nazi Governor of Bavaria, who is known to favor such a step, was cited in support of such a view.
“In the opinion of many of the German Catholic clergy,” the Tribune’s dispatch said, “a development in this direction has been due for some time. The tendency toward a Nazi-Catholic rapprochement came to a halt, however, when a certain paragraph of Pope Pius XI’s address to Spanish emigrants aroused Nazi displeasure. In the meantime the German Catholics’ view of the situation has become increasingly pessimistic. Some in these circles think that certain differences of opinion between the Vatican and the German Episcopate have weakened the latter’s position with the Nazi Government, and that the rapprochement now under discussion may be reached chiefly at the expense of German Catholic interests, with comparatively insignificant concessions from the Hitlerites.”
HATRED OF COMMON FEE HELD UNITING FACTOR
An article by Ignaz O’Brien in a recent issue of the Christian Century, Protestant organ, declared in this connection, it is recalled here, that Nazi Germany and the Vatican “both find strong common ground in an ineradicable hostility to Soviet Russia, and both consider themselves menaced by this vast power to such an extent that any possible spread of Communist doctrine in Europe must be stopped at all costs.”
Pointing out that Hitler is “still a Catholic and thinks along Catholic lines,” the periodical added:
“Seeing that national socialism has also completely routed within its borders communism, socialism, free masonry and all other movements likely to divert loyalty from the all-embracing state, the way is paved for closer understanding between the Vatican and Germany, since the Vatican has no sympathy with anything that savors of ‘Marxism’ and can appreciate the importance of the spirit of supreme loyalty. When the moment is ripe for a real concordat between the two powers, all persecution of the Catholics in Germany will probably be immediately called off by the ‘Leader.'”
The article concludes:
“If Europe is, as Hitler said recently, already divided into two armed camps, the one for Soviet Russia and the other against, there can be no doubt as to which side the Vatican will support, since for the Pope the real enemy in Europe is communism and none other.”
In an earlier issue, the Christian Century, commenting on the Catholic anti-Red campaign, expressing skepticism as to the motives behind it, cautioned:
“Before any American citizen enlists in this crusade, he will be wise if he insists on being told a lot more about its purposes than is now known.”
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