Cardinal Faulhaber speaks to 100,000 German Catholics at the Pontifical Mass celebrated by Vatican Nuncio Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli on Munich’s Königsplatz - Aug. 27, 1922
Source: Timeline
Aug. 27, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber speaks to 100,000 German Catholics at the Pontifical Mass celebrated by Vatican Nuncio Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli on Munich’s Königsplatz.
Faulhaber attacks the “Jewish press of Berlin,” denounces the November 1918 German revolution as “perjury and high treason,” and says the resulting government is “marked with the sign of Cain.”
Translated address of Nuncio Pacelli to the Catholic Congress on the same day
Coverage of the event in the Munich Neueste Nachrichten
Aug. 27, 1922 The first words of Cardinal Faulhaber’s address to 100,000 German Catholics at the Katholikentag mass on the Königsplatz:
Brothers, be strong in the Lord! Put on the armor of God on the day of evil!” Ephesians 6: 10, 13.
Catholic Congress day is arming day, arming day of Catholic character and conscience, arming day of Catholic joy in labor and Catholic labor associations, arming day of Catholic unity and Catholic candor with unfurled flags in the open sunshine. Catholic Congress day is arming day! Put on the armor of God on the day of evil!
I greet you from all regions of the German tongue, assembled around your multicolored flags in all the variety of German ethnicity, in the unity of Catholic faith, assembled around the cross and the altar of the Lord! The name Catholic is no mere external label, the name Catholic is the expression of our innermost character, an expression of a racially pure type [Ausdruck reinrassiger Art], a confession of Catholic action. With this mass, the cornerstone of the Catholic Congress shall be laid, and the Bishop of this City shall place a certificate in it and write upon it the fundamental issues of Catholic doctrine, the baselines of the Catholic order of life, the deep sources of Catholic power for action.
To be Catholic means, first of all, to be a believer on the basis of Church doctrine. Two flaming lights stand at the entrance to the Catholic Congress: the word of revelation and the teaching office of the Church. God has spoken in revelation. The fact of revelation lies in the sunlight of history. A sincere seeker of truth gratefully and faithfully accepts the word of God. Christ founded a Church, and only one Church, and instructed the seeker of truth to “hear the Church,” to go into the school of the Church. The sincere seeker of truth says: God’s Church, you are the pillar and foundation of truth. The doctrines of salvation are not at the mercy of the preference and option of the individual or of independent research...
Cardinal Faulhaber’s words to the Catholic Congress about perjury and high treason:
...Compromises are unavoidable in the interplay of oppositions and interests. Superior to all compromises, however, are principles, like the eternal stars, and there comes a limit where we say: Up to here and no further! The Revolution was perjury and high treason and remains in history congenitally tainted and branded with the mark of Cain. Even if the upheaval brought some successes, even if it opened the way for adherents of the Catholic faith to higher offices far more than before, its moral character is not assessed by its results, for a misdeed may not be sanctified on the basis of its results. The Catholic Congress will set Catholic principles as a beacon on high. Give me a hundredfold personalities of strong character around every church tower, a dozen around every association flag, and we will renew the face of the earth. To be Catholic means to be a moral character.
To be Catholic means, third, to be an apostle on the basis of Church teaching about grace. Grace is the helping hand of God, it is being strong in the Lord, it is the putting on of the armor of God. Where God’s grace is, there is the greater power, there is always, at the end of the day, victory...
[concluding paragraph]: That is the ABC of the Catholic Catechism. I have not intended to speak about advanced astronomy, we must begin small and build from the ground up with the ABC of the Catholic Catechism: Be a confessor on the basis of Catholic doctrinal teaching, be of character in the school of Christian moral teaching, be an apostle in the power of Church teaching of grace. In this way I have laid the foundation of the wall. Now may the other speakers of the Catholic Congress build further upon this foundation, and may they inspire us to take care of the schools and the youth, of missions at home and abroad to the heathen, of popular education and morality, of charity, patriotism [Staatsgesinnung] and concern for peace. Now the Apostolic Nuncio will step up to the altar and celebrate the Sunday mass for all of you, and we pray with him the Apostle’s Creed and receive from him the blessing for the Catholic Congress. Then become strong in the Lord, put on the armor of God!
Source: Ansprache des hochwürdigsten Herrn Kardinals Michael v. Faulhaber [Address by His Eminence the Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber], reprinted in: Die Reden gehalten in den öffentlichen und geschlossenen Versammlungen der 62. General-Versammlung der Katholiken Deutschlands zu München 27. bis 30. August 1922 (Würzburg: Fränkische Gesellschafts-Druckerei, 1923)
Aug. 27, 1922 Speech by Nuncio Pacelli at the 1922 German Catholic Congress:
It brings me the greatest joy and honor to be able to take part again in the General Assembly of the Catholics of Germany. I cannot refrain from thanking you sincerely for the warm reception and for the friendly words of greeting that the most honorable Herr President directed my way in your name.
With honest joy and satisfaction I have welcomed the fact that the Bavarian capital has been called this year, by the trust of German Catholics, to carry on the work of the forefathers in the old faithful Catholic spirit.
The special bonds that have attached me to Catholic Munich in the now more than five years of my activity here, the love and the reverence that have been offered here to the representative of the Holy See in such rich measure, make it for me - aside from all else - a joyfully exercised duty to appear today in your midst, in order thereby to proclaim to Catholic Munich and beyond to the entirety of Catholic Germany, with what active interest the Holy Father accompanies this splendid congress, and what importance he attributes to your deliberations and decisions.
In these difficult times of general deprivation, it does the fatherly heart of His Holiness unending happiness when he sees how the Catholics of Germany, despite all distress, work with unbroken courage for the religious-moral rebirth of the people, and how earnestly they are striving with all their strength to contributte to the achievement of the longed-for peace among the nations.
The Holy Father will be especially glad if I can report to him how united and resolute the German Catholics have been at this congress in the advocacy of their holy interests, how they, despite all differences of ethnicity and character, were of one heart and one soul after the model of the first Christians, and how they felt most ardently connected with the visible representative of Christ on earth. In an impressive way this has all been already brought to expression here today.
May the Lord God be close to your deliberations with the support of his supernatural grace. May the holy Mother of God, the “Patroness of Bavaria,” be for you a “Mother of Good Counsel”!
As a pledge of this heavenly support of grace, I impart to all of you in the name and in the particular charge of His Holiness, the gloriously reigning Pope Pius XI, with all my heart, the Apostolic Blessing.
Source: Ansprache des hohen Vertreters Sr. Heiligkeit des Papstes Nuntius Pacelli gehalten am 27. August 1922 gelegentlich des Begrüßungsabends [Address of the High Representative of His Holiness the Pope Nuncio Pacelli delivered on the 27th of August 1922 on the occasion of the greeting-evening], reprinted in: Die Reden gehalten in den öffentlichen und geschlossenen Versammlungen der 62. General-Versammlung der Katholiken Deutschlands zu München 27. bis 30. August 1922 (Würzburg: Fränkische Gesellschafts-Druckerei, 1923), pp. 11-12.
Aug. 28, 1922 Münchner Neueste Nachrichten [Munich Latest News], page 3, on Nuncio Pacelli’s Pontifical Mass and Cardinal Faulhaber’s sermon:
“The Catholic Congress”
The Papal Nuncio then celebrated the Pontifical Mass, and at its conclusion, no fewer than 129,000 voices rose up to the clear blue sky singing the Ambrosian praise song, Great God We Praise You!
A celebration of extraordinary energy was at an end.
“The Catholic Church and the State”
From the sermon of Cardinal von Faulhaber, there are some especially significant passages in which he spoke about Catholic doctrine in relation to the state. He said in that regard:
“Woe to the state that does not build its legal order and legislation on the foundation of God’s commandments, that creates a constitution without the name of God, that does not recognize the rights of parents in its school laws, that does not protect its people from diseased theater and cinema, that passes laws enabling divorce and protecting motherhood outside marriage. Where God’s commandments are not applied, 10,000 state laws will not suffice to maintain order. If the state’s laws are in contradiction of God’s laws, then the saying applies, God’s law trumps the state’s law.
“To be Catholic means to be of strong character on the basis of Christian doctrine, it means to have principles. Compromises are sometimes necessary in the interplay of oppositions, but principles are superior to all. The Revolution was ...”
Source: Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, Aug. 28, 1922, page 3.
Aug. 31, 1922 Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, page 2, on Konrad Adenauer’s response, as President of the Catholic Congress, to Cardinal Faulhaber:
Where there is much light, there will naturally also always be some shadows. Here and there during these events on the occasion of the Catholic Congress, there have been some words used that can be best explained in relation to concerns of a local nature, which the entirety of German Catholics, however, do not make their own without anything further. It is quite obvious that our unity in the evaluation and judgment of many things suffers from the heterogeneity of our judgments about governmental interactions of the present day. In governmental life it is necessary to have sound principles that are calmly considered, but equally necessary are deep and clear recognitions of matters and possibilities. Much appears different after days and years, once you have eventually gained a real remove in time. Until then it is good for all parties to keep peaceful and to place uppermost what is unifying; unity must be above everything else for us. That is necessary in the interest of Catholicism, and is also necessary in the interest of the German people. It has been repeatedly said here, and rightly so, what significance Catholicism has for the German people.
Note: The newspaper reported that Adenauer’s remarks met with some consternation [Befremden], while Cardinal Faulhaber’s remarks met with a jubilant reception [jubelnden Aufnahme]. The Munich Neueste Nachrichten, a secular newspaper with the largest circulation of any in Bavaria, contained no word of criticism or questioning of the Cardinal’s remarks.