Cardinal Faulhaber writes Nuncio Pacelli stating (again only privately) that he intended only to condemn the Revolution of 1918, not the Weimar Republic - Oct. 19, 1922
Source: Timeline
Oct. 19, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber writes Nuncio Pacelli stating (again only privately) that he intended only to condemn the Revolution of 1918, not the Weimar Republic.
Italian original at www.Pacelli-Edition.de and English translation
Sept. 19, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s letter to the Bavarian Ambassador to the Vatican, Baron von Ritter zu Groenestyn:
Honorable Herr Baron!
Since I have the opportunity to hurry a letter to Rome via the Mother Superior of the Via Nomentana, I am taking the liberty of sending Your Excellency a confidential report about some details of the Catholic Congress. Attendance was extraordinarily strong, and from other countries, especially on account of Oberammergau [Passion Play in 1922], was much stronger than before. The weather was splendid in these four days of August 27-30 ...
From the beginning onward I sought to give the Catholic Congress a foundational theme: faithfulness to Catholic principles, return to the principles of the Catholic order of life and society. The previous year’s Catholic Congress in Frankfurt had the foundational theme: People’s Spirit of Community – a beautiful and empowering theme for Frankfurt’s environment; the Munich Catholic Congress in a more Catholic atmosphere could dare to take up the far more difficult theme: Faithfulness to Catholic principles. To the extent that it occasioned a little examination of conscience for Center Party and other politicians, it could not hurt, and if outsiders learned thereby that a policy which opens the back doors to Germany for Bolshevism no longer is compatible with the principles of a Catholic statesman, then this insight could only be an advantage. And if consciences were awoken somewhat to the recognition that for the upcoming School Law and Concordat, a policy of compromise must also for once have a limit, then again that could not hurt. I expressly said that compromises may be unavoidable based on reality, but superior to all compromises there must be firm principles.
Sunday [August 27th], as the first day, and for foreign attendees the only day, made an indescribably deep impression on everyone. Early on the Königsplatz, at 10 o’clock under a white-blue heaven, a hundred thousand people gathered around the altar, a group from the Tyrol lugged the big cross from the Bergisel [in Austria] in procession, and the students marching in brought many to tears. On Sunday afternoon the separate gatherings for the innumerable foreign guests took place, and Sunday evening the first public greeting assembly. On this occasion Lord Apostolic Nuncio Pacelli spoke in the great hall of the court of the Residenz in flawless German that was easily understandable, and carried along everyone to enthusiastic homage to the Holy Father. Count Lerchenfeld also put before the whole world a resolute confession with the theme, ‘Bavarian culture is Catholic in its roots,’ and left a deep impression by the distinguished bearing and poetry of his lecture. The President of the Catholic Congress, Mayor Adenauer of Cologne, indeed at that point really introduced a little noticed tactlessness with the remark that Bavarians are only half as bad as they say of them in the Rhineland.
Monarchical statements were carefully avoided by us. When Count Lerchenfeld unintentionally made one passing reference to the hereditary royal house, a storm of applause and standing ovation let loose, which could hardly be restrained. It was an easy thing to unleash storms of applause with a mere mention of the royal family. Crown Prince Rupprecht, after the mass on the Königsplatz, was accompanied to his car by loud cries, but intentionally stayed away from all other ceremonies and also did not come to the students’ evening festivities, which he had already turned down, in order not to occasion on his part a monarchistic ovation. On this occasion Catholics from the North and from the South saw how much more deeply rooted the Bavarian royal family is with the people than the House of Hohenzollern is with the Prussians. It is really quite a difference, when a bridge or a museum is named after the Hohenzollerns, or when the hereditary castle of the Wittelsbachs is turned into a Benedictine monastery and a Wittelsbach gives the people a new Feast of the Patroness of Bavaria [in 1916 by recommendation of King Ludwig III to the Vatican], just as another Wittelsbach had already done 300 years before [in 1623 during the Thirty Years War when the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I, placed Bavaria under the patronage of Mary Mother of God].
The concluding assembly on Wednesday, after everything had transpired in beautiful accord, brought a sad dénouement. In his concluding speech President Adenauer ventured into the purely political realm and sought to justify the republican standpoint of the Center Party. The Revolution, he said, had grown organically, like everything in the world, the hereditary trees of the princely houses, uprooted in the storm, had become shriveled up, and German Catholicism – just this expression shows his unclear thinking – was now cast upon the German Fatherland. Then he announced for another day the preaching of a religious order priest from Cologne, without knowing that preaching in Munich must receive the prior approval of the local Bishop. Another day he had some explanations given to me which somewhat alleviated the misimpression, but did not completely remove it.
Concerning my sermon on the Königsplatz about catechism of Catholic doctrine, and concerning my speech at the last public assembly about the Church as the great power of peace, many misinterpretations have been published. I branded the Revolution as a wrong against the Fourth Commandment of God and also demanded that governmental legislation be measured by the Commandments of God. I did not thereby condemn the Weimar Constitution and the republican form of government in themselves; for a constitution can lawfully come into existence, without the preceding Revolution being legitimized. A child born out of wedlock can be legitimized without single motherhood thereby receiving justification for itself. I had to attribute this moral characteristic to the Revolution, because on the one hand, the left wants to sanctify the Revolution of 1918, and on the other hand, the right wants to play with revolutionary ideas yet today. Now the Independent Socialists and the Communists have presented a motion to have the government initiate proceedings under the new Protection Law against my slandering of the republican form of government and to have them establish the precise words of my speech (to be sure, this last should have been demanded in the first place).
The Reich Chancellor has also announced that he will soon take a public position against the Catholic Congress in Munich. With the Reich Chancellor, anyway, I recently had a debate by letter, because we in Munich did not want his participation, considering that at the previous Catholic Congress in Frankfurt he threw a political hand grenade into the assembly and took the field in an unheard of manner against Bavaria at the Augustinian Association. It is deeply deplorable how far removed Reich Chancellor Wirth is from the basic conduct of a statesman standing above the parties. Thus, a few days ago he took an article from the Ingolstadt newspaper, which apparently the diocesan Bishop had not even read there, and copied it in the Reich Chancery and had it sent to all the German Bishops to show how they are inciting against him in Bavaria. Since it is possible that they would try to involve the Holy Father in this dispute, today I wrote His Excellency Pizzardo a lengthy report about this undercurrent and the after-echoes of the Catholic Congress. I was all the more occasioned to do this after Archbishop Pizzardo, at the instance of the Holy Father, expressed through the Lord Nuncio in highest words the acknowledgement of his satisfaction and agreement with my speech. The explanation that I delivered to the Bavarian Bishops Conference in Freising about the Catholic Congress met there also with the full agreement of Lord Cardinal Schulte of Cologne, who took part this year, in place of Cardinal Bertram, in our Freising deliberations. Moreover I received emphatically from all sides, even from Protestants, enthusiastic agreement.
The Concordat negotiations are unfortunately still not yet concluded; however, they have entered into their final phase, especially since the recent statements from the Rome Cardinals’ Commission. The overall situation in Bavaria is not unfavorable for these negotiations. The situation in the Reich is, to be sure, highly strained. Beginning in October the entirety of the left-wing parties will form a left-wing bloc with 180 votes in the Reichstag, against which there are only 67 Center Party votes...
Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 1352, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol. 1, pp. 281-284.
On October 19, 1922, Cardinal Faulhaber wrote the following letter to Nuncio Pacelli explaining once again his position, in similar terms, but more concisely:
Your Excellency, Most Reverend Lord Apostolic Nuncio!
The phrase in question from my Catholic Congress speech, whose meaning the “Correis de Manha” of September 14 distorts, did not intend to give a moral commentary on the republican form of government but only on the German Revolution. The phrase went: “The Revolution of 1918 was perjury and high treason and remains for all time branded with the mark of Cain.” The context of this was my speech about the Ten Commandments of God (of the precepts of the Church I was not speaking on this occasion) as the necessary foundation not merely of the private order of life, but also for the public ordering of society, and as an example of the Fourth Commandment of God the above-mentioned phrase was spoken. Of republic or monarchy or other form of government, no word was spoken. A constitution or republic can, despite the preceding bad revolution, be good and lawful, if it came into existence for the common good and as the will of the people – to speak about that was in line with my topic – but the Revolution of 1918 is and remains a crime against the Fourth Commandment. Thus it was only the instigators of the German Revolution whom I branded as perjurers, not those who stand today in good faith on the ground of the republican form of government. L’Osservatore Romano gave the accurate text.
With regret that Your Excellency must trouble himself with this matter alongside your many other official labors, and with the expression of most reverential sentiment and deepest respect,
Your Excellency’s most devoted servant,
M. Cardinal Faulhaber
Archbishop of Munich
Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 3503, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol.1, pp. 289-290.