Pacelli reports great controversy in Germany about the establishment of a Nunciature in Berlin, and recommends the Vatican proceed in this regard with “maximum circumspection and prudence.” - June 3, 1920
Source: Timeline
June 3, 1920 Pacelli reports great controversy in Germany about the establishment of a Nunciature in Berlin, and recommends the Vatican proceed in this regard with “maximum circumspection and prudence.”
Italian original at online Pacelli-Edition - English translation
June 3, 1920 Pacelli to Gasparri:
Most Reverend Eminence,
As was easily predictable, while the German Government and Catholics have greeted with satisfaction the establishment of an Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin, the parties of the right, on the other hand, composed above all of conservative Protestants (many of them adherents of the infamous Protestant League), have lost no time in opening fire against it, and their newspapers, for example the Dresden Anzeiger and the Reichsbote, have denounced the danger of an augmentation of Catholic power. Now then, according to what is read in issue No. 394 of the Frankfurter Zeitung of June 1st, the broadsheets of the right are reporting that “a conference took place on Sunday in Berlin of representatives of the German Anti-Ultramontane Union (the Antiultramontaner Reichsverband) - connected to these same parties. The discussion concerned the necessity of intensifying the struggle against Ultramontanism and the Center Party with regard to the new Reichstag and the establishment of the Nunciature in Berlin. It was also decided to publish a special periodical to this end.”
All of this shows all the more how delicate and difficult the situation of the future Nunciature in the Capital will be, and how worthwhile it will be, in my humble opinion, to proceed with maximum circumspection and prudence...
Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 1133