The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia (7 page)

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the
one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one
and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and
Money.

Matt. 6:24

ne week after the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange
in October 1929, Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli was summoned to Rome from Berlin, where he had been serving as a papal
nuncio. Because of his valuable contributions to the forging of the
Lateran Treaty, he was awarded the red hat of a cardinal. Following
the ordination ceremony, the Holy See announced that the new cardinal would replace Cardinal Gasparri as the Vatican secretary of
state, the second most powerful position in the Catholic Church.

From the moment he took office, Pacelli became a key player in
German affairs and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Between 1928 and 1930
in Germany, membership in the National Socialist Party increased from 10 to 24.2 percent. The German Catholic bishops opposed the
rise of this "new paganism" by issuing the following prohibitions: (1)
Catholics were forbidden to join the Nazi Party and to attend Nazi
rallies; (2) Members of the Nazi Party could not receive the sacraments of the Church and were denied the right to a Catholic burial;
and (3) Nazis could not attend funerals or church services in group
formation. These prohibitions were supported by pronouncements
from the German Catholic Center Party and editorials in the Catholic
press.' The widely read Catholic weekly Der Gerade Weg (The
Straight Path) published the following statement: "National
Socialism means enmity with neighboring countries, despotism in
internal affairs, civil war, international war. National Socialism means
lies, hatred, fratricide, and unbounded misery. Adolf Hitler preaches
the law of lies. You have fallen victim to the deceptions of one
obsessed with despotism. Wake up!"'

Hitler realized the importance of establishing good relations with
the Vatican. In Mein Kampf he recalled that the German Catholics,
united under the Catholic Center Party, had defeated Bismarck's
Kulturkampf-the culture struggle against Catholicism in the 1870s.
Kulturkampf had erupted in response to Pius IX and the dogma of
papal infallibility. Under Kulturkampf religious instruction came
under state control; the Jesuits were banished; lay committees took
control of church property; and bishops and prelates who resisted the
new legislation were fined, imprisoned, and exiled. The policy
resulted only in solidifying Catholic opposition to Bismarck's
regime-an opposition that crystallized in the formation of the
Catholic Center Party.

In his prison cell while writing Mein Kampf, Hitler realized that
the Roman Catholic Church, if not placated, could destroy his dream
of a Third Reich. "Political parties," he wrote, "have nothing to do
with religious problems, as long as these are not alien to the nation,
undermining the morals and ethics of the race; just as religion cannot
be amalgamated with the scheming of political parties."3 In 1927
Hitler declared that all negative statements about religion were forbidden for tactical reasons and that the National Socialists should not
be drawn into a new Kulturkampf.

Cardinal Pacelli, too, was anxious for a rapprochement with
Hitler. He realized that a right-wing government in Germany would
stand as a bulwark against the spread of Communism; that Church
property in Germany must be protected; and that such a union could
lead to a financially beneficial concordat, similar to the agreement
with Mussolini.

During his many years as papal nuncio in Germany, Pacelli developed a close relationship with Ludwig Kaas, a priest and representative of the Catholic Center Party to the Reichstag. Through Pacelli's
intervention, Father Kaas was elevated to the clerical rank of monsignor and became chairman of the Catholic Center Party. Mother
Pasqualina, Pacelli's housekeeper, later said that the two men were
"extremely close"; that Kaas regularly accompanied Pacelli on vacation; and that the party leader was linked to the Cardinal in "adoration, honest love, and unconditional loyalty."4

In 1930, through arrangements with Kaas, Pacelli met with Heinrich Bruning, a prominent member of the Catholic Center Party who
had been elected chancellor of the fragile, new German government
that had been formed by a coalition between the Socialists and
Catholics. During the meeting in the Vatican, Pacelli lectured Bruning
on the virtue of granting Adolf Hitler a prominent place in the cabinet to pave the way for a concordat between the government and the
Holy See. Hitler, after all, had been born and raised as a Catholic, had
attended monastery school, and had even expressed his desire to
become a priest. When Bruning balked at the suggestion, Pacelli fell
into a temper tantrum, insisting that if Bruning failed to cooperate,
Kaas would have to resign as president of the Catholic Center Party,
leaving the new chancellor without key political support. Before
taking leave of Pacelli, Bruning expressed his hope that "the Vatican
would fare better at the hands of Hitler than with himself, a devout
Catholic."s Bruning, after all, had devoted his life to fostering support
for the Catholic Center Party and other Catholic causes.

More pressure was applied to the Catholic Center Party to come
to terms with the Nazis. In 1932 Bruning was replaced as chancellor
by Franz Von Papen, a distinguished papal knight and leading
member of the Center Party.

At the urgings of Kaas, Von Papen persuaded German President
Paul von Hindenburg-who looked upon the Nazis with complete
disdain-to call upon Hitler for the creation of a new cabinet. Hindenburg reluctantly consented and on January 30, 1933, Hitler
became the new chancellor of Germany. His first act was to name Von
Papen the new vice chancellor. The Nazis, thanks to the clandestine
workings of the Vatican, had gained control of the government.

But Hitler could not wield absolute power without the passage of
an Enabling Act. This special legislation required approval by twothirds of the Reichstag. Since the Socialists remained in opposition to
the National Socialists, Hitler needed the solid support of the
Catholic Center Party.

Hitler and Cardinal Pacelli reached a working agreement. Pacelli
would use his influence to gain Catholic support for the Enabling
Act. Upon receiving such support, Hitler would sign a favorable concordat with Rome. Monsignor Kaas, at Pacelli's urgings, began to
lobby for support of the Enabling Act among members of the
Catholic party. He informed his constituents that Hitler's pledge to
sign a concordat with the Vatican represented "the greatest success
that had been achieved in any country for the last ten years."6

The Enabling Act received the full support of the Catholic Center
Party and on March 24, 1933, passed into legislation. Two days later
the Protestant churches throughout Germany formally acknowledged
their acceptance of Hitler and his regime. On March 26 the German
Catholic bishops, who had earlier condemned the tenets of National
Socialism, now offered a statement of submission before the Third
Reich that said: "Without revoking the judgment made in our previous declarations in respect to certain religious-ethical errors, the
episcopate believes it can cherish the confidence that the designated
general prohibitions and warnings need no longer be considered. For
Catholic Christians, to whom the voice of the Church is sacred, it is
not necessary at the present moment to make special admonition to
be loyal to the lawful government and to fulfill conscientiously the
duties of citizenship, rejecting on principle all illegal or subversive
behavior." The Nazi press accepted this statement, despite its ambiguity, as a ringing endorsement of Hitler's policies. In keeping with the conciliatory pronouncement of the bishops, Catholics were now
permitted to become full-fledged Nazis, and Nazis, even when
appearing as a group in full uniform, were admitted to the sacraments.

One week later Kaas, in an editorial in the Catholic press, said
that Germany was in a process of evolution that required the relinquishment of the "undeniably excessive formal freedoms" of the
Weimar Republic for the creation of a strong and secure state. The
Catholic Center Party, he wrote, had been compelled to cooperate in
this process not only as faithful members of the Church but also as
"sowers of the future."s

In response to such displays of support and goodwill, Hitler presented the Vatican with terms of a concordat that exceeded Pacelli's
greatest expectations. The agreement, as finalized on July 1, 1933,
stipulated that all German Catholics would be bound to the new
code of canon law; that Catholic social work would receive state support; and that criticism of Catholic doctrine would be prohibited in
schools and public forums. In addition, it offered the Church untold
riches in the form of a Kirchensteuer or "church tax" that would be
levied on all practicing Catholics in Germany.9 This would prove to
be the source of billions in revenue. Unlike the church tax of the past,
this tax would be deducted from paychecks in the same manner as a
state tax at the established rate of 9 percent of the gross salaries. This
enormous boon would produce wealth for the Holy See far in excess
of the investments of Nogara, even with his financial brilliance. The
Kirchensteuer, combined with the donation of Mussolini, would
solidify the Vatican's political and economic base so that Cardinal
Pacelli, when he became Pius XII, would come to wield more power
than Innocent III at the height of papal glory from 1198 to 1226.

With such gracious terms came additional demands. The representatives of the Catholic Center Party were obliged by Hitler to
commit political hari-kari by the self-imposed dissolution of their
political party to make way for the rise of the Third Reich. The order
for dissolution came in the form of a semiofficial statement from
Pacelli that said: "The determination of Chancellor Hitler to eliminate the Catholic Party coincides with the Vatican's desire to disinterest itself from political parties and confine the activities of Catholics to the Catholic Action Organization outside any political
party." After telling the representatives of the Center Party to resign,
Pacelli proceeded to instruct them to be loyal Catholics by being
loyal to the Nazi party:

On account of the exclusion of Catholics as a political party from the
public life of Germany, it is all the more necessary that Catholics,
deprived of diplomatic representation, should find in the diplomatic
pacts between the Holy See and the National Socialist Government
guarantees which can assure them ... the maintenance of their position in the life of the nation. This necessity is felt by the Holy See
and is a grave responsibility before the German Catholics.'0

Der Fuhrer added another stipulation to the concordat to which the
Holy See agreed. In accordance with article 16, Catholic bishops
throughout Germany were obliged to take the following oath before
the Reichsstatthalter (the flag of the Third Reich): "I swear before
God and upon the Holy Gospels and promise, as becomes a bishop,
to be loyal to the German Reich and the State. I swear and promise
to respect the constitutional government and to have it respected by
my clergy.""

In a meeting with his cabinet on July 11, 1933, Hiltler outlined
the "three great advantages" of the concordat for the Reich. These
advantages were recorded in the minutes of the meeting as follows:

1. That the Vatican had negotiated at all, while they operated,
especially in Austria, on the assumption that National Socialism
was un-Christian and inimical to the Church;

2. That the Vatican could be persuaded to bring about a good relationship with this purely National German State. He, the Reich
Chancellor, would not have considered it possible even a short
time ago that the Church would be willing to obligate the
bishops to this State. The fact that this had now been done was
certainly an unreserved recognition of the present regime;

3. That with the Concordat, the Church withdrew from activity in
associations and parties, e. g., also abandoned the Christian
labor unions. This, too, the Reich Chancellor would not have considered possible even a few short months ago. Even the dissolution of the Center Party could be termed final only with the
conclusion of the Concordat, now that the Vatican had ordered
the permanent exclusion of the priests from party politics.12

At the conclusion of the cabinet meeting, Hitler noted that the concordat had created an atmosphere of trust and support for the Third
Reich that would be of great significance "in the urgent fight against
international Jews."13

The concordat was formally signed in the Secretariat of State on
July 20, 1933. Von Papen signed for the German government; Cardinal Pacelli for the Vatican. After the ceremony, gifts were
exchanged. Pacelli received a Meissen Madonna, Von Papen a papal
metal, and the Holy See a gift of 25,000 lire from the German
Embassy in Rome.