Mit brennender Sorge — 1937 papal encyclical condemning fascism and antisemitism in Germany
The first papal encyclical written in German, it publicly challenged Nazi ideology and defended Catholic rights under the 1933 Reichskonkordat.
Key Facts
- Author
- Pope Pius XI
- Date issued
- 10 March 1937 (dated 14 March 1937)
- Date read from pulpits
- Palm Sunday, 21 March 1937
- Copies distributed
- Over 300,000
- Language
- German (not the usual Latin)
- Gestapo response
- Churches raided next day; printing presses closed
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following the signing of the 1933 Reichskonkordat between the Holy See and Nazi Germany, the Nazi regime systematically violated its terms, promoted racial ideology, neopaganism, and the idolizing of the state, while harassing Catholic institutions. Pope Pius XI sought to formally rebuke these breaches and defend Church rights and Christian doctrine against National Socialist encroachment.
On 10 March 1937, Pope Pius XI issued Mit brennender Sorge, an encyclical written in German and secretly smuggled into Germany to evade censorship. On Palm Sunday, 21 March, priests read it aloud from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches simultaneously. The document condemned racial ideology, neopaganism, breaches of the Reichskonkordat, and the subordination of human rights to the state, while defending the Old Testament.
The Gestapo raided churches the following day to confiscate copies and shut down the printing presses involved. The Nazi regime intensified its anti-church campaign from April onward, prosecuting monks in staged trials and further restricting Church activities. While a feared mass reprisal did not occur and the concordat remained nominally in force, relations between the Holy See and Nazi Germany deteriorated markedly.