A New Kulturkampf There have been persistent rumours that the
culmination of the anti-semitic campaign in Germany would be the prelude to an equally bitter attack on the Catholic Church. This week the Vatican has published details of the decrees which are reported to be ready for publication in Germany. The 1933 concordat is to be disavowed. Ecclesiastical correspondence and public declarations will be censored by the Ministry for Church Affairs. Religious propaganda will be forbidden. Religious orders will be suppressed, and their property confiscated, if any member is found guilty of immorality. They will be reorganised on a uniform pattern by the Government and their estates and bank accounts controlled by the Church Ministry. German citizens will be forbidden to contribute to religious funds and priests to baptise non-Aryans. Such decrees would threaten the very existence of the Church in Germany ; and the Vatican is preparing a White Book on the dangers by which it is threatened. Many may doubt whether Herr Hitler will bring himself to open this Kulturkampf on an unexampled scale ; yet spiritually and economically the internal development of National Socialism demands the subjugation of the Church.
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