A Church Dictator in Germany The crisis in the relations
between the State and the Protestant Confessional Synod in Germany foreshadowed in these columns last week has developed as expected, but news reaching this country is still scanty. The Synod passed several resolutions, each of which con- stituted a challenge to the Minister for Church Affairs, calling on its banished pastors to return to their duties, re-affirming the duty of pastors to baptize .1-cm's and refusing submission to the order which gave the State financial control over the churches. The reply of Herr Kerrl, the Minister for Church Affairs, was to produce a decree signed by Herr Hitler authorising Herr Kerrl himself to issue ordinances with binding legal force in the sphere of Church affairs. Herr Kerrl is, in other words, made a dictator over the churches. Reich Bishop Midler, whose orders have repeatedly been declared unconstitutional by the courts, has long been a nonentity. It remains to be seen how Herr Kerrl will exercise his new authority, but that the conflict between Church and State will be intensified rather than abated seems in- evitable. And it is not to be taken for granted that the ultimate victory will be with the State. That may depend to some extent on how the other conflict between the State and the Roman Catholic Church develops. The bold proclamation read from Roman Catholic pulpits a month ago has as yet produced no riposte.
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