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17 Dec. 45 decree that in the future Party members who enter the clergy or who turn to the study of theology have to leave the Party." In this directive Bormann also refers to an earlier decree, dated 9 February 1939, in which he had ruled that the admission of members of the clergy into the Party was to be avoided. In this decree, also, Bormann refers with approval to a regulation of the Reich Treasurer of the Party, dated 10 May 1939, providing that "clergymen as well as other fellow Germans who are also closely connected with the Church cannot be admitted into the Party." I now offer in evidence Document 3268-PS, Exhibit Number USA-356, which contains excerpts from the Allocution of His Holiness Pope Pius XII to the Sacred College, June 2d, 1945. In this address His Holiness, after declaring that he had acquired an appreciation of the great qualities of the German people in the course of 12 years of residence in their midst, expressed the hope that Germany could "rise to new dignity and a new life once it has laid the satanic specter raised by National Socialism and the guilty have expiated the crimes they have committed." After referring to repeated violations by the German Government of the Concordat concluded in 1933, His Holiness declared; and I quote from the last paragraph of Page 1 of the English translation of Document 3268-PS: "The struggle against the Church did, in fact, become ever more bitter; there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and Church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens, and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely- organized propaganda, of the Church, the clergy, the faithful, the Church's institutions, teachings, and history; the closing, dissolution, confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last modified: October 10, 1998
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