Michael von Faulhaber
Michael von Faulhaber was a German Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Munich and Freising for 35 years, from 1917 to his death in 1952. Created a cardinal in 1921, von Faulhaber remained an outspoken monarchist and denounced the Weimar Republic as rooted in "perjury and treason" against the German Empire during a speech at the 62nd German Catholics' Day of 1922. Cardinal von Faulhaber was a senior member and co-founder of the Amici Israel, a priestly association founded in Rome in 1926 with the goal of working toward the Jewish people's conversion to Christianity, while also seeking to combat antisemitism within the church. His legacy is complicated, having encouraged the German clergy's submission to the Nazi takeover, and acted as a vocal opponent of German democracy, while occasionally voicing opposition to certain actions of the Nazis. His advocacy for Jewish-Catholic reconciliation also grounded itself in a desire for Jews to convert to Catholicism.
After the Nazi Party seized control of the German government in 1933, von Faulhaber recognized the new Nazi government as legitimate, required Catholic clergy to be loyal to the government and maintained diplomatic bridges between the regime and the church, while simultaneously condemning certain Nazi policies, including religious persecution of members of the clergy, and actively supporting anti-Nazi German Catholics such as Fritz Gerlich and other persecuted persons. In 1937, von Faulhaber was involved in drafting the anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. Von Faulhaber ordained Joseph Ratzinger as a priest in 1951 and was the last surviving cardinal appointed by Pope Benedict XV.
Life until after the First World War
Michael Faulhaber was born in Klosterheidenfeld, Bavaria, the third of seven children of the baker Michael Faulhaber and his wife Margarete. He was educated at gymnasiums in Schweinfurt and Würzburg. In 1887-88 he was an officer cadet in the Bavarian army. In 1889 he entered the Kilianeum Seminary in Würzburg and was ordained on 1 August 1892. Faulhaber was a priest in Würzburg from 1892 until 1910, serving there for six years. His studies included a specialisation in the early Christian writer Tertullian. In 1895 he graduated from his studies with a doctorate in theology. From 1894 to 1896, he was prefect of the Kilianeum Seminary. From 1896 to 1899, he was engaged in studying manuscripts at the Vatican and other Italian museums. From 1899 to 1903, he was privatdocent in Greek paleography, Biblical archaeology, homiletics, and exegesis of the Psalms, at the University of Würzburg. In 1900 he visited England to study manuscripts of early Christian literature, spending one semester at Oxford. In 1902 he visited Spain for a similar purpose. In 1903 he became professor of theology at the University of Strasbourg. He also wrote a number of articles for the Catholic Encyclopedia.In 1910, Faulhaber was appointed Bishop of Speyer and invested as such on 19 February 1911. On 1 March 1913, he was appointed a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown by Prince Regent Ludwig; in accordance with the statutes of this order, Faulhaber was ennobled with the style of "Ritter von Faulhaber". In 1916 he won the Iron Cross at the Western Front for his frontline support of troops by acting as a military chaplain. In 1917, his appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising followed. In 1921 he became a cardinal, with the title of Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Anastasia, and at his death was the last surviving cardinal appointed by Pope Benedict XV.
Faulhaber felt little allegiance to the Weimar Republic. At the national Catholic conference of 1922 in Munich, he declared that the Weimar Republic was a "perjury and betrayal" because it had arrived through the overthrow of the legitimate civil authorities, the German royal houses, and had included in its constitution the separation of church and state. The declaration disturbed Catholics who were committed to the Weimar Republic, but von Faulhaber had already praised the German Empire a few months earlier during the Requiem Mass of the last King of Bavaria, Ludwig III.
Faulhaber publicised, and supported by creating an institutional link for the association, the work of Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel. He supported the group by distributing its writings, saying "We must ensure wide distribution of the writings of the Amici Israel" and admonishing preachers to steer clear of any statements that "might sound in any way anti-Semitic" – this even though, "he himself was somewhat tainted by anti-Semitic stereotypes that placed Jews in the same category as Freemasons and Socialists". Faulhaber was friends with the group's promoter, Sophie Francisca van Leer; its special aim was to seek changes to the Good Friday prayer and some of its Latin phrases such as pro perfidis Judaeis and judaicam perfidiam and sought the cessation of the deicide accusation against Jews. It was dissolved in March 1928 on the decree of the Vatican's Congregation of the Holy Office on the grounds that its perspectives were not in keeping with the spirit of the church.
Faulhaber and the Nazi Party
Rise of the Nazi Party
Faulhaber helped persuade Gustav von Kahr not to support Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch. Its supporters turned against Faulhaber, who had denounced the Nazis in letters to Gustav Stresemann and Bavaria's Heinrich Held and blamed him for its failure; protests followed against Faulhaber, as well as the Pope, for an entire weekend.In 1923, Faulhaber declared in a sermon that every human life was precious, including that of a Jew. When the nuncio wrote to Rome in 1923 complaining about the persecution of Catholics, he commented that "The attacks were especially focused on this learned and zealous" Faulhaber, who in his sermon and correspondence "had denounced the persecutions against the Jews".
In February 1924, Faulhaber spoke of Hitler and his movement to a meeting of Catholic students and academicians in Munich. He spoke of the "originally pure spring" that had been "poisoned by later tributaries and by Kulturkampf". But Hitler, he asserted, knew better than his minions, and that the resurrection of Germany would require the help of Christianity.
During the run up to the elections of March 1933, Faulhaber, unlike several other bishops who endorsed the Centre party, refrained from any comment in his pastoral letter issued on 10 February. The book of a Catholic author issued later in the year attributed the losses incurred by the Bavarian People's Party to the neutral position adopted by Faulhaber by asking "Had the Cardinal not indirectly pointed out the path to be followed in the future?"
On 1 April 1933, the government supported a nationwide boycott of all Jewish stores and businesses. German bishops discussed possible responses against these measures but Faulhaber was of the opinion it would only make matters worse. In the days preceding the boycott Cardinal Bertram asked for the opinion of brother bishops on whether the Church should protest. Faulhaber telegrammed Bertram that any such protest would be hopeless. After the 1 April 1933 boycott of Jewish-owned-and-operated stores Cardinal Pacelli received a letter from Faulhaber explaining why the Church would not intervene to protect Jews: "This is not possible at this time because the struggle against the Jews would at the same time become a struggle against Catholics and because the Jews can help themselves as the sudden end of the boycott shows". To Father Alois Wurm who asked why the Church did not condemn racist persecution in straightforward terms Faulhaber responded that the German episcopacy was "concerned with questions about Catholic schools, organizations, and sterilization which are more important for the Church in Germany than the Jews; the Jews can help themselves, why should the Jews expect help from the Church?" According to Saul Friedländer, "The 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses was the first major test on a national scale of the attitude of the Christian churches toward the situation of the Jews under the new government. In historian Klaus Scholder's words, during the decisive days around the first of April, no bishop, no church dignitaries, no synod made any open declaration against the persecution of the Jews in Germany".
Advent sermons
During Advent 1933, Faulhaber preached five sermons that Scholder describes as "being not directed against the practical, political anti-Semitism of the time, but against its principle, the racial anti-Semitism that was attempting to enter the Church". The sermons were given in St. Michael's, the largest church in Munich, though crowds were so great that both the neighbouring churches, the Studienkirche and Bürgersaal, had to be connected by loudspeakers.Article 24 of the National Socialist program decried the Old Testament as offensive to moral values. Faulhaber was a former professor of the Old Testament at Strasbourg. In the sermons Faulhaber declared that he could not remain silent against attacks on, "the sacred books of the Old Testament hen racial research, in itself not a religious matter, attacks the foundations of Christianity". In Faulhaber defended the Old Testament against Nazi antisemitic readings, especially those advanced by Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg.
Saul Friedländer notes that Faulhaber himself later stressed he was not in these sermons "commentating on contemporary aspects of the Jewish issue". Friedländer notes that these sermons employed some of the more common stereotypical depictions of traditional religious antisemitism: "The daughters of Zion received their bill of divorce and from that time forth, Ahasuerus wanders, forever restless, over the face of the earth."
In his 17 December Advent sermon, Faulhaber spoke to the "People of Israel" about the "Old Testament" and declared "This treasure did not grow in your own garden... this condemnation of usurious land-grabbing; this war against the oppression of the farmer by debt, this prohibition of usury, is certainly not the product of your spirit!".
He admonished, "God always punishes the tormentors of his Chosen People, the Jews." He also noted: "No Roman Catholic approves of the persecutions of Jews in Germany". His praise for the Jewish people for having "exhibited the noblest religious values", comforted some and outraged others. The packed sermons had been attended by both Protestants and Jews, as well as Catholics, and "Munich rabbi Leo Baerwald was encouraged by the sermons, even though the cardinal had neither commented on Nazi antisemitism nor broken with the ancient Christian idea of a curse on the Jewish people".
Faulhaber's sermons were published week by week during Advent by A. Huber, Munich. The book of sermons was subsequently banned by the Nazis.