Aha! But what about the secret supplement, eh? In fact, the "Secret Supplement" to the Reichskonkordat shows nothing extraordinary.

One absurd website calling itself “No beliefs” (which says it all, folks, does it not?) claims that the Concordat includes a Secret Supplement and “naturally, this is omitted on Catholic sites”.

Well, Messrs “No Beliefs” you are lying again (so what’s new? Ho, hum…).

Here is yet another “Catholic site” that is more than happy to put the "Secret Supplement" onto site for all to see.

“No Beliefs” claims that it shows that “by 1933 the Vatican knew that Hitler was going to re-arm in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, and wanted to help him keep it secret”.

It shows no such thing.

Here’s what it says:

“Secret Supplement

In case of a change in the present German armed forces in the sense of the introduction of universal conscription, the induction of priests and other members of the regular clergy and the orders into military service will, with the understanding of the Holy See, be arranged within the framework of approximately the following guiding ideas:

a) Students of philosophy and theology at Church institutions who are preparing themselves for the priesthood are to be freed from military service and the preparatory drills for it, except in the case of a general mobilisation.

b) In the case of a general mobilization clerics who are employed in the diocese administration or the military chaplaincy are freed from reporting for duty. This applies to ordinaries, members of the ordinariate, provosts of seminaries and Church residences for seminarians, professors at the seminaries, parish priests, curates, rectors, coadjutors and the clerics who provide a church with worship services on a continuing basis.

c) The remaining clerics, insofar as they are considered suitable, are to join the armed forces of the state in order to devote themselves to pastoral care for the troops under the Church jurisdiction of the military bishops, if they are not inducted into the medical unit.

d) The remaining clergy in sacris or members of orders, who are not yet priests are to be assigned to the medical unit. The same shall apply when possible to the candidates for the priesthood mentioned in a) who have not yet taken their final vows.”

The "Big Four" who forced the Treaty of Versailles through so as to penalise Germany so harshly as to prepare the way for the next war and the rise of Nazism.

The operative words are “in case of a change in the present German armed forces in the sense of the introduction of universal conscription”.

These vague and generic words make provision for an eventuality which is by no means ruled out by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, even given that the Versailles Treaty was very unjust and a recipe for another war, and even given that a future re-negotiation of terms was highly likely, in any event, given the Western powers concern over the growth of Soviet Russia.

Here are the relevant extracts from the Treaty of Versailles:

“Article 159. The German military forces shall be demobilised and reduced as prescribed hereinafter.

Article 160. By a date which must not be later than 31 March1920, the German Army must not comprise more than seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry.

After that date the total number of effective regular personnel in the Army of the States constituting Germany must not exceed 100,000 men, including officers and establishments of depots. The Army shall be devoted exclusively to the maintenance of order within the territory and to the control of the frontiers.

The total effective strength of officers, including the personnel of staffs, whatever their composition, must not exceed 4,000....”

How and where does this prevent “universal conscription”?

Universal conscription simply means that everybody becomes potentially liable for military service but not necessarily all at once or necessarily so as to exceed the limit of 100,000 men.

Once clergy were in danger of becoming liable to conscription then it became necessary for the Church to negotiate over how clergy were to be so conscripted and what they could be conscripted to do.

There is the simple reality of it!

No Catholic website has anything to cover up or conceal.

“No Beliefs”, like so many other atheists and enemies of the Church, however, does not scruple to lie and distort and resort to any feeble dishonesty merely to further its aim of attacking the Church.

Pathetic.

These liars do not stop there but further claim that:

(1) Perhaps “the Vatican” (who he?) was even hoping for this eventuality, since Pius IX “supported any policy or any man who would oppose and fight Soviet Russia”.[1]

(2) Cardinal Faulhaber, who helped negotiate the concordat with Hitler (and who ordained the present pope), assessed its international impact in a 1937 sermon:

"At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government."[2]

The 2 sources for these statements are these:

[1] Avro Manhattan, “Chapter 10: Germany, the Vatican and Hitler”, The Vatican in World Politics, London, 1949.

[2] Guenter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany.

The first provides not one jot of evidence for its statement and it is meant to refer to Cardinal Pacelli NOT Pope Pius IX, as “No belief” wrongly states (they cannot even misquote accurately!).

It is pure opinion and that expressed in an amazing rant by Avro Manhattan who variously and contradictorily takes the Catholic Centre Party for daring to oppose Bismarck and the Falk laws that imprisoned Catholic archbishops who would not kowtow to the state but also for cosying up to the oppressive Bismarckian regime – flatly contradicting itself all in one article!

That’s not all.

He then takes them to task for not favouring the Liberals – and the supposedly “liberal” laws of Bismarck - and for denouncing rapacious Capitalism whilst at the same time he blames them for being hostile to Communism!

You never saw such a farrago of contradictions!

In essence, the author is opposed to the Catholic Church because he is opposed to the Catholic Church. That is the sum total of this dunderhead’s logic.

This is the work which “No Beliefs” quotes as a source for its completely unsupported claim.

Pah!

What about the Faulhaber quote?

Well, to start with, there is no page or chapter reference for this plainly controversial quote. In fact, another author claims it is at page 20. But page 20 of the copy of Lewy’s1964 book which I was able to access, gives no reference for the alleged quote from Faulhaber’s alleged sermon.

This becomes second-hearsay only and with no authoritative reference.

Moreover Lewy’s book is a ranting diatribe against the Church which carefully omits mountains of evidence in the Church’s favour.

This is what “No Beliefs” puts forward as serious research!

Pathetic.

And this, folks, is the so-called "evidence" against men like Pope Pius XII and against the Catholic Church!

Truly pathetic.


...