RELIGIOUS QUARRELS

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 361, 16 February 1937, Page 6

RELIGIOUS QUARRELS

NAZIS AND CHURCHES.

DESTROYING INFLUENCE.

Cordial Relationships With German Churches.

Press Association—Copyright. Berlin, February 14

The. Nazis’ quarrels with both Protestant and Catholic churches.’ are again critical. The Reich church committee established to unify the three sections into which the Protestants have split has resigned after a year’s’ fruitless attempts to induce the Protestant opposition to abandon decisions upholding he purity of the Gospel and condemning the teaching of German Christians who are an offshoot of Nazism.

Meanwhile Cardinal Faulhaber, who has returned from a visit to the Pope, in a sermon to-day accused the Nazis of violating many sections of the concordat, including confiscation of pastoral letters, seizure of church schools and discharge of Cahoiic teachers, detention of priests, sequestration of church funds, the banning of processions and the spread of a flood of calumnies against the highes.t dignitaries. Cardinal Faulhaber's disclosure that one of his sermons had been censored aroused angry shouts from the congregation. Cardinal Faulhaber suggested that the concordat was signed merely to temporise until the Nazis were ready to destroy all church influence. He added that the dropping of the concordat severely shocked foreign nations, who were trying to find confidence in Germany.