I believe Stanley Rice is mistaken both in his purely negative view (Dec. 23) of the concordat concluded between the Vatican and Nazi Germany in 1933 and in his detection of sinister motives in Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), who negotiated that agreement in his capacity as papal legate.

The Vatican’s objective in making terms with the newly established regime was to ensure the church’s freedom in conducting its mission in Germany, which was something owed to that nation’s Catholics beyond question. As Pacelli informed Ivone Kirkpatrick of the British Legation in Rome, “I had to choose between an agreement on these lines and the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the Reich.”

But wasn’t Pacelli endorsing Nazism by signing the concordat? In no way. The truth is, he was arguably the most resolute opponent of Nazism, as is partly evidenced by the fact that out of 44 public pronouncements he made in Germany in the 1920s as papal legate, 40 contained attacks on the rising Nazi movement – attacks he not only never retracted, but confirmed by statements he made in the 30s.

Granted, in conformity with the concordat, the church withdrew its clergy from direct participation in party politics; but they weren’t “muzzled” thereby, as Rice maintains. When fundamental human rights were jeopardized, they certainly protested, as they did when the government announced, just days after the concordat was ratified, a sterilization law applying to all Germans it deemed imperfect.

William LaRochelle,

Lewiston