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On March
21, with the religious freedom of German Catholics at grave risk,
the concordat notwithstanding, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit
brennender Sorge ("With Burning Concern"). In this
missive, he questioned the errors of Nazi ideology. "Whoever
detaches the race, the nation, the state, the form of
government...from the earthly frame of reference and makes them into
the highest norm of all, higher than religious values, and worships
them with idolatry, perverts and distorts the order of things
provided and commended by God." He made no specific mention of
the plight of German Jewry.
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