ABSTRACT
A certain cooperation with the modern state was necessary, as long as one avoided "baptizing" the republic that is, giving it a form of ecclesial recognition. As its basis for the changes, the radical state drew on the principle of religious freedom and the idea of the religious neutrality of the state: "The republic neither recognizes, supports nor subsidizes any religion". The Catholic Church was given revised political and legal terms, adjusted to a democratic, secularist form of government. In the encyclical Mit brennende Sorge the papal see followed up some of the political-ethical ideas with which it had addressed the nazification of Germany. The papal see had continued the social commitment begun by Pope Leo XIII with his social encyclical in 1891. With Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 both the papal see and political Catholicism was confronted with an entirely new situation.
