Mit brennender Sorge (German for "With deep anxiety") is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, March 14). The encyclical dealt with the condition of the Roman Catholic Church in Nazi Germany, and condemned Nazism. It is one of the few papal encyclicals in history not written in Latin. The encyclical was addressed to German bishops and was read in all parish churches of Germany. It had to be disseminated in secrecy.

Some passages stated:

"Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds"
"None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xl, 15). "

External link

• Mit brennender Sorge in English on Vatican.va
• Mit brennender Sorge in German on StJosef.at