If religious life in pre-war Germany had a disagreeable savour for the mouths of many people this was because Christianity had been lowered to base uses by political parties that called themselves Christian and because of the shameful way in which they tried to identify the Catholic Faith with a political party.

This substitution was fatal. It procured some worthless parliamentary mandates for the party in question, but the Church suffered damage thereby.

The consequences of that situation had to be borne by the whole nation; for the laxity that resulted in religious life set in at a juncture when everything was beginning to lose hold and vacillate and the traditional foundations of custom and of morality were threatening to fall asunder.