Schulte, Karl-Joseph

(1871-1941)

   Archbishop and Cardinal; worked with Konrad Adenauer* in 1923 to deter Rhenish separatism. Born in Öhringen in Württemberg, he studied theology and entered the priesthood in 1895. He completed a doctorate at Tübingen in 1903 and taught church law and apologetics in 1905-1908 at the Catholic academy in Paderborn. In 1908 he became Bishop of Paderborn. Aware of the unease that beset Catholicism* in prewar Germany, he endorsed an interconfessional approach to disputes within the Christian labor movement; indeed, his policies were often marked by prag-matism. Although he was a staunch conservative, he worked in World War I to alleviate the suffering of wounded French prisoners; similarly, during both the Ruhr occupation* and the depression* he focused on easing widespread suffer-ing.

   In January 1920 Schulte succeeded Felix von Hartmann as Archbishop of Cologne and became Cardinal the next year. Despite his lofty station, he ignored political opportunities within the church, consistently viewing himself as a pastor and seeking ways to enhance pastoral care. Because he viewed both Marxism and liberalism as distinct threats to the church, he sustained strong reservations about the Republic.

   Despite such ambivalence, Schulte comprehended the pagan underpinnings of Nazism and warned his archdiocese against the movement. In 1933 he opposed talks aimed at a concordat with the Nazi government. In a February 1934 au-dience with Hitler,* he protested Nazism's antagonistic attitude toward Chris-tianity. Although he was never as public an opponent of the NSDAP as Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber,* he struggled in his remaining years to counter the antichurch propaganda of the Party's chief ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg.* None-theless, he also cooperated with Cardinal Adolf Bertram,* who claimed that Nazism could only be moderated through compromise.

   REFERENCES:Lewy, Catholic Church; Scholder, Churches and the Third Reich.