High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In the 1930s, the Catholic Church was faced with the dilemma of how to respond to the rise of totalitarianism. After initially making an effort to negotiate a modus vivendi with such regimes in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, it found such accommodation increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of ever more aggressive challenges to its rights by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After a series of protests made against such infringements of its prerogatives, the Vatican felt it necessary to issue two encyclicals opposing the policies of Mussolini and Hitler: Non Abbiamo Bisogno in 1931 and Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937, respectively. Mit Brennender Sorge included criticisms of Nazism and racism. However, the exigencies of the geopolitical situation constrained the ability of the Vatican to act in opposition to these regimes.