Church History Part 13

_Gorres_, professor of history in Munich, represented the Reformation as a second fall, and set forth the legends of ascetics in his "History of Mysticism" as sound history. The German bishops set themselves to train the clergy in hierarchical views, and by a rule of terror prevented any departure from that theory. The ultramontanising of the ma.s.ses was carried on by missions, and by the establishment of brotherhoods and sisterhoods.

In the beginning of A.D. 1860 there were only thirteen ultramontane journals with very few subscribers, while in January, 1875, there were three hundred. The most important was _Germania_, founded at Berlin in 1871.-The _Civilta Cattolica_ of Rome was always revised before publication by Pius IX., and under Leo XIII. a similar position is held by the _Moniteur de Rome_, while the _Osservatore Romano_ and the _Voce della verita_ have also an official character.

2. _Miracles._-Prince _Hohenlohe_ went through many parts of Germany, Austria, and Hungary, performing miraculous cures; but his day of favour soon pa.s.sed, and he settled down as a writer of ascetical works.-Pilgrimages to wonder-working shrines were encouraged by reports of cures wrought on the grand-niece of the Bishop of Cologne (-- 193, 1), cured of knee-joint disease before the holy coat of Treves (-- 187, 6).

Subjected to examination, the pretended seamless coat was found to be a bit of the gray woollen wrapping of a costly silk Byzantine garment 1- feet broad and 1 foot long.

3. _Stigmatizations._-In many cases these marks were found to have been fraudulently made, but in other cases it was questionable whether we had not here a pathological problem, or whether hysteria created a desire to deceive or pre-disposed the subject to being duped under clerical influence. _Anna Cath. Emmerich_, a nun of Dulmen in Westphalia, in 1812, professed to have on her body b.l.o.o.d.y wound-marks of the Saviour. For five years down to her death in 1824, the poet Brentano sat at her feet, venerating her as a saint and listening to her ecstatic revelations on the death and sufferings of the Redeemer and his mother. Overberg, Sailer, and Von s...o...b..rg were also satisfied of the genuineness of her revelations and of the miraculous marking of her body. The physician Von Drussel examined the wound-prints and certified them as miraculous; but Bodde, professor of chemistry at Munster, p.r.o.nounced the blood marks spots produced by dragon's-blood. Competent physicians declared her a hysterical woman incapable of distinguishing between dream and reality, truth and lies, honesty and deceit. Others famous in the same line were Maria von Worl, Dominica Lazzari, and _Crescentia Stinklutsch_; also Dorothea Visser of Holland and Juliana Weiskircher from near Vienna.

4. Of a very doubtful kind were the miraculous marks on _Louise Lateau_, daughter of a Belgian miner. On 24th April, 1868, it is said she was marked with the print of the Saviour's wounds on hands, feet, side, brow, and shoulders. In July, A.D. 1868, she fell into an ecstasy, from which she could be awakened only by her bishop or one authorized by him.

Trustworthy physicians, after a careful medical examination, reported that she laboured under a disease which they proposed to call "stigmatic neuropathy." Chemical a.n.a.lysis proved the presence of food which had been regularly taken, probably in a somnambulistic trance. In the summer of 1875 her sister for a time put an end to the affair by refusing the clergy entrance into the house, and she was then obliged to eat, drink, and sleep like other Christians, so that the Friday b.l.o.o.d.y marks disappeared. But now, say ultramontane journals, Louise became dangerously ill, and clergy were called in to her help, and the marks were again visible. Her patron Bishop Dumont of Tournay being deposed by the pope in 1879, she took part against his successor, and was threatened with excommunication (-- 200, 7).

She was now deserted by the ultramontanes and Belgian clergy, and treated as a poor, weak-minded invalid. She died neglected and in obscurity in A.D. 1883.

5. Of pseudo-stigmatizations there has been no lack even in the most recent times. In 1845 _Caroline Beller_, a girl of fifteen years, in Westphalia, was examined by a skilful physician. On Thursday he laid a linen cloth over the wound-prints, and sure enough on Friday it was marked with blood stains; but also strips of paper laid under, without her knowledge, were p.r.i.c.ked with needles. The delinquent now confessed her deceit, which she had been tempted to perpetrate from reading the works of Francis of a.s.sisi, Catherine of Siena, and Emmerich. Theresa Stadele in 1849, Rosa Tamisier in 1851, and Angela Hupe in 1863, were convicted of fraudulently pretending to have stigmata. The latter was proved to have feigned deafness and lameness for a whole year, to have diligently read the writings of Emmerich in 1861, to have shown the physician fresh bleeding wounds on hands, feet, and side, and to have affirmed that she had neither eaten nor drunk for a year. Four sisters of mercy were sent to attend her, and they soon discovered the fraud. In 1876 the father confessor of Ernestine Hauser was prosecuted for damages, having injured the girl's health by the severe treatment to which she was subjected in order to induce ecstasy and obtain an opportunity for impressing the stigmata. _Sabina Schafer_ of Baden, in her eighteenth year, had for two years borne the reputation of a wonder-working saint, who every Friday showed the five wound prints, and in ecstasy told who were in h.e.l.l and who in purgatory. She professed to live without food, though often she betook herself to the kitchen to pray alone, and even carried food with her to give to her guardian angel to carry to the distant poor. When under surveillance in 1880 she sought to bribe her guardian to bring her meat and drink, fragments of food were found among her clothes, and also a flask with blood and an instrument for puncturing the skin. She confessed her guilt, and was sentenced by the criminal court of Baden to ten weeks'

imprisonment. The ultramontane _Pfalzer Bote_ complained that so-called liberals should ruthlessly encroach on the rights of the church and the family.

6. _Manifestations of the Mother of G.o.d in France._-The most celebrated of these manifestations occurred in 1858 at _Lourdes_, where in a grotto the Virgin repeatedly appeared to a peasant girl of fourteen years, almost imbecile, named Bernadette Soubirous, saying "Je suis l'Immaculee Conception," and urging the erection of a chapel on that spot. A miracle-working well sprang up there. Since 1872 the pilgrimages under sanction of the hierarchy have been on a scale of unexampled magnificence, and the cures in number and significance far excelling anything heard of before.-At the village of _La Salette_ in the department of Isere, in 1846 two poor children, a boy of fifteen and a girl of eleven years, saw a fair white-dressed lady sitting on a stone and shedding tears, and, lo, from the spot where her foot rested sprang up a well, at which innumerable cures have been wrought. The epidemic of visions of the Virgin reached a climax in Alsace Lorraine in 1872. In a wood near the village of _Gereuth_ crowds of women and children gathered, professing to see visions of the mother of G.o.d; but when the police appeared to protect the forest, the manifestation craze spread over the whole land, and at thirty-five stations almost daily visions were enjoyed. The epidemic reached its crisis in Mary's month, May, 1874, and continued with intervals down to the end of the year. In some cases deceit was proved; but generally it seemed to be the result of a diseased imagination and self-deception fostered by speculative purveyors and the ultramontane press and clergy.

7. _Manifestations of the Mother of G.o.d in Germany._-In the summer of 1876 three girls of eight years old in the village of _Marpingen_, in the department of Treves, saw by a well a white-robed lady, with the halo over her head and with a child in her arms, who made herself known as the immaculate Virgin, and called for the erection of a chapel. A voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, etc. There were also processions and choirs of angels, etc. The devil, too, appeared and ordered them to fall down and worship him. Thousands crowded from far and near, and the water of the fountain wrought miraculous cures. The surrounding clergy made a profitable business of sending the water to America, and the _Germania_ of Berlin unweariedly sounded forth its praises. Before the court of justice the children confessed the fraud, and were sentenced to the house of correction; and though on technical grounds this judgment was set aside, the supreme court of appeal in 1879 p.r.o.nounced the whole thing a scandalous and disgraceful swindle.-Weichsel, priest of _Dittrichswald_ in Ermland, who gained great reputation as an exorcist, made a pilgrimage to Marpingen in the summer of 1877, and on his return gave such an account of what he had seen to his communicants' cla.s.s that first one and then another saw the mother of G.o.d at a maple tree, which also became a favourite resort for pilgrims.

8. _Canonizations._-When in 1825 Leo XII. canonized a Spanish monk Julia.n.u.s, who among other miracles had made roasted birds fly away off the spit, the Roman wits remarked that they would prefer a saint who would put birds on the spit for them. St. Liguori was canonized by Gregory XVI. in 1839. Pius IX. canonized fifty-two and beatified twenty-six of the martyrs of j.a.pan. The Franciscans had sought from Urban VIII. in 1627 canonization for six missionaries and seventeen j.a.panese converts martyred in 1596 (-- 150, 2), but were refused because they would not pay 52,000 Roman thalers for the privilege. Pius IX. granted this, and included three Jesuit missionaries. At Pentecost, 1862, the celebration took place, amid acclamations, firing of cannons, and ringing of bells. In 1868 the infamous president of the heretic tribunal Arbues (-- 117, 2) received the distinction. The number of _doctores ecclesiae_ was increased by Pius IX.

by the addition of Hilary of Poitiers in 1851, Liguori in 1870, and Francis de Sales in 1877. And Leo XIII. canonized four new saints, the most distinguished of whom was the French mendicant, Bened. Jos. Labre, who after having been dismissed by Carthusians, Cistercians, and Trappists as unteachable, made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he stayed fifteen years in abject poverty, and died in 1783 in his thirty-sixth year.

9. _Discoveries of Relics._-The Roman catacombs continued still to supply the demand for relics of the saints for newly erected altars. Toward the end of A.D. 1870 the Archbishop of St. Iago de Compostella (-- 88, 4) made excavations in the crypt of his cathedral, in consequence of an old tradition that the bones of the Apostle James the Elder, the supposed founder of the church, had been deposited there, and he succeeded in discovering a stone coffin with remains of a skeleton. The report of this made to Pius IX. gave occasion to the appointment of a commission of seven cardinals, who, after years of minute examination of all confirmatory historical, archaeological, anatomical, and local questions, submitted their report to Leo XIII., whereupon, in November, 1884, he issued an "Apostolic Brief," by which he (without publishing the report) declared the unmistakable genuineness of the discovered bones as _ex constanti et pervulgato apud omnes sermone jam ab Apostolorum aetate memoriae prodita_, p.r.o.nounced the relics generally _perennes fontes_, from which the _dona caelestia_ flow forth like brooks among the Christian nations, and calls attention to the fact that it is just in this century, in which the power of darkness has risen up in conflict against the Lord and his Christ, these and also many other relics "_divinitus_" have been discovered, as _e.g._ the bones of St. Francis, of St. Clara, of Bishop Ambrose, of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, of the Apostles Philip and James the Less, the genuineness of which had been avouched by his predecessors Pius VII. and Pius IX.

10. _The blood of St. Januarius_, a martyr of the age of Diocletian, liquefies thrice a year for eight days, and on occasion of earthquakes and such-like calamities in Naples, the blood is brought in two vials by a matron near to the head of the saint; if it liquefies the sign is favourable to the Neapolitans, if it remains thick unfavourable; but in either case it forms a powerful means of agitation in the hands of the clergy. Unbelievers venture to suggest that this _precioso sangue del taumaturgo S. Gennaro_ is not blood, but a mixture that becomes liquid by the warmth of the hand and the heat of the air in the crowded room, some sort of cetaceous product coloured red.

11. About 100 clergy, twenty colour-bearers, 150 musicians, 10,000 leapers, 3,000 beggars, and 2,000 singers take part in the _Leaping Procession at Echternach_ in Luxemburg, which is celebrated yearly on Whit-Tuesday. It was spoken of in the sixteenth century as an ancient custom. After an "exciting" sermon, the procession is formed in rows of from four to six persons bound together by pocket-handkerchiefs held in their hands; Wilibrord's dance is played, and all jump in time to the music, five steps forward and two backward, or two backward and three forward, varied by three or four leaps to the right and then as many to the left. Thus continually leaping the procession goes through the streets of the city to the parish church, up the sixty-two steps of the church stair and along the church aisles to the tomb of Wilibrord (-- 78, 3). The dance is kept up incessantly for two hours. The performers do so generally because of a vow, or as penance for some fault, or to secure the saint's intercession for the cure of epilepsy and convulsive fits, common in that region, mainly no doubt owing to such senseless proceedings. The origin of the custom is obscure. Tradition relates that soon after the death of Wilibrord a disease appeared among the cattle which jumped incessantly in the stalls, till the people went leaping in procession to Wilibrord's tomb, and the plague was stayed! But the custom is probably a Christian adaptation of an old spring festival dance of pagan times (-- 75, 3; comp.

2 Sam. vi. 14).

12. _The Devotion of the Sacred Heart._-Even after the suppression of the Jesuit order the devotion of the Sacred Heart (-- 156, 6) was zealously practised by the ex-Jesuits and their friends. On the restoration of the order numerous brotherhoods and sisterhoods, especially in France, devoted themselves to this exercise, and the _revanche_ movement of A.D. 1870 used this as one of its most powerful instruments. Crowds of pilgrims flocked to Paray le Monial, and there, kneeling before the cradle of Bethlehem, they besought the sacred heart of Jesus to save France and Rome, and the refrain of all the pilgrim songs, "_Dieu, de la clemence ... sauvez Rome et la France au nom du sacre-cur_," became the spiritual Ma.r.s.eillaise of France returning to the Catholic fold. From the money collected over the whole land a beautiful church _du Sacre-Cur_ has been erected on Montmartre in Paris. The gratifying news was then brought from Rome that the holy father had resolved on July 16th, 1875, the twenty-ninth anniversary of his ascending the papal throne and the two hundredth anniversary of the great occurrences at Paray le Monial, that the whole world should give adoration to the sacred heart. In France this day was fixed upon for the laying of the foundation stone of the church at Montmartre, and the Archbishop of Cologne, Paul Melchers, commanded Catholic Germany to show greater zeal in the adoration of the sacred heart, "ordained by divine revelation" two hundred years before.

13. _Ultramontane Amulets._-The Carmelites adopted a brown, the Trinitarians a white, the Theatines a blue, the Servites a black, and the Lazarites a red, scapular, a.s.sured by divine visions that the wearing of them was a means of salvation. A tract, ent.i.tled "_Gnaden und Abla.s.se des funffachen Skapuliers_," published by episcopal authority at Munster in 1872, declared that any layman who wore the five scapulars would partic.i.p.ate in all the graces and indulgences belonging to them severally.

The most useful of all was the Carmelite scapular, impenetrable by bullets, impervious to daggers, rendering falls harmless, stilling stormy seas, quenching fires, healing the possessed, the sick, the wounded, etc.-The Benedictines had no scapulars, but they had Benedict-medals, from which they drew a rich revenue. This amulet first made its appearance in the Bavarian Abbey of Metten. The tract, ent.i.tled, "_St.

Benediktusbuchlein oder die Medaille d. h. Benediktus_," published at Munster in 1876, tells how it cures sicknesses, relieves toothache, stops bleeding at the nose, heals burns, overcomes the craving for drink, protects from attacks of evil spirits, restrains skittish horses, cures sick cattle, clears vineyards of blight, secures the conversion of heretics and G.o.dless persons, etc.-In A.D. 1878 there appeared at Mainz, with approval of the bishop, a book in its third edition, ent.i.tled, "_Der Seraphische Gurtel und dessen wunderbare Reichtumer nach d. Franz, d.

papstl. Hauspralaten Abbe v. Segur_," according to which Sixtus V. in 1585 founded the Archbrotherhood of the Girdle of St. Francis. It also affirms that whoever wears this girdle day and night and repeats the six enjoined paternosters, partic.i.p.ates in all the indulgences of the holy land and of all the basilicas and sanctuaries of Rome and a.s.sisi, and is ent.i.tled to liberate 1,000 souls a day from purgatory.-Great miracles of healing and preservation from all injuries to body and soul, property and goods, are attributed by the Jesuits to the "_holy water of St. Ignatius_" (-- 149, 11), the sale of which in Belgium, France, and Switzerland has proved to them a lucrative business. But the mother of G.o.d has herself favoured them with a still more powerful miracle-working water in the fountains of Lourdes and Marpingen.

14. We give in conclusion a specimen of _Ultramontane pulpit eloquence_. A Bavarian priest, Kinzelmann, said in a sermon in 1872: "We priests stand as far above the emperor, kings, and princes as the heaven is above the earth.... Angels and archangels stand beneath us, for we can in G.o.d's stead forgive sins. We occupy a position superior to that of the mother of G.o.d, who only once bare Christ, whereas we create and beget him every day.

Yea, in a sense, we stand above G.o.d, who must always and everywhere serve us, and at the consecration must descend from heaven upon the ma.s.s,"

etc.-An apotheosis of the priesthood worthy of the Middle Ages.

-- 189. The Vatican Council.(104)

Immediately after Pius IX. had, at the centenary of St. Peter in 1867, given a hint that a general council might be summoned at an early date, the _Civilta Cattolica_ of Rome made distinct statements to the effect that the most prominent questions for discussion would be the confirming of the syllabus (-- 185, 2), the sanctioning of the doctrine of papal absolutism in the spirit of the bull _Unam sanctam_ of Boniface VIII. (-- 110, 1), and the proclamation of papal infallibility. The _Civilta_ had already taught that "when the pope thinks, it is G.o.d who thinks in him."

When the council opened on the day of the immaculate conception, December 8th, 1869, all conceivable devices of skilful diplomacy were used by the Jesuit Camarilla, and friendly cajoling and violent threatening on the part of the pope, in order to silence or win over, and, in case this could not be done, to stifle and suppress the opposition which even already was not inconsiderable in point of numbers, but far more important in point of moral, theological, and hierarchical influence. The result aimed at was secured. Of the 150 original opponents only fifty dared maintain their opposition to the end, and even they cowardly shrank from a decisive conflict, and wrote from their respective dioceses, as their Catholic faith obliged them to do, notifying their most complete acquiescence.

1. _Preliminary History of the Council._-When Pius IX. on the centenary of St. Peter made known to the a.s.sembled bishops his intention to summon a general council, they expressed their conviction that by the blessing of the immaculate Virgin it would be a powerful means of securing unity, peace, and holiness. The formal summons was issued on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul of the following year, June 29th, 1868. The end for which the council was convened was stated generally as follows: The saving of the church and civil society from all evils threatening them, the thwarting of the endeavours of all who seek the overthrow of church and state, the uprooting of all modern errors and the downfall of all G.o.dless enemies of the apostolical chair. In Germany the Catholic General a.s.sembly which met at Bamberg soon after this declared that from this day a new epoch in the world's history would begin, for "either the salvation of the world would result from this council, or the world is beyond the reach of help." This hopefulness prevailed throughout the whole Catholic world. Fostered by the utterances of the _Civilta Cattolica_, the excitement grew from day to day. The learned bishop _in partibus_ Maret, dean of the theological faculty of Paris, now came forward as an eloquent exponent of the Gallican liberties; even the hitherto so strict Catholic, the Count Montalembert, to the astonishment of everybody, a.s.sumed a bold and independent att.i.tude in regard to the council, and energetically protested in a publication of March 7th, 1870, six days before his death, against the intrigues of the Jesuits and the infallibility dogma which it was proposed to authorize.

But the greatest excitement was occasioned by the work "_Der Papst und das Konzil_," published in Leipzig, 1869, under the pseudonym _Ja.n.u.s_, of which the real authors were Dollinger, Friedrich, and Huber of Munich, who brought up the heavy artillery of the most comprehensive historical scholarship against the evident intentions of the curia. The German bishops gathered at the tomb of St. Boniface at Fulda in September, 1869, and issued from thence a general pastoral letter to their disturbed flocks, declaring that it was impossible that the council should decide otherwise than in accordance with holy Scripture and the apostolic traditions and what was already written upon the hearts of all believing Catholics. Also the papal secretary, Card. Antonelli, quieted the anxiety of the amba.s.sadors of foreign powers at Rome by the a.s.surance that the Holy See had in view neither the confirming of the syllabus nor the affirming of the dogma of infallibility. In vain did the Bavarian premier, Prince Hohenlohe, insist that the heads of other governments should combine in taking measures to prevent any encroachment of the council upon the rights of the state. The great powers resolved to maintain simply a watchful att.i.tude, and only too late addressed earnest expostulations and threats.

2. _The Organization of the Council._-Of 1,044 prelates ent.i.tled to take part in the council 767 made their appearance, of whom 276 were Italians and 119 bishops _in partibus_, all pliable satellites of the curia, as were also the greater number of the missionary bishops, who, with their a.s.sistants in the propaganda, were supported at the cost of the holy father. The sixty-two bishops of the Papal States were doubly subject to the pope, and of the eighty Spanish and South American bishops it was affirmed in Rome that they would be ready at the bidding of the holy father to define the Trinity as consisting of four persons. Forty Italian cardinals and thirty generals of orders were equally dependable. The Romance races were represented by no less than 600, the German by no more than fourteen. For the first time since general councils were held was the laity entirely excluded from all influence in the proceedings, even the amba.s.sadors of Catholic and tolerant powers. The order of business drawn up by the pope was arranged in all its details so as to cripple the opposition. The right of all fathers of the council to make proposals was indeed conceded, but a committee chosen by the pope decided as to their admissibility. From the special commissions, whose presidents were nominated by the pope, the drafts of decrees were issued to the general congregation, where the president could at will interrupt any speaker and require him to retract. Instead of the unanimity required by the canon law in matters of faith, a simple majority of votes was declared sufficient. A formal protest of the minority against these and similar unconst.i.tutional proposals was left quite unheeded. The proceedings were indeed taken down by shorthand reporters, but not even members of council were allowed to see these reports. The conclusions of the general congregation were sent back for final revision to the special commissions, and when at last brought up again in the public sessions, they were not discussed, but simply voted on with a _placet_ or a _non-placet_. The right transept of St. Peter's was the meeting place of the council, the acoustics of which were as bad as possible, but the pope refused every request for more suitable accommodation. Besides, the various members spoke with diverse accents, and many had but a defective knowledge of Latin. Although absolute secresy was enjoined on pain of falling into mortal sin, under the excitement of the day so much trickled out and was in certain Romish circles so carefully gathered and sifted, that a tolerably complete insight was reached into the inner movements of the council. From such sources the author of the "_Romischen Briefe_," supposed to have been Lord Acton, a friend and scholar of Dollinger, drew the material for his account, which, carried by trusty messengers beyond the bounds of the Papal State, reached Munich, and there, after careful revision by Dollinger and his friends, were published in the _Augsburg Allg. Zeitung_.

Also Prof. Friedrich of Munich, who had accompanied Card. Hohenlohe to Rome as theological adviser, collected what he could learn in episcopal and theological circles in a journal which was published at a later date.

3. _The Proceedings of the Council._-The first public session of December 8th, 1869, was occupied with opening ceremonies; the second, of January 6th, with the subscription of the confession of faith on the part of each member. The first preliminary was the _schema_ of the faith, the second that on church discipline. Then followed the _schema_ on the church and the primacy of the pope in three articles: the legal position of the church in reference to the state, the absolute supremacy of the pope over the whole church on the principles of the Pseudo-Isidore (-- 87, 2) and the a.s.sumptions of Gregory VII., Innocent III. and Boniface VIII., reproduced in the princ.i.p.al propositions of the syllabus (-- 184, 2), and the outlines of a catechism to be enforced as a manual for the instruction of youth throughout the church. On March 6th there was added by way of supplement to the _schema_ of the church a fourth article in the form of a sketch of the decree of infallibility. Soon after the opening of the council an agitation in this direction had been started. An address to the pope emanating from the Jesuit college pet.i.tioning for this was speedily signed by 400 subscribers. A counter address with 137 signatures besought the pope not to make any such proposal. At the head of the agitation in favour of infallibility stood archbishops Manning of Westminster, Deschamps of Mechlin, Spalding of Baltimore, and bishops Fessler of St. Polten, secretary of the council, Senestrey of Regensburg, the "overthrower of thrones" (-- 197, 1), Martin of Paderborn, and, as bishop _in partibus_, Mermillod of Geneva. Among the leaders of the opposition the most prominent were cardinals Rauscher of Vienna, Prince Schwarzenberg of Prague and Matthieu of Besancon, Prince-bishop Forster of Breslau, archbishops Scherr of Munich, Melchers of Cologne, Darboy of Paris, and Kenrick of St. Louis, the bishops Ketteler of Mainz, d.i.n.kel of Augsburg, Hefele of Rottenburg, Strossmayer of Sirmium, Dupanloup of Orleans, etc.-Owing to the discussions on the _Schema of the Faith_ there occurred on March 22nd a stormy scene, which in its wild uproar reminds one of the disgraceful _Robber Synod of Ephesus_ (-- 52, 4). When Bishop Strossmayer objected to the statement made in the preamble, that the indifferentism, pantheism, atheism, and materialism prevailing in these days are chargeable upon Protestantism, as contrary to truth, the furious fathers of the majority amid shouts and roars, shaking of their fists, rushed upon the platform, and the president was obliged to adjourn the sitting. At the next session the objectionable statement was withdrawn and the entire _schema_ of the faith was unanimously adopted at the third public sitting of the council on April 24th. _The Schema of the Church_ came up for a consideration on May 10th. The discussion turned first and mainly on the fourth article about the infallibility of the pope. Its biblical foundation was sought in Luke xxii. 32, its traditional basis chiefly in the well-known pa.s.sage of Irenaeus (-- 34, 8) and on its supposed endors.e.m.e.nt by the general councils of Lyons and Florence (-- 67, 4, 6), but the main stress was laid on its necessarily following from the position of the pope as the representative of Christ. The opposition party had from the outset their position weakened by the conduct of many of their adherents who, partly to avoid giving excessive annoyance to the pope, and partly to leave a door open for their retreat, did not contest the correctness of the doctrine in question, but all the more decidedly urged the inopportuneness of its formal definition as threatening the church with a schism and provocative of dangerous conflicts with the civil power. The longer the decision was deferred by pa.s.sionate debates, the more determinedly did the pope throw the whole weight of his influence into the scales. By bewitching kindliness he won some, by sharp, angry words he terrified others. He denounced opponents as sectarian enemies of the church and the apostolic chair, and styled them ignoramuses, slaves of princes, and cowards. He trusted the aid of the blessed Virgin to ward off threatened division. To the question whether he himself regarded the formulating of the dogma as opportune, he answered: "No, but as necessary." Urged by the Jesuits, he confidently declared that it was notorious that the whole church at all times taught the absolute infallibility of the pope; and on another occasion he silenced a modest doubt as to a sure tradition with the dictatorial words, _La tradizione sono io_, adding the a.s.surance, "As Abbate Mastai I believe in infallibility, as pope I have experienced it." On July 13th the final vote was called for in the general congregation. There were 371 who voted simply _placet_, sixty-one _placet juxta modum_, _i.e._ with certain modifications, and eighty-eight _non placet_. After a last hopeless attempt by a deputation to obtain the pope's consent to a milder formulating of the decree, Bishop Ketteler vainly entreating on his knees, to save the unity and peace of the church by some small concession, the fifty hitherto steadfast members of the minority returned home, after emitting a written declaration that they after as well as before must continue to adhere to their negative vote, but from reverence and respect for the person of the pope they declined to give effect to it at a public session. On the following day, July 18th, the fourth and last public sitting was held: 547 fathers voted _placet_ and only two, Riccio of Cajazzo and Fitzgerald of Little Rock, _non placet_. A violent storm had broken out during the session and amid thunder and lightning, Pius IX., like "a second Moses" (Exod. xix. 16), proclaimed in the _Pastor aeternus_ the absolute plenipotence and infallibility of himself and all his predecessors and successors.-It was on the evening preceding the proclamation of this new dogma that Napoleon III. proclaimed war with Prussia, in consequence of which the pope lost the last remnants of temporal sovereignty and every chance of its restoration. Under the influence of the fever-fraught July sun, the council now dwindled down to 150 members, and, after the whole glory of the papal kingdom had gone down (-- 185, 3), on October 20th, its sittings were suspended until better times. The _schema_ of discipline and the preliminary sketch of a catechism were not concluded; a subsequently introduced _schema_ on apostolic missions was left in the same state; and a pet.i.tion equally pressed by the Jesuits for the defining of the corporeal ascension of Mary had not even reached the initial stage.

4. _Acceptance of the Decrees of the Council._-All protests which during the council the minority had made against the order of business determined on and against all irregularities resulting from it, because not persisted in, were regarded as invalid. Equally devoid of legal force was their final written protest which they left behind, in which they expressly declined to exercise their right of voting. And the a.s.sent which they ultimately without exception gave to the objective standpoint of the law and the faith of the Catholic church, was not in the least necessary in order to make it appear that the decisions of the council, drawn up with such unanimity as had scarcely ever before been seen, were equally valid with any of the decrees of the older councils. Thus the bishops of the minority, if they did not wish to occasion a split of unexampled dimensions and incalculable complications, quarrels, and contentions in the church that boasted of a unity which had hitherto been its strength and stay, could do nothing else than yield at the twelfth hour to the pope's demand that "_sacrificio dell'intelletto_" which at the eleventh hour they had refused. The German bishops, who had proved most steadfast at the council, were now in the greatest haste to make their submission.

Even by the end of August, at Fulda, they joined their infallibilist neighbours in addressing a pastoral letter, in which they most solemnly declared that all true Catholics, as they valued their soul's salvation, must unconditionally accept the conclusions of the council unanimously arrived at which are in no way prejudiced by the "differences of opinion"

elicited during the discussion. At the same time they demanded of theological professors, teachers of religion, and clergymen throughout the dioceses a formal acceptance of these decrees as the inviolable standpoint of their doctrinal teaching; they also took measures against those who refused to yield, and excommunicated them. Even Bishop Hefele, who did not sign this pastoral and was at first determined not to yield nor swerve, at last gave way. In his pastoral proclaiming the new dogma he gave it a quite inadmissible interpretation: As the infallibility of the church, so also that of the pope as a teacher, extends only to the revealed doctrines of faith and morals, and even with reference to them only the definitions proper and not the introductory statements, grounds, and applications, belong to the infallible department. But subsequently he cast himself unreservedly into the arms of his colleagues a.s.sembled once again at Fulda in September, 1872, where he also found his like-minded friend, Bishop Haneberg of Spires. Yet he forbore demanding an express a.s.sent from his former colleagues at Tubingen and his clergy, and thus saved Wurttemberg from a threatened schism. Strossmayer held out longest, but even he at last threw down his weapons. But many of the most cultured and scholarly of the theological professors, disgusted with the course events were taking, withdrew from the field and continued silently to hold their own opinions. The inferior clergy, for the most part trained by ultramontane bigots, and held in the iron grasp of strict hierarchical discipline, pa.s.sed all bounds in their extravagant glorification of the new dogma. And while among the liberal circles of the Catholic laity it was laughed at and ridiculed, the bigoted n.o.bles and the ma.s.ses who had long been used to the incensed atmosphere of an enthusiastic adoration of the pope, bowed the knee in stupid devotion to the papal G.o.d. But the brave heart of one n.o.ble German lady broke with sorrow over the indignity done by the Vatican decree and the characterlessness of the German bishops to the church of which to her latest breath she remained in spirit a devoted member. Amalie von Lasaulx, sister of the Munich scholar Ernst von Lasaulx (-- 174, 4), from 1849 superioress of the Sisters of Mercy in St. John's Hospital at Bonn, lay beyond hope of recovery on a sick-bed to which she had been brought by her self-sacrificing and faithful discharge of the duties of her calling, when there came to her from the lady superior of the order at Nancy the peremptory demand to give in her adhesion to the infallibility dogma. As she persistently and courageously withstood all entreaties and threats, all adjurations and cruelly tormenting importunings, she was deposed from office and driven from the scene of her labours, and when, soon thereafter, in 1872, she died, the habit of her order was stripped from her body. The Old Catholics of Bonn, whose proceedings she had not countenanced, charged themselves with securing for her a Christian burial.-No state as such has recognised the council. Austria answered it by abolishing the concordat and forbidding the proclamation of the decrees. Bavaria and Saxony refused their _placet_; Hesse, Baden, and Wurttemberg declared that the conclusions of the council had not binding authority in law. Prussia indeed held to its principle of not interfering in the internal affairs of the Catholic church, but, partly for itself, partly as the leading power of the new German empire, pa.s.sed a series of laws in order to resume its too readily abandoned rights of sovereignty over the affairs of the Catholic church, and to insure itself against further encroachments of ultramontanism upon the domain of civil life (-- 197). The Romance states, on the other hand, pre-eminently France, were prevented by internal troubles and conflicts from taking any very decisive steps.

-- 190. The Old Catholics.

A most promising reaction, mainly in Germany, led by men highly respected and eminent for their learning, set in against the Vatican Council and its decrees, in the so-called Old Catholic movement of the liberal circles of the Catholic people, which went the length, even in 1873, of establishing an independent and well organized episcopal church. Since then, indeed, it has fallen far short of the all too sanguine hopes and expectations at first entertained; but still within narrower limits it continues steadily to spread and to rear for itself a solid structure, while carefully, even nervously, shrinking from anything revolutionary. More in touch with the demands of the _Zeitgeist_ in its reformatory concessions, yet holding firmly in every particular to the positive doctrines of orthodoxy, the Old Catholic movement has made progress in Switzerland, while in other Catholic countries its success has been relatively small.

1. _Formation and Development of the Old Catholic Church in the German Empire._-In the beginning of August, 1870, the hitherto exemplary Catholic professor Michelis of Braunsberg (-- 191, 6), issued a public charge against Pius IX. as a heretic and devourer of the church, and by the end of August several distinguished theologians (Dollinger and Friedrich of Munich, Reinkens, Weber, and Baltzer of Breslau, Knoodt of Bonn, and the canonist Von Schulte of Prague) joined him at Nuremberg in making a public declaration that the Vatican Council could not be regarded as c.u.menical, nor its new dogma as a Catholic doctrine. This statement was subscribed to by forty-four Catholic professors of the university of Munich with the rector at their head, but without the theologians. Similarly, too, several Catholic teachers in Breslau, Freiburg, Wurzburg, and Bonn protested, and still more energetically a gathering of Catholic laymen at Konigswinter.

Besides the Breslau professors already named, the Bonn professors Reusch, Langen, Hilgers, and Knoodt refused to subscribe the council decrees at the call of their bishop; whereas the Munich professors, with the exception of Dollinger and Friedrich, yielded. A repeated injunction of his archbishop in January, 1871, drew from Dollinger the statement that he as a Christian, a theologian, a historian, and a citizen, was obliged to reject the infallibility dogma, while at the same time he was prepared before an a.s.sembly of bishops and theologians to prove that it was opposed to Scripture, the Fathers, tradition, and history. He was now literally overwhelmed with complimentary addresses from Vienna, Wurzburg, Munich, and almost all other cities of Bavaria; and an address to government on the dangers to the state threatened by the Vatican decrees that lay at the Munich Museum, was quickly filled with 12,000 signatures. On April 14th, Dollinger was excommunicated, and Professor Huber sent an exceedingly sharp reply to the archbishop. After several preliminary meetings, the _first congress_ of the Old Catholics was held in Munich in September, 1871, attended by 500 deputies from all parts of Germany. A programme was unanimously adopted which, with protestation of firm adherence to the faith, worship, and const.i.tution of the ancient Catholic church, maintained the invalidity of the Vatican decrees and the excommunication occasioned by them, and, besides recognising the Old Catholic church of Utrecht (-- 165, 8), expressed a hope of reunion with the Greek church, as well as of a gradual progress towards an understanding with the Protestant church. But when at the second session the president, Dr. von Schulte, proposed the setting up of independent public services with regular pastors, and the establishing as soon as possible of an episcopal government of their own, Dollinger contested the proposal as a forsaking of the safe path of lawful opposition, taking the baneful course of the Protestant Reformation, and tending toward the formation of a sect. As, however, the proposal was carried by an overwhelming majority, he declined to take further part in their public a.s.semblies and retired more into the background, without otherwise opposing the prevailing current or detaching himself from it. The second congress was held at Cologne in the autumn of 1872. From the episcopal churches of England and America, from the orthodox church of Russia, from France, Italy, and Spain, were sent deputies and hearty friendly greetings. Archbishop Loos of Utrecht, by the part which he took in the congress, cemented more closely the union with the Old Catholics of Holland. Even the German "_Protestantenverein_" was not unrepresented. A committee chosen for the purpose drew up an outline of a synodal and congregational order, which provides for the election of bishops at an annual meeting at Pentecost of a synod, of which all the clergy are members and to which the congregations send deputies, one for every 200 members. Alongside of the bishop stands a permanent synodal board of five priests and seven laymen. The bishop and synodal board have the right of vetoing doubtful decrees of synod. The choice of pastors lies with the congregation; its confirmation belongs to the bishop. In July, 1873, a bishop was elected in the Pantaleon church of Cologne by an a.s.sembly of delegates, embracing twenty-two priests and fifty-five laymen.

The choice fell upon Professor Reinkens, who, as meanwhile Bishop Loos of Utrecht had died, was consecrated on August 11th, at Rotterdam, by Bishop Heykamp of Deventer, and selected Bonn as his episcopal residence.

2. The first synod of the German Old Catholics, consisting of thirty clerical and fifty-nine lay members, met at Bonn in May, 1874. It was agreed to continue the practice of auricular confession, but without any pressure being put upon the conscience or its observance being insisted upon at set times. Similarly the moral value of fasting was recognised, but all compulsory abstinence, and all distinctions of food as allowable and unallowable, were abolished. The second synod, with reference to the marriage law, took the position that civil regular marriages ought also to have the blessing of the church; only in the case of marriages with non-Christians and divorced parties should this be refused. The third synod introduced a German ritual in which the exorcism was omitted, while the Latin ma.s.s was provisionally retained. The fourth synod allowed to such congregations as might wish it the use of the vernacular in several parts of the service of the ma.s.s. At all these synods the lay members had persistently repeated the proposal to abolish the obligatory celibacy of the clergy. But now the agitation, especially on the part of the Baden representatives, had become so keen, that at the fifth synod of 1878, in spite of the warning read by Bishop Reinkens from the Dutch Old Catholics, who threatened to withdraw from the communion, the proposal was carried by seventy-five votes against twenty-two. The Bonn professors, Langen and Menzel, foreseeing this result, had absented themselves from the synod, Reusch immediately withdrew and resigned his office as episcopal vicar-general, Friedrich protested in the name of the Bavarian Old Catholics. Reinkens, too, had vigorously opposed the movement; whereas Knoodt, Michelis, and Von Schulte had favoured it. The synod of 1883 resolved to dispense the supper in both kinds to members of the Anglican church residing in Germany, but among their own members to follow meanwhile the usual practice of _communio sub una_. The number of Old Catholic congregations in the German empire is now 107, with 38,507 adherents and 56 priests.-Even at their first congress the German Old Catholics, in opposition to the unpatriotic and law-defying att.i.tude of German ultramontanism, had insisted upon love of country and obedience to the laws of the state as an absolute Christian duty. Their newly chosen bishop Reinkens, too, gave expression to this sentiment in his first pastoral letter, and had the oath of allegiance administered him by the Prussian, Baden, and Hessian governments. But Bavaria felt obliged, on account of the terms of its concordat, to refuse. At first the Old Catholics had advanced the claim to be the only true representatives of the Catholic church as it had existed before July 18th, 1870. At the Cologne congress they let this a.s.sumption drop, and restricted their claims upon the state to equal recognition with "the New Catholics," equal endowments for their bishop, and a fair proportion of the churches and their revenues. Prussia responded with a yearly episcopal grant of 16,000 thalers; Baden added about 6,000. It proved more difficult to enforce their claim to church property. A law was pa.s.sed in Baden in 1874, which not only guaranteed to the Old Catholic clergy their present benefices and incomes, freed them from the jurisdiction of the Romish hierarchy, and gave them permission to found independent congregations, but also granted them a mutual right of possessing and using churches and church furniture as well as sharing in church property according to the numerical proportion of the two parties in the district. A similar measure was introduced into the Prussian parliament, and obtained the royal a.s.sent in July, 1875. Since then, however, the interest of the government in the Old Catholic movement has visibly cooled. In Baden, in 1886 the endowment had risen to 24,000 marks.

3. _The Old Catholics in other Lands._-_In Switzerland_ the Old, or rather, as it has there been called, the Christian, Catholic movement, had its origin in 1871 in the diocese of Basel-Solothurn, whence it soon spread through the whole country. The national synod held at Olten in 1876 introduced the vernacular into the church services, abolished the compulsory celibacy of the clergy and obligatory confession of communicants, and elected Professor Herzog bishop, Reinkens giving him episcopal consecration. In 1879 the number of Christian Catholics in German Switzerland amounted to about 70,000, with seventy-two pastors. But since then, in consequence of the submission of the Roman Catholics to the church laws condemned by Pius IX. they have lost the majority in no fewer than thirty-nine out of the forty-three congregations of Canton Bern, and therewith the privileges attached. A proposal made in the grand council of the canton in 1883 for the suppression of the Christian Catholic theological faculty in the University of Bern, which has existed since 1874, was rejected by one hundred and fifty votes against thirteen.-_In Austria_, too, strong opposition was shown to the infallibility dogma. At Vienna the first Old Catholic congregation was formed in February, 1872, under the priest Anton; and soon after others were established in Bohemia and Upper Austria. But it was not till October, 1877, that they obtained civil recognition on the ground that their doctrine is that which the Catholic church professed before 1870. In June, 1880, they held their first legally sanctioned synod. The provisional synodical and congregational order was now definitely adopted, and the use of the vernacular in the church services, the abolition of compulsory fasting, confession, and celibacy, as well as of surplice fees, and the abandoning of all but the high festivals, were announced on the following Sunday. The bitter hatred shown by the Czechs and the ultramontane clergy to everything German has given to the Old Catholic movement for some years past a new impulse and decided advantage.-_In France_ the Abbe Michaud of Paris lashed the characterlessness of the episcopate and was excommunicated, and the Abbes Mouls and Junqua of Bordeaux were ordered by the police to give up wearing the clerical dress. Junqua, refusing to obey this order, was accused by Cardinal Donnet, Bishop of Bordeaux, before the civil court, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Not till 1879 did the ex-Carmelite Loyson of Paris lay the foundation of a Catholic Gallican church, affiliated with the Swiss Old Catholics (-- 187, 8).-_In Italy_ since 1862, independently of the German movement, yet on essentially the same grounds, a national Italian church was started with very promising beginnings, which were not, however, realized (-- 187, 7).

Rare excitement was caused throughout Italy by the procedure of Count Campello, canon of St. Peter's in Rome, who in 1881 publicly proclaimed his creed in the Methodist Episcopal chapel, there renouncing the papacy, and in a published manifesto addressed to the cathedral chapter justified this step and made severe charges against the papal curia; but soon after, in a letter to Loyson, he declared that he, remaining faithful to the true Catholic church, did not contemplate joining any Protestant sect severed from Catholic unity, and in a communication to the Old Catholic Rieks of Heidelberg professed to be in all points at one with the German Old Catholics. Accordingly he sought to form in Rome a Catholic reform party, whose interests he advocated in the journal _Il Labaro_. The pope's domestic chaplain, Monsignor Savarese, has adopted a similar att.i.tude. In December, 1883, he was received by the pastor of the American Episcopal church at Rome into the Old Catholic church on subscribing the Nicene Creed. In 1886 they were joined by another domestic chaplain of the pope, Monsignor Renier, formerly an intimate friend of Pius IX., who publicly separated himself from the papal church, and with them took his place at the head of a Catholic "_Congregation of St. Paul_" in Rome.-Also the Episcopal _Iglesia Espanola_ in Spain (-- 205, 4), and the Mexican _Iglesia de Jesus_ (-- 209, 1), must be regarded as essentially of similar tendencies to the Old Catholics.

-- 191. Catholic Theology, especially in Germany.

Catholic theology in Germany, influenced by the scientific spirit prevailing in Protestantism, received a considerable impulse. From lat.i.tudinarian Josephinism it gradually rose toward a strictly ecclesiastical att.i.tude. Most important were its contributions in the department of dogmatic and speculative theology. Besides and after the schools of Hermes, Baader, and Gunther, condemned by the papal chair, appeared a whole series of speculative dogmatists who kept their speculations within the limits of the church confession. Also in the domain of church history, Catholic theology, after the epoch-making productions of Mohler and Dollinger, has aided in reaching important results, which, however, owing to the "tendency" character of their researches, demand careful sifting. Least important are their contributions to biblical criticism and exegesis. In general, however, the theological _docents_ at the German universities give a scientific character to their researches and lectures in respect of form and also of matter, so far as the Tridentine limits will allow. But the more the Jesuits obtained influence in Germany, the more was that scholasticism, which repudiated the German university theology and opposed it with perfidious suspicions and denunciations, naturalized, especially in the episcopal seminaries, while it was recommended by Rome as the official theology. The attempt, however, at the Munich Congress of Scholars in 1863 to come to an understanding between the two tendencies failed, owing to the contrariety of their principles and the opposition of the Jesuits.-Outside of Germany, French theology, especially in the department of history, manifested a praiseworthy activity. In Spain theology has never outgrown the period of the Middle Ages. In Italy, on the other hand, the study of Christian antiquities flourished, stimulated by recent discoveries of treasures in catacombs, museums, archives, and libraries.

1. _Hermes and his School._-The Bonn professor, _George Hermes_, influenced in youth by the critical philosophy, pa.s.sed the Catholic dogma of Trent, a.s.sured it would stand the test, through the fire of doubt and the scrutiny of reason, because only what survives such examination could be scientifically vindicated. He died in A.D. 1831, and left a school named after him, mainly in Treves, Bonn, and Breslau. Gregory XVI. in 1835 condemned his writings, and the new Archbishop of Cologne, Droste-Vischering, forbad students at Bonn attending the lectures of Hermesians. These made every effort to secure the recall of the papal censure. Braun and Elvenich went to Rome, but their declaration that Hermes had not taught what the pope condemned profited them as little as a similar statement had the Jansenists. There now arose on both sides a bitter controversy, which received new fuel from the Prusso-Cologne ecclesiastical strife (-- 193, 1). Finally in 1844 professors Braun and Achterfeld of Bonn were deprived of office by the coadjutor-Archbishop Geissel, and the Prussian government acquiesced. The professors of the Treves seminary and Baltzer of Breslau, the latter influenced by Gunther's theology, retracted.-A year before Hermes' condemnation the same pope had condemned the opposite theory of Abbe _Bautain_ of Stra.s.sburg, that the Christian dogmas cannot be proved but only believed, and that therefore all use of reason in the appropriation of the truths of salvation is excluded. Bautain, as an obedient son of the church, immediately retracted, "_laudabiliter se subjecit_."

2. _Baader and his School._-Catholic theology for a long time paid no regard to the development of German philosophy. Only after Sch.e.l.ling, whose philosophy had many points of contact with the Catholic doctrine, a general interest in such studies was awakened as forming a speculative basis for Catholicism. To the theosophy of Sch.e.l.ling based on that of the Gorlitz shoemaker (-- 160, 2), _Francis von Baader_, professor of speculative dogmatics at Munich, though not a professional theologian, but a physician and a mineralogist, attached himself. In his later years he went over completely to ultramontanism. His scholar _Franz Hoffmann_ of Wurzburg has given an exposition of Baader's speculative system. At Giessen this system was represented by Leop. Schmid (-- 187, 3). All the Catholic adherents of this school are distinguished by their friendly att.i.tude toward Protestantism.

3. _Gunther and his School._-A theology of at least equal speculative power and of more decidedly Catholic contents than that of Baader, was set forth by the secular priest _Anton Gunther_ of Vienna, a profound and original thinker of combative humour, sprightly wit, and a roughness of expression sometimes verging upon the burlesque. He recognised the necessity of going up in philosophical and theological speculation to Descartes, who held by the scholastic dualism of G.o.d and the creature, the Absolute and the finite, spirit and nature, while all philosophy, according to him, had been ever plunging deeper into pantheistic monism.

Thence he sought to solve the two problems of Christian speculation, creation and incarnation, and undertook a war of extermination against "all monism and semimonism, idealistic and realistic pantheism, disguised and avowed semipantheism," among Catholics and Protestants. His first great work, "_Vorschule zur Spekul. Theologie_," published in 1828, treating of the theory of creation and the theory of incarnation, was followed by a long series of similar works. His most eminent scholars were _Pabst_, doctor of medicine in Vienna, who gave clear expositions of his master's dark and aphoristic sayings, and _Veith_, who popularized his teachings in sermons and practical treatises. Some of the Hermesians, such as Baltzer of Breslau, entered the rank of his scholars. The historico-political papers, however, charged him with denying the mysteries of Christianity, rejecting the traditional theology, etc., and Clemens, a _privatdocent_ of philosophy in Bonn, became the mouthpiece of this party. Thus arose a pa.s.sionate controversy, which called forth the attention of Rome. We might have expected Gunther to meet the fate of Hermes twenty years before; but the matter was kept long under consideration, for strong influence from Vienna was brought to bear on his behalf. At last in January, 1857, the formal reprobation of the Guntherian philosophy was announced, and all his works put in the Index. Gunther humbly submitted to the sentence of the church. So too did _Baltzer_. But being suspected at Rome, he was asked voluntarily to resign. This Baltzer refused to do. Then Prince-Bishop Forster called upon the government to deprive him; and when this failed, he withdrew from him the _missio canonica_ and a third of his canonical revenues, and in 1870, on his opposing the infallibility dogma, he withheld the other two-thirds. His salary from the State continued to be paid in full till his death in A.D.

1871.

4. _John Adam Mohler._-None of all the Catholic theologians of recent times attained the importance and influence of Mohler in his short life of forty-two years. Stimulated to seek higher scientific culture by the study mainly of Schleiermacher's works and those of other Protestants, and putting all his rich endowments at the service of the church, he won for himself among Catholics a position like that of Schleiermacher among Protestants. His first treatise of 1825, on the unity of the church, was followed by his "Athanasius the Great," and the work of his life, the "Symbolics" of 1832, in its ninth edition in 1884, which with the apparatus of Protestant science combats the Protestant church doctrine and presented the Catholic doctrine in such an enn.o.bled and sublimated form, that Rome at first seriously thought of placing it in the Index. Hitherto Protestants had utterly ignored the productions of Catholic theology, but to overlook a scientific masterpiece like this would be a confession of their own weakness. And in fact, during the whole course of the controversy between the two churches, no writing from the Catholic camp ever caused such commotion among the Protestants as this. The ablest Protestant replies are those of Nitsch and Baur. In 1835 Mohler left Tubingen for Munich; but sickness hindered his scientific labours, and, in 1838, in the full bloom of manhood, the Catholic church and Catholic science had to mourn his death. He can scarcely be said to have formed a school; but by writings, addresses, and conversation he produced a scientific ferment in the Catholic theology of Germany, which continued to work until at last completely displaced by the scholasticism reintroduced into favour by the Jesuits.

5. _John Jos. Ignat. von Dollinger._-Of all Catholic theologians in Germany, alongside of and after Mohler, by far the most famous on either side of the Alps was the church historian Dollinger, professor at Munich since 1826. His first important work issued in that same year was on the "Doctrine of the Eucharist in the First Three Centuries." His comprehensive work, "The History of the Christian Church," of 1833 (4 vols., London, 1840), was not carried beyond the second volume; and his "Text-book of Church History" of 1836, was only carried down to the Reformation. The tone of his writings was strictly ecclesiastical, yet without condoning the moral faults of the popes and hierarchy. Great excitement was produced by his treatise on "The Reformation," in which he gathered everything that could be found unfavourable to the Reformers and their work, and thus gained the summit of renown as a miracle of erudition and a master of Catholic orthodoxy. Meanwhile in 1838 he had taken part in controversies about mixed marriages (-- 193, 1), and in 1843 over the genuflection question (-- 195, 2), with severely hierarchical pamphlets. As delegate of the university since 1845 he defended with brilliant eloquence in the Bavarian chamber the measures of the ultramontane government and the hierarchy, became in 1847 Provost of St. Cajetan, but was also in the same year involved in the overthrow of the Abel ministry, and was deprived of his professorship. In the following year he was one of the most distinguished of the Catholic section in the Frankfort parliament, where he fought successfully in the hierarchical interest for the unconditional freedom and independence of the church. King Maximilian II. restored him to his professorship in 1849. From this time his views of confessional matters became milder and more moderate. He first caused great offence to his ultramontane admirers at Easter, 1861, when he in a series of public lectures delivered one on the Papal States then threatened, in which he declared that the temporal power of the pope, the abuses of which he had witnessed during a journey to Rome in 1857, was by no means necessary for the Catholic church, but was rather hurtful. The papal nuncio, who was present, ostentatiously left the meeting, and the ultramontanes were beside themselves with astonishment, horror, and wrath. Dollinger gave some modifying explanations at the autumn a.s.sembly of the Catholic Union at Munich in 1861. But soon thereafter appeared his work, "The Church and the Churches" (London, 1862), which gave the lecture slightly modified as an appendix. The "Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages" (London, 1871), was as little to the taste of the ultramontanes. Indeed in these writings, especially in the first named, the polemic against the Protestant Church had all its old bitterness; but he is at least more just toward Luther, whom he characterizes as "the most powerful man of the people, the most popular character, which Germany ever possessed." And while he delivers a glowing panegyric on the person of the pope, he lashes unrelentingly the misgovernment of the Papal States. At the Congress of Scholars at Munich he contended for the freedom of science. Dollinger as president of the congress sent the pope a telegram which satisfied his holiness. But the Jesuits looked deeper, and immediately "_il povero Dollinger_" was loaded