The War Upon Religion Part 15

The enemies opposed to him are powerful and resourceful; but the brave stand against them made by him and his Secretary of State elicit the sympathy of all true Americans who love the right and adhere to it despite the temporary prestige of those who are opposed to it.

The hope of all Catholics is that the reign of Pius X. may be prolonged until he may reap the reward of his labors for the independence and liberty of the Church. But in every event they feel a.s.sured that the blessed result will be attained, if not in the lifetime of the present ill.u.s.trious Pontiff, at least in the years to come as a blessed heritage of the intrepid Pius X.

At present the position of the Church is one of great difficulty.

Represented as Rome is in Parliament by deputies who are all hostile to the Church, she has little to expect in the way of courtesy or justice.

The law of guarantees which holds the person and good name of the Sovereign Pontiff inviolable, offers in fact but little security in the time of need. There are, indeed, hopes that a better era is opening up; that the people are beginning to look clearly upon the illusory promises of men whose only interest is their own elevation and power. If this hope is realized the Church may again breathe more freely, and the Holy Father may hope for some little release from the worries that constantly a.s.sail him.

CHAPTER V.

The Kulturkampf--The Causes--The Men--and the Events.

_THE CAUSES._

Looking into the history of the times just preceding the Kulturkampf, and the nature of the events transpiring during its progress, among the causes may be enumerated the following: 1, the liberalism of the rationalists; 2, the liberalism of certain pseudo-Catholics; 3, the desire for Protestant ascendancy; 4, the hatred of ultramontainism as incarnated in the "Old Catholic" sect; and 5, the determination of Caesarism to reduce all religion in Germany to the domination of the State.

_THE RATIONALISTS._

Emanuel Kant, and then Hegel and his disciples, had opened the way to unrestricted rationalism. They taught that religion was only an inferior form of "the idea," which "idea" formed its truth only in the "superior form" of philosophy. In 1833 Frederick Richter, a disciple of Hegel, denied the immortality of the soul, declaring the doctrine the cause of every evil. In 1835, another Hegelian, Strauss, denied the divinity of Christ. In 1837, Richard Rothe wrote a book to demonstrate that the Gospel would triumph only when all churches and religious societies were exterminated from the face of the earth.

This species of philosophy, by denying the immortality of the soul, the divinity of Christ, and the value of the Church, reduced all religion to a vague form without any fixed or determinate existence. But, after all, what did Hegel and his disciples mean by religion? It is difficult to give an answer when one examines his works, barbarous as they are in style, and more nebulous in their conceptions than these of any other German writer. Nevertheless out of his misty speculations one can thus formulate his conception of religion: "Religion is only a creation, a phantasm of the mind of man, who adores a G.o.d whom he himself has formed to his own image; so that divine nature is only human nature idealized, unconfined, and then considered as a real and personal being."

From this principle which denied G.o.d, by confounding Him with man, and reducing all religion to simple philanthropy, Feuerbach deduced the theory that all theology was founded upon anthropology; that G.o.d was man, and that the love of G.o.d meant merely the love of man. Thus German philosophy had arrived at mystical atheism and was turning rapidly to open paganism with its denial of Christianity. This doctrine was preached by Stirner and by Gaspar Schmidt, who esteemed egoism as something sacred, and began to advocate revolution and anarchy.

Side by side with the school of Hegel was that of Tubingen, the head and master of which was Ferdinand Christian Baur (died in 1860). Baur had written, in 1835, a work on Gnosticism, which suggested many of the errors of Renan, and ten years later another work on St. Paul, of which Renan made much use when after denying the divinity of Christ, he wished also to deny the sanct.i.ty of Paul. Baur had once attempted to answer Moehler's monumental work, that "_Symbolism_" which exposed the contradictions of Protestantism and the constant doctrine of the Church.

Under the leadership of Baur, the School of Tubingen rejected the Gospel of St. John, the whole theme of which is the divinity of Christ.

While the philosophers of Tubingen and other German universities were thus a.s.sailing the divine foundations of Christianity, another cla.s.s of writers, Moleschott, Buchrer, Vogt, Lowenthal, and many Protestants, were turning to naturalism and atheistic materialism, the consequences of Hegelianism. The materialistic school, which was socialistic in politics, atheistic in religion, realistic in literature, had the impudence to present itself as the savior of society.

It would have mattered little had these various systems been compelled to rely upon their un-Christian apostles for support; but the pity was that men who pretended to believe in Christianity, in the Bible, in revelation only too often listened with favor to their teachings and applauded them. Thus it was that by the time of the French War of 1870, the Protestant mind of Germany was deeply infected with rationalistic ideas, so far at least as to render it unfit to understand even the primary principles of Christianity. Under such conditions it is easy to perceive how the teachings of Catholicity, resting firmly upon the Gospels and drawing their vigor from the divinity of its Founder, could prove a very eyesore to a misguided generation.

In Germany, in the course of the nineteenth century, until 1870, the Church suffered from a weak-kneed policy of many on whom she thought she could rely. The poison of Frebonianism was never quite eradicated, and made itself manifest from time to time in various wild disorders.

Wessenberg and Dalberg strove to supplant the authority of the Holy See with a national church. Efforts were made to abolish clerical celibacy, to establish a new ritual, to inflate Catholic doctrine with a certain heretical mysticism, to destroy Catholic devotion and loyalty by means of Rongeism. These and a hundred similar movements were evidences of the continuing influence of old Frebonianism, suppressed in one place only to break out in another. And yet, if the disorders had merely confined themselves to such wild distortions of Catholic practices, it would have been only a matter of time to cause their ultimate disappearance. But it is a singular quality in such pseudo Catholic movements, that they lead their supporters insensibly to the region of absolute heresy. Indeed, as is the case with the Modernists of today, the votaries of these "advanced" Catholic notions are often actual pantheists and atheists, while proclaiming their loyalty to the Church and her teachings.

The liberal Catholic of Germany will have much to answer for when judged for his part in leading to the persecutions of the Church in that country. In the first part of the century his presence was noted everywhere, in the court, in the schools, and especially in the universities.

_LIBERAL CATHOLICS._

About the time that Pope Gregory XVI. condemned the errors of Hermes, a certain ecclesiastic, Anthony Gunther, was already creating a reputation because of his philosophical and theological novelties. As it was then a time when many strange systems were constantly appearing, and confusing the Catholic mind, the first writings of Gunther, far from exciting suspicion, aroused words of admiration, even from men like Goerres, Moehler, Arnoldi and many other prominent ecclesiastics. Gunther had so ingeniously concealed his true sentiments that their presence was not manifest.

_GuNTHER._

After 1850, however, he began to show his real position. Residing then at Cologne, he permitted himself to be drawn into the vortex of unrestrained liberalism, and conceived the project of reconciling the new doctrines of the rationalistic world with the truths of Christianity. In his works he accordingly gave the leading place to philosophy, to which he made theology subservient. His att.i.tude, in fact, was nothing less than a return to the theories of Abelard, so vigorously condemned and exposed by St. Bernard. In this manner Gunther approached the Rationalists; he repudiated tradition wherever it seemed in contradiction to his teachings; he pa.s.sed carelessly over the Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, often changing their form; he created new words for his theology, and attempted every conceit to produce a certain harmony between the faith and the spirit of the age.

In his doctrines, he purposely clouded the revealed truths. In an attempted explanation of the dogmas of the Trinity and of the Incarnation he displayed an ignorance as to their true conception. On such questions as the creation, and the union of the soul and body, he reasoned in a manner not only different from that of St. Thomas, but entirely opposed to that of the Church. The bishops of Germany were aroused to this new danger, all the more that many disciples were beginning to show the influence of the new master, and among them he had already begun to be hailed as a saint, the restorer of true philosophy, the savior of the Church. His doctrines were examined at Rome, and were condemned January 8, 1857.

Thereupon Gunther wrote to Pope Pius IX., declaring himself obedient and submissive, and accepting in all humility his condemnation. Some of his disciples imitated his example; others, however, while declaring themselves obedient to the Holy See, continued to defend the condemned doctrines, bolstering their conduct with the sophism, that as the condemnation was given in a general manner, the Holy See had not indicated in any way what precise words or propositions of the works had caused them to be placed on the Index. Hence, they said, that while the system of Gunther might be condemned taken as a whole, the separate and individual doctrines of the author might be accepted. It was a new mode of evasion, which rejected the condemnation while pretending to accept it.

Pius IX., accordingly, wrote to Cardinal Geissel, on June 15, 1857, explaining clearly the untenableness of this new pretext. The Sovereign Pontiff, moreover, exhorted the Cardinal to forbid the books in his diocese, and to watch with all vigilance "that the doctrine contained in them, and already condemned, be not taught in any manner by anyone, whether in the schools of philosophy or in those of theology."

The school of Gunther was thus suppressed; his teachings, however, continued to influence the minds of Germans far into the next decade, and contributed not a little to excite that craving manifested by the liberals for compromising the Church in favor of the spirit of the age.

_FROHSCHAMMER._

In 1862 Pius IX. warned Catholics of new dangers. In the University of Munich, which from being the centre of German Catholic thought in the days of Gorres, had under Maximilian become a very nest of false Catholicism, there was a professor of theology, James Frohschammer, whose tenets approached so closely to rationalism as to excite suspicion from the very outset. In 1858 he published his _Introduction to Philosophy_, and in 1861 a treatise on the _Liberty of Science_, and another work ent.i.tled _Atheneus_. These three volumes were full of grave errors and pernicious doctrines. In Frohschammer's system reason was accredited with undue authority; full freedom of thought was permitted without regard to revealed or unrevealed truth; philosophy, it was declared, by its own power could arrive at those same principles which are common to faith and to natural reason, and even the divinely revealed truths of the Christian religion such as the supernatural end of man, the great mysteries of the Incarnation, and others like it were, it was stated, a part of science, and hence the material of philosophy, which could attain to the knowledge of them not through the principle of divine authority, but through its own natural forces. Moreover, it was taught that philosophy had no right to subject itself to any authority whatsoever; that its liberty was boundless, even though, as was a.s.serted, the philosopher himself ought not to teach anything contrary to what divine revelation and the Church has taught, to call it into doubt because he cannot understand it, or to refuse to accept the judgment of the Church. Hence the wish expressed by Frohschammer that the Church should not meddle with philosophy, that it ought to permit philosophy to make its own corrections, even though it should have fallen into error.

These errors were especially harmful when rationalism was rampant in Germany; in fact the works of Frohschammer were condemned by the Church, not as if she loved philosophy less than a misguided world, but that she might prevent it from falling from its true position and becoming a poison rather than a food, and it was to that effect that Pius IX. wrote to the Archbishop of Munich on December 11, 1862.

Frohschammer had already one of his former books _On the Origin of the Soul_ condemned by the Church: but instead of acknowledging his errors, he repeated them in subsequent works, at the same time maligning the Congregation of the Index and abusing the Church with epithets and calumnies. But Frohschammer effected less harm when he placed himself in open rebellion so that all Catholics could be on their guard when his teachings were brought forward. To the liberals, however, he was a welcome aid, reading as they did in his works, and as coming from a Catholic source, the very tenets they were striving to inject into the German mind.

_DOELLINGER._

Perhaps no more potent evil genius existed for the corruption of the Catholic German mind at the time than the too famous theologian of Munich, Ignatius Doellinger. Born at Bamberg, on February 28, 1799, he made rapid and brilliant studies at Wurzburg and in his native town. He was ordained priest in 1822 and spent a few months in parochial work. In 1823 he was made professor of history and canon law in the preparatory college of Aschaffenburg, and when the University of Landshut was transferred to Munich, he was selected for the chair of history in the new inst.i.tution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOELLINGER.]

In his earlier career, in fact as late as 1860, Doellinger was one of the foremost and loyal of German Catholics. At a time when so many of his co-religionists were being led into the campaign of hostility to Papal authority and the ancient discipline of the Church, Doellinger ever remained true to his ultramontain principles. In 1826 appeared his first theological work, _The Doctrine of the Eucharist During the First Three Centuries of the Church_, which was followed in rapid succession by a series of brilliant expositions of Catholic truth and history. In 1847 appeared his three magnificent volumes on "_The Reformation, Its Interior Development and Its Effects_." It was the signal for a crusade against the falsehoods of Protestant historians as uttered in nearly all the universities of Germany.

In 1861 appeared his "_Church and the Churches, the Papacy and the Temporal Power_," a collection of public lectures which the author had delivered at the "Odeon" of Munich during that year. The work created a sensation among the Catholic teachers of the land, who could not but recognize in it the germs of the conflict which Doellinger was yet to wage with the Holy See. The Piedmontese had just completed their invasion of the Papal States, and naturally the world looked to Doellinger for words of protest. The unhappy theologian proved recreant to his duty at a moment of so much importance. Instead of uttering an unequivocal protest, Doellinger babbled only about the necessity of liberal inst.i.tutions secularization, etc., imitating to a humiliating degree the expressions of Cavour and Napoleon III. Doellinger had now steered his bark into the stormy waters of Liberalism.

In 1863, at an a.s.sembly of savants, at Munich, he discussed in a very bold manner the "_Past and the Present of Catholic Theology_," which called forth words of indignation from Scheeben, the eminent theologian of Cologne. Doellinger, together with some other disaffected Catholics, considered that the moment had nearly arrived for displaying open hostility to Rome. The man who had defended the Church in the Bavarian Chamber from the year 1845, who had spoken in terms of pure loyalty and affection at the Parliament of Frankfort, and at the Catholic congresses, who had spoken in no uncertain terms against the persecutions incident to the question of mixed marriages, who had flayed with his vehement scorn the supporters of a bill to abolish clerical celibacy, and had denounced the profligacy of King Louis and his favorite Lola Montez, in 1848, was preparing to turn his back upon a career so brilliant, and to take up arms against his mother, the ancient Church.

In 1869 when Pope Pius IX. named the commission which was to prepare the way for the Council of the Vatican, the name of Doellinger was omitted from the list. Although he could expect no other treatment than this, having already signified his utter disregard of all that history and tradition had taught concerning the Holy See, and having even gone out of his way to invent calumnies and garbled citations from historical writers in opposition to every papal claim, nevertheless Doellinger protested against his exclusion from this august body, and accordingly manifested even in advance his hostile att.i.tude to any and every decision which the future Council might make. One of his princ.i.p.al moves in this direction was to instigate Prince Hohenlohe, president of the Bavarian ministry, to arouse all the cabinets of Europe against the Holy Father.

During the Vatican Council he gave his best talents to the cause of opposition. While the episcopate of the whole world was deliberating in St. Peter's, Doellinger published his heretical views in his _Ja.n.u.s_, and in various _Roman Letters to the Allgemeine Zeitung_, besides putting forth many "declarations" stigmatizing the work of the Council.

When the Archbishop of Munich demanded his submission to the decrees of the Council, Doellinger made a formal refusal, on March 28, 1871, and drew upon himself the sentence of excommunication.

_APOSTASY OF DOELLINGER._

The decisive step was now taken, and Doellinger in separating himself from the Catholic body was welcomed by the enthusiastic acclamations of all the liberal camp. Dreaming that he was about to play the role of a new Luther, the apostate gathered about him the disaffected elements of German Catholicism, especially in the various universities of the country. Men who held high prestige in the scientific and literary world, threw themselves at his feet and called him the savior of Germany. Forty-four professors in the University of Munich, a stronghold of Rationalism ever since 1848, and among them Freiderich Sepp and Reischl, were foremost among the defenders. Theologians like Hilgers, Langen, Reusch, and Knoodt from the University of Bonn; Reinkens, Baltzer and Weber, from Breslau; Michelis, from Braunsberg, and Schulte from Prague were but the leaders in the list of eminent savants who placed themselves under his rebel banner. The heart of Doellinger was inflated with pride and in laying the foundations of that sect to which the euphonious t.i.tle of "The Old Catholics" was given, the apostate imagined that a new Reformation was beginning, which would presently count its supporters by the thousands and millions.

History, with pitiless irony, has told the sad fate of his ambitions.

Despite the immense aid given by the State to the new religion, despite the prestige even of Doellinger and his savants, the Old Catholics degenerated in a few years into a squabbling, disunited mob, to such an extent that Doellinger himself became ashamed of the child of his fancy.

Too proud to acknowledge publicly the error which his heart recognized, he continued his apostasy until his death, by apoplexy, January 10, 1890.

Hermes, Gunther, Frohschammer and Doellinger were but the manifestations of that spirit of disorder among the German Catholics, whose purpose was primarily to reconcile, by their own methods, the spirit of faith with the spirit of the age. Pride had created blindness, and blindness, spiritual suicide. But the liberal world that looked on placed their mutilated carca.s.ses upon the altars of hate, and made their fall the occasion of fiery denunciations against the Church and all that it represented.

_PROTESTANT ASCENDANCY._