The War Upon Religion Part 18

The Bishops of Germany a.s.sembled at Fulda on September 20, 1872, and protested against the persecutions. They made use of the occasion to defend the n.o.ble att.i.tude of Bishop Krementz of Ermland, to reproach the Government for its open favoritism in the case of the Old Catholics, to declare that Bishop Namszanowski had fulfilled his duty. They deplored this new offense against the Church through the persecution of the Company of Jesus and of other Orders. In their summing up they declared that "the principles herein expressed by us will always be the criterion of our actions, and we are ready for that end to make the greatest sacrifices, even that of our lives."

In the meantime the anti-Catholics were busily elaborating their plan of campaign. A certain professor, Emile Friedberg of the University of Leipzig, published a rabid attack upon the Church wherein he outlined the policy to be pursued by his party in dealing with them. Among his suggestions, nearly all of which were ultimately adopted, were the following: The establishment of obligatory civil marriage; suppression of obligatory baptism; separation of Church and State; secularization of charitable works; a penal law against "abuse of the pulpit;" measures to prevent ecclesiastics not in harmony with the Government from using the pulpit; a rigorous surveillance of the education of the clergy; an order forbidding the appointment of ecclesiastics who by their civil or political relations could create difficulties for the Government; suppression of the Order of Jesuits; an interdict striking all Congregations not authorized by the Government; recourse to the State against the decisions of ecclesiastical authority; punishment of "abuse of power" by fines, and by suspension from exercise of jurisdiction; measures compelling the State never to place its powers at the discretion of the Church, never to punish an ecclesiastic resisting his ecclesiastical superiors, never to confirm the penalties ordained by the bishops; measures to abolish the sanctification of the holy days, etc.

All these measures and many more like them are worthy of note inasmuch as they contained the program of the real hostilities now about to begin. The separation of Church and State, being in the eyes of the Radicals, the supreme end, it was proposed to proceed gradually, destroying first the means of life in the German Church, stopping up its veins and arteries, and finally strangling all its activities, until it should at length have become so weak and inert that any measure for its extinction should be easy and successful. It was the proposal of men; G.o.d, Himself, however, was to show that the last word remained in His divine power.

_MAY LAWS._

On January 9, 1873, Falk, the Minister of Worship, placed upon the desk of the Chamber four resolutions, the object of which was to inaugurate a certain Civil Const.i.tution for the clergy, and to place the Church entirely at the mercy of the State. After having proscribed the religious Orders, these new resolutions aimed at the destruction of the secular clergy.

The first of these laws, "on the appointment and education of ecclesiastics," required that all ecclesiastics should be of German birth, that they should have graduated from a German gymnasium, and have spent three years in a State University, after which they should undergo an examination directed by the prescriptions of the ministry of worship.

The State was to supervise all establishments of ecclesiastical training, even the Grand Seminaries which alone were to remain, all the lesser Seminaries being closed. The President of the Province had the right to reject every appointment or transfer of ecclesiastics made by a bishop, and the bishops should be obliged to notify the President of all appointments and transfers; moreover, the President could impose a fine of one thousand thallers upon any bishop who should not appoint a person acceptable to the ministry, and this appointment should be made within the s.p.a.ce of a year; otherwise he could lay hands upon the property of the bishop or of any other ecclesiastic refusing obedience, nor could the bishop appeal from such judgment to the crown. This civil punishment rendered the ecclesiastic unfit for the divine ministry. A fine was to be imposed upon any priest who after being deposed by the Government should dare to exercise his ecclesiastical functions.

A second law a.s.signed the limits within which the bishops might judge in ecclesiastical affairs, the penalties they were to p.r.o.nounce, though always with the consent of the civil authorities; an appeal was inst.i.tuted from the judgment of the bishop to the High Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs, which Court could order the suspension of a bishop who had unjustly condemned a subject. There was to be a penalty for the bishop who should refuse to surrender to the State the records of any ecclesiastical trial; moreover, the High Court could justify itself for any deposition of a bishop by the plea that his continuance could not be permitted for reasons of public utility.

A third law regarded those who should wish to abandon the Catholic religion. It was a measure of encouragement to apostates whose defection it surrounded with the most benevolent and watchful care. The only thing necessary to legalize any act of apostasy was that the unfortunate should appear before a civil official with a declaration written and sealed, and the payment of five silver groschen (12 cents).

The fourth and last law, "on the limits of the use of means of punishment and correction in the Church" was one hardly likely to have any honest interest for the bishops, since it forbade, what they were never likely to do, the physical punishment of lay people, and any punishment attaining the fortune or the honor of the citizens. It was a law which hoped that by formally forbidding any criminal act, would lead an inflamed public opinion to believe such a criminal act had really been perpetrated.

Such were the May laws which despite the pleading of the Centre orators, and their innate and evident injustice pa.s.sed the lower House on April 5, 1873. In the Landtag, however, the difficulty of pushing them through was at once evident. To win his point at all hazards moved Bismarck to a stratagem worthy of his evil genius. The Emperor was accordingly induced to appoint twenty-four new members to the Landtag, all of whom were warm partisans of the Chancellor. The best men of the Landtag pleaded eloquently for justice and right, but their voices were drowned in the chorus of hate swelled by these new accessions. On the 1st of May the whole bill was pa.s.sed, and by the middle of the month they received the royal signature.

As soon as the discussion upon the new laws was begun the German bishops addressed a memorial to the Government detailing with all precision and clearness the injustice and the necessary consequences of the proposed legislation. On February 5, they addressed a collective letter to the Landtag containing the princ.i.p.al portions of the former memorial, and declaring firmly: "For, if these projects, which are in direct opposition to the prescriptions and very essence of the Church, are adopted, not a Catholic, and still less a priest or a bishop, can recognize them, or submit voluntarily to them without betraying his faith." The pet.i.tions of the bishops had little effect with the Iron Chancellor, who smiled at the thought that fifteen aged prelates could turn him aside from his set purpose. On May 2, the bishops of Prussia addressed a circular to the priests and faithful of their dioceses, declaring: "The projects in question have not yet the force of law; if that should happen, however, with G.o.d's grace, let us defend unanimously and constantly the principles exposed in our memorials, those principles not being our own, but those of Christianity itself and of eternal justice. We shall thus accomplish our pastoral duty even until death, and as we stand before the tribunal of the divine Pastor Who has called us, and Who Himself gave His life for His sheep, we shall not be rejected as hirelings."

On May 16, the day when the May Laws first appeared before the public, the bishops of Prussia sent a collective declaration to Secretary of State, again stating their claims to liberty of conscience and affirming the utter impossibility of submitting to these persecuting laws. "The Church cannot recognize the principle of a pagan State, according to which the civil laws are the only source of right, so that the Church can have only so much liberty as is conceded by legislation and the Const.i.tution of the State. She cannot recognize such pretensions without denying the divinity of Christ, the heavenly Source of her doctrine and inst.i.tution, and without placing Christianity itself under the arbitrary caprice of men."

The example of the bishops found an echo in the courageous behavior of the priests and faithful. From all sides the priests of Germany joined in collective protestations of their loyalty to the principles of the Church, and gave the lie to the Liberal sheets which pretended that defections had already begun in the ranks of the clergy. The faithful were not less zealous in manifesting their sentiments of admiration for the courage of their bishops and priests, and of a determined resolve to start firm for all their G.o.d and their Church should demand of them.

An election for the Reichstag was approaching, and the influential Catholics of the Empire bent all their energies to gain whatever might lie in their power. On May 20, this election took place at Neustadt, a place that in 1871 had sent Count Oppensdorf, a strong partisan of Bismarck, to the Chamber with a majority of 5000 votes. The Catholics took up the struggle for this district. Their candidate was Count Frederic von s...o...b..rg-s...o...b..rg. Their efforts were successful and the Catholic candidate was elected by a vote of 6427 against 2155. The glory of this triumph was due princ.i.p.ally to the work of the General a.s.sociation of German Catholics, which now took up the cause of Catholic liberty as never before. As if in grat.i.tude for this and some other similar successes, the General a.s.sociation, at once published an official circular announcing that it had placed all Catholic committees under the protection of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and declaring: "If we place our confidence in that Savior so bitterly rejected by our times, we shall not be confounded."

The Government looked with astonishment upon these manifestations of Catholic loyalty and zeal, and endeavored by subtle trickery to bring them to nothing. To overcome the firm stand of the Catholic n.o.bility, Bismarck induced Prince Ratibor, a Catholic, whose honor was not immaculate, to address the Emperor in the name of the Catholic people.

His memorial ent.i.tled "_Address of the Catholics of the State_,"

recognized in the imperial Government the right of placing the Church in subjection; but n.o.body, even among the enemies of the Church, was deceived by the ruse.

The High Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs now began its work. It was composed at the time of nine Protestants and two Catholics, Dooc and Forckenbeck, both being creatures of Bismarck. It immediately sent out its police inspectors to spy upon all public meetings; every speech was criticized, the audience disturbed, the names of all present at such meetings set down in note books, and, if caprice so dictated, the meetings might be dissolved by the police. While every sheet that attacked the Catholics was protected and subsidized, the Catholic newspapers were subjected to vexatious intermeddling and suppression.

Many Catholic editors, like Dr. Majunke, of the _Germania_, payed for their zeal by imprisonment.

In the midst of these troubles, Pope Pius IX. wrote on August 7, 1873, to the Emperor: "Every measure of the Government demonstrates that its intention is to combat Catholicity; nor is there any apparent reason for such deeds; His Majesty approves of them as is shown by his letters; how then, can they continue? Does not the Emperor perceive that they are a menace to his throne?" The answer of William was worthy of the injustice of his Government; he defended himself by appealing to his rights and casting the blame upon the Centre and the German bishops. This correspondence between the Emperor and the Pope was spread throughout all Germany, which in its inflamed state was willing to take every word of the Pontiff as an insult and cause for further persecution. But the holy Pontiff, in his Encyclical of November 21, 1873, exposed the hypocritical sophisms of the Emperor, and upheld both the Centre and the bishops in the magnificent work they were carrying on.

In the meantime a ministerial ordinance of Falk, dated September 2, abolished all difference between the Old Catholics and the Catholics of Rome, declaring that the name, Catholic, should be common to both. At the same time, Reinkens of Breslau, who had been chosen by his co-religionaries as the "German Bishop," and consecrated by the Jansenists of Deventee and Harlem, was so highly recognized by the Government, that the Emperor decided, by an official act, communicated on September 19, to all the provincial governors, that "Bishop" Reinkens const.i.tuted a part of the Catholic Church. The doc.u.ment is interesting: "We, William, by the grace of G.o.d, King of Prussia, etc., announce by these presents that we recognize and wish to have recognized as a Catholic bishop Joseph Hubert Reinkens, ordinary professor in the Faculty of theology of Breslau."

_WAR OF VIOLENCE._

The May Laws of 1873 were put into operation with hardly any delay. The first to feel their force was Archbishop Melchers of Cologne, who had excommunicated the apostates, Rabbers and Pasfrath, and who had forbidden any ecclesiastic ordained by the Jansenists of Utrecht to exercise the clerical offices. The Government closed the Grand Seminaries of Posen and of Paderborn after the bishops of those Sees had refused to submit to the Government, or to bend to its will even after the sequestration of their salaries. At Treves, Cologne and Fulda also the income of the Seminaries were confiscated.

The Archbishop of Gnesen-Posen, Mgr. Ledochowski, had named a pastor and a vicar without consulting the Government. He was cited before the High Court, and was condemned to a fine of two hundred thallers, while the two priests he had appointed received notice that they could not exercise any ecclesiastical office. The same courageous Archbishop had ordered that the catechism in the Catholic school of Wongrowitz should be taught in the Polish language, while the Government demanded that it should be taught in German. As a result the teachers of the school were deprived of their places, and an effort was made to forbid religious instruction even in the churches.

Again in August the High Court condemned for the crime of appointing pastors and a.s.sistants, the same Archbishop Ledochowski, together with Bishops Forster of Breslau, Martin of Paderborn, Cardinal Schwartzemberg of Prague, the Bishop of Olmutz and the Administrator of Freiberg in Brisgovia. The two latter prelates were not even subjects of Prussia, but were persecuted for having appointed pastors in Prussian territory without the permission of Berlin. Bishop Koett of Fulda was actually dying when the sentence of condemnation was launched against him; he saw the closing of his Seminary just before he died on October 15, 1873. The furniture of the dead prelate's house was taken to pay the fine imposed upon him. Truly even the dead were pursued by the fanatics of hatred.

The bishops of Heldesheim, Osnabruck, Munster and Treves, were also condemned by the High Court. Every day the priests of the Prussian dioceses were punished for daring to prefer the jurisdiction of the bishops to that of the bureaucrats. Religious and Sisters were hunted and banished under the pretext that they were affiliated with the Jesuits. Catholic teachers were driven from the schools, which were then committed to Protestants, rationalists, anything but Catholics.

On November 24 the Government invited Mgr. Ledochowski to resign his See; on the 30th of that month his palace was forced by agents of the Government, and searched, and all his correspondence with Rome and with his clergy was seized. In answer to the demand of the Government he had declared that as he had been placed over his diocese by G.o.d, through the means of His Vicar, the Government had no power to depose him; nor could any Court deprive him of his jurisdiction; as to resigning his See, that would never happen as long as his persecuted people were exposed to such dangers.

On February 6, 1874, the Archbishop was arrested in his palace, and without trial or sentence, was carried away to Ostrowo, where he was cast into prison. On April 15 the High Court pa.s.sed its sentence upon the Archbishop, already in prison, as on March 31, Archbishop Mechers had been sentenced and imprisoned. On March 6, Bishop Eberhard of Treves received the same fate, and three days after soldiers and guards surrounded his Grand Seminary, banished its directors and professors and confiscated all its property.

In the meantime a dissension had arisen in the Camp of the enemy. Arnim, who had served Bismarck during the Council of the Vatican, had come into disfavor with his powerful employer, and began to show revolutionary tendencies. One of the results of this discord between the Chancellor and his former tool was the disclosure of certain shady operations of Bismarck prior to 1870. Certain doc.u.ments were brought forth showing that, in 1869, Doellinger had influenced the Bavarian Prince Hohenlohe to begin the war against Rome, and that at that time Bismarck was laboring in every part of Europe to arouse the Governments against the definition of papal infallibility. It was shown also that from June 18, 1870, this Arnim, whom Pius IX. called the "New Architofel," had suggested against the Church all the measures of which Bismarck had made use during the year that followed. These revelations coming thus in 1874, in the very heat of the persecution, gave additional evidence that the Council and the infallibility were only pretexts, and not the real causes of the Kulturkampf, an event which had been in preparation long before the Council was convened.

The greater indignities perpetrated upon the heads of the Catholic Church in Germany now followed each other with such rapidity and violence as to overshadow the thousands of minor grievances. On July 27, 1874, Bishop Janiczewski, auxiliary of the See of Posen, was imprisoned at Kosmin for fifteen months for having a.s.sumed the episcopal office without the permission of the Government. The same day, Mgr.

Koryskowski, delegated by the Archbishop of Gnesen to administer the affairs of that diocese, was sent into exile at Stargard. The Canon Woiyewski was imprisoned for having continued in his capacity as ecclesiastical judge after the imprisonment of his Archbishop. Bishop Martin of Paderborn was deposed from his bishopric; he refused to read the sentence which was nailed to the door of his prison cell; he was liberated, however, but conducted to the frontiers at Wesel. On January 18, 1875, the Seminary of Fulda, the most ancient establishment of its kind in Germany, was closed.

The record of persecution during the first five years of the Kulturkampf is an appalling arraignment of its perpetrators. Five bishops imprisoned, and all bishops fined and insulted, fourteen hundred priests incarcerated, all the seminaries closed, it seemed little short of miraculous that religion survived the merciless onslaught. Yet the end had not arrived. On December 4, 1874, Bismarck suppressed the emba.s.sy to the Vatican, an act which moved the Catholic people to send to the Sovereign Pontiff an address signed by all the faithful of the Empire.

It was in answer to this address that Pius IX. published that eloquent encyclical of February 5, 1875.

Strange to say, however, all the previous legislation had not begotten the results that were expected. The clergy like the episcopate resisted the anti-religious laws, preferring exile, imprisonment and fines to defection, however tempting. The faithful stood loyally by their afflicted pastors, refusing with one mind the ministrations of ecclesiastics sent to them by governmental orders.

The Chancellor, therefore, was driven to a final resort to effect his purpose of extinguishing Catholic faith in Germany. Accordingly a new series of laws was elaborated, ent.i.tled the Sperrgesetz, or laws suppressing the payments made to ecclesiastics by the State. One cannot rightly term these payments "salaries," a word which indicates no other claim than remuneration for services performed. The amounts annually payed to the Church by the State were moneys which the State owed to the Church since the beginning of the century on account of the wholesale confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and revenues following upon the Treaty of Luneville in 1803. As such they had been formally recognized, and hence their payment to the officials of the Church was a matter of justice which the State could not afford to refuse without incurring the stigma of robbery.

This, however, was the object of the new laws which were as follows:

Article 1. Beginning from the day on which the present law shall be published, the payment of all that the Government has. .h.i.therto allotted to dioceses, to inst.i.tutions and to ecclesiastics who belong to such dioceses shall be suppressed. The same measure shall be extended to such ecclesiastical funds as the State administers permanently.

Art. 2. The ecclesiastical salaries shall be re-established whenever the bishop, or the diocesan administrator shall pledge himself in writing to observe the laws of the State.

Art. 3. In the dioceses of Posen-Gnesen and Paderborn the ecclesiastical salaries shall be re-established as soon as a new bishop shall be appointed in concert with the Government.

Art. 5. If in any diocese, in which the ecclesiastical salaries shall have been re-established, any priest refuses obedience to the laws of the State despite the pledges given by his bishop, the Government is authorized to suppress anew any allowance in favor of such recalcitrants.

Art. 6. The Government is authorized to re-establish the salaries of priests who by their acts manifest the intention of obeying the laws of the State. If after that they shall violate the law, the suppression of their salaries shall be enforced.

This was the law, variously called the Brodkorbgesetz, the Sperrgesetz and the like, which was pa.s.sed on April 22, 1875, with the hope thereby of starving the priesthood of Germany into submission.

On May 13, 1875, the minister Falk brought forth another law placing under the power of the State all sales and alienations of ecclesiastical properties and of pious foundations. A law of June 20 gave to the State the temporal administration of Catholic parishes; it was a law very much like that of the present French regime which would impose a.s.sociations cultuelles upon the French churches. On July 4 came a still more iniquitous ordinance, regulating "the rights of the Old Catholics to the property of the churches." Thereby these sectaries were authorized to claim a part of the usufruct of parochial properties, and to employ in their services the use of Catholic churches and vestments.

If a pastor or curate should apostatize to this sect he might claim possession of the rectory and church, which at his death would pa.s.s into the hands of the Old Catholics, should they be in the majority. In fact, in some places, such as Bochum and Wiesbaden, the Catholics were expelled from their Church by a very small minority of the sectaries.

On February 18, 1876, the priest was deprived of the right of directing Catholic instruction in the primary schools. On June 7, of the same year, the State claimed formally the right of surveillance over the administration of the property of the Catholic Church.

There was little more that the State could now do to subjugate Catholic faith short of absolute murder. The Kulturkampf had reached its most critical stage. It was, indeed, a moment when the human pride of the persecutors impelled them to boast of their crimes, and promise, if it were possible, greater exact.i.tude in the future. The Chancellor could declare, in 1877, that the Kulturkampf was then at its zenith. In consequence it was time to look for that civilization which Virchow had prophesied as its ultimate result. Its real fruits were not what Bismarck or his Protestant clientele would have wished.

A new order had arisen in Germany, an order of unrest and anarchy which manifested its existence in a manner not at all to the liking of the ruling powers. Thus, on May 11, 1878, the Socialist Hoedel attempted the life of the Emperor, and the crime was repeated by n.o.biling a few weeks after, on June 2. Even Protestantism felt the destructive force of the blow aimed at Catholicity. There were hardly any more marriages performed by Protestant ministers; their temples were deserted; their pastors openly attacked the divinity of Christ, while everywhere like a shadow of death a reign of crime and immorality rested upon the population.

_TURN OF THE TIDE._

The country at length began to awaken to a sense of the criminality of those laws which it had imposed upon an inoffensive people. Even the _Gazette of the Cross_, the organ of the orthodox conservatives, could say: "It is through the Kulturkampf that we have encountered our moral and material miseries, miseries that are evident in every part of the German Empire. It is only by renouncing the Kulturkampf, and the ideas which brought it forth, that we can hope to escape from our embarra.s.sments. Such is our opinion, and it is becoming more general every day. Where there is a will there is a way." The _Gazette_ but echoed the sentiments of nearly all the German Protestants who had retained anything of Christian faith, and in consequence a demand was sounded throughout the Empire for a cessation of the persecution.

Bismarck, himself, though still wedded to his hope of dominating the spiritual life of the Church, saw clearly that his methods had proven abortive. Hence, from 1878 onward, the trend of governmental action proceeded slowly but surely towards a reconciliation with the Catholic elements in the nation. Moreover, it was becoming more and more evident that the Government needed the co-operation of the Catholics in curbing the spirit of revolution now making itself heard above the clamor of intrigue and oppression.

It was not surprising, therefore, that Prince Bismarck should turn to the Holy See for succor in his difficulty. Mgr. Masella, the papal nuncio at Munich, afterwards Cardinal, was therefore invited to Berlin to confer upon matters touching the relations of Church and State. Such a visit, however, was entirely out of the question as long as the laws against Catholics continued in vigor. The Chancellor contrived nevertheless to arrange a meeting at the baths of Kissingen, but without arriving at any satisfactory agreement. The Prince then sent his representative, Count Hubner, to Vienna to confer with the papal nuncio at that Court, Mgr. Jacobini. Again negotiations were opened at Gastein in the duchy of Salzburg, but like the others came to naught, as the papal representative refused conciliation as long as the May Laws should continue.