III.
The Kulturkampf! The name was invented by Virchow, the atheistic professor. He calls it a War for Civilization, though he of all men very well knew that the reality could mean only a return to savagery and barbarism. But as the Kulturkampf began in hypocrisy, was continued in hypocrisy, and finished in cowardly hypocrisy, what matters it, if even the name by which the mongrel is called is also born of hypocrisy!
The war was not the sudden ebullition of frenzied fear; it was a carefully prepared campaign. It was launched only when every circumstance seemed favorable to its success. France and Austria were helpless to oppose it; England and Italy were full of encouragement; the Protestants of Germany were excited by the spectre of infallibility; the Liberals welcomed it as a rebuke against their old enemy, Conservatism; the Holy Father himself was closed in behind the walls of the Vatican, a prisoner, and therefore without the prestige of governmental influence. At the beginning of 1871, the Catholic Church in Germany stood alone without aninfluential friend in the world. It was then that cowardice raised its hand to strike; it was the act of a ruffian felling with a blow of his mailed fist the woman whom robbers had left half dead by the roadside.
If the Catholics were to blame in any manner, it was only because they had permitted themselves to be cajoled in advance by the smiles and hypocritical advances of Bismarck and his henchman, though it is true, they had every right to expect a grateful treatment from the new Empire. In 1870, Peter Reichensperger, one of the most prudent leaders of the Catholic party, advised the Bavarian Diet to join the Prussian alliance, through the trust he had in that State at the moment. Even Bishop Ketteler was deceived when he beheld the comparatively fair treatment of Catholics in the Rhenish province, whose proximity to France rendered it advisable that they should not be discomforted, though at the same time the Polish subjects of Prussia, at the other end of the Kingdom were complaining of political aggressions against their religious liberty. Bishop Ketteler, however, was soon compelled to avow his mistake. "It was a great fault on our part," he writes, "to have believed in the stability of the Prussian Constitution, in the rights which it plainly allowed us. We were culpable for having believed that, in Prussia, justice could triumph over the inveterate prejudice against Catholics, and over party feelings. We were deceived; but our fault is not of the kind that should cause us to blush."
The Catholics had, indeed, just reason to expect favorable treatment. They had been repeatedly assured that it would be accorded to them. In 1870 the Emperor, replying to an address from the Knights of Malta from the Rhenish Provinces and Westphalia, had uttered the significant words: "I regard the occupation of Rome by the Italians as an act of violence; and when this war isended, I shall not fail to take it into consideration, in concert with other sovereigns."
Thus it was that the Catholic people of Germany, whose men fought against the bullets of France for the Fatherland, whose priests and nuns went about the battle fields succoring and comforting the wounded and the dying, who, in a word, stood in every trial foremost among the defenders of the King and of his Government, were unprepared to see the hand that they had aided, raised in a moment to strike them down, and the sword that they had supported, uplifted for their extermination. It was again the conflict of the Church against a lying, hypocritical, ungrateful world.
THE CENTRE.
To the most farseeing Catholics of the country it had long been evident that there was need of a strong organization of Catholic political forces. Before the Franco Prussian war no such distinctive organization existed. At the Reichstag of Northern Germany the Catholics were not grouped together, and at the Prussian Landtag they formed only an inconsiderable minority. There appeared to be no need of concerted action in the political field since peace and security seemed fully assured. The schools were Christian, the religious Orders performed their benevolent actions freely and unimpeded, the clergy was respected and honored. Nothing being attacked, there was nothing to defend. The Catholic deputies could enroll their names in any party they chose to favor. Thus it was that when the time of danger came they were scattered on every side.
After the war, however, Malincrodt, with some of his friends, brought the Catholic members together, and elaborated a manifesto which served as a platform forthe voters of the country, according to which Catholics were asked to cast their votes only for such candidates as would pledge themselves to enter the new Catholic party and support its principles. In the elections of March 3, 1871, the advice of these leaders brought sixty-seven Catholic representatives to the Chamber, a number that increased as the Kulturkampf progressed.
The new party took the name of the "Centre," and on March 27 affirmed its existence by publishing its programme. At the head of this document was written its motto: "Justice, the basis of Governments." The chiefs of the party, Savigny, Windthorst, Malincrodt, Peter Reichensperger, Prince Loëwenstein, and Freitag, were appointed a committee of direction for the party and empowered to act for the furtherance of its interests. The party thus constituted took for its permanent devise the words: "For truth, justice and liberty," and the Catholic deputies pledged themselves to defend these three causes with all the energy of their will and intelligence. They demanded, moreover, in the members of the party qualities worthy of its great purposes; no candidate might place his name on their list except such as were without fear and without reproach. For the interests of religion were in danger; and could they be defended efficaciously by men who were not themselves living in conformity with that religion? Every inconsistency of behavior would naturally be taken advantage of by the enemy and made the basis of scandal, and hence, as it was necessary not to give an opportunity for criticism, the party bound itself to a platform of moral integrity and austerity. A Catholic deputy guilty of having engaged in a duel contrary to the laws of the Church, could not be admitted. Even the stain of imputation, however undeserved, provided it gained popular credence, could debar one from its numbers. And thusfor the thirty years of its existence not one of its members, as far as is known, has cast dishonor upon the standard thus raised by its leaders. It is because of this high moral standard, this unflinching loyalty to the Church in all her endeavors, that the Centre was enabled to stand uncowed and unconquered throughout the long war that followed its inception.
The new Centre party was called into action almost from the day of its birth. The first Reichstag of the German Empire met on March 21, 1871. In his speech from the throne the Emperor solemnly declared that the new Empire was to be "the citadel of the peace of Europe." The Reichstag voted an address in answer to the Emperor's speech, which, while containing a sentiment of greeting and congratulation to the sovereign, was at the same time, to define the attitude of Germany with regard to European questions of the day. The Catholic people still remembered the promises formulated at Versailles on November 8, 1870, and confirmed at the beginning of 1871, and accordingly had reason to hope that Germany would make use of her diplomatic intervention in favor of Pope Pius IX., despoiled by his enemies and imprisoned in the Vatican. This hope was expressed in a resolution formulated by the Centre and proposed for the acceptation of the Reichstag. But the Liberal party, at the instigation of Bennigsen, repulsed the proposal of the Centre as a clerical intrigue, and voted that "Germany, without being influenced either by sympathy or antipathy, would permit every nation to attain its unity in its own way, and leave to each State the choice of the form of government which that State might consider best." This attitude of the new Government was thus a refusal to support the Holy See and an official recognition of the claims of Victor Emmanuel and his followers.
It was an act, moreover, which placed the Centreparty in a very compromising position, for in refusing to vote the address containing such an article they would lay themselves open to the charge of disloyalty and disrespect toward the sovereign, while in case they should vote for it, they would thereby approve of the iniquitous spoliation of the Papal States and the indignities heaped upon the Holy Father. There was no hesitation, however, in the action of the Centre. While faithful to their religious principles, and at the same time loyally devoted to their Fatherland, they refused to vote the obnoxious article. As was expected, their action drew upon them the envenomed hatred of all parties, in months they were greeted as traitors, renegades, and the "ultramontaine party."
The resolution of Bennigsen was voted on March 30, 1871, by a majority of 150. It was but the prelude of open hostilities. On April 1, 3 and 4, a discussion upon the Constitution was in progress, and Peter Reichensperger, of the Centre, endeavored to conserve in the new document the religious liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of 1850, with its consequences of freedom of worship and freedom of association. Under the leadership of Lasker, Treitschke and Blankenberg, the Liberals again repulsed the claims of the Catholic despite the fervid and logical eloquence of Bishop Ketteler. By a vote of 223 to 59 these liberties were expunged from the Constitution, and at its reading one of the Liberals, Marquard, remarked: "We have declared war upon Ultramontainism, and we will carry it to a finish."
The efforts of the Centre, however, although meeting with repulse in their first appearances, were yet indicative of a power with which the Liberal party would have to reckon. Hence it was considered necessary to effect its ruin in order that the principles of State absolution should acquire the domination to which it aspired. Toeffect this object, Bismarck made use of a stratagem entirely in accord with his usual dishonesty and lack of scruple. His plan was no other than to throw discredit upon the Centre attack in the eyes of the Catholic people. He had already misrepresented the Centre before the Holy See as a source of trouble for the Church in the Empire, and he strove to induce the Holy See to formally disavow the operations of the Centre. Not being able to obtain such a disavowal, he pretended that he had actually obtained it. One of the Catholic members, Count Frankenberg, was deceived by the assurances of the Chancellor, and abandoned the party, on May 17, 1871, without giving any apparent reason. Three days later Malincrodt, certain of the trickery of Bismarck, published a formal protest against such an unworthy manoeuvre. Frankenberg, beginning to doubt, asked of Bismarck an explanation, and was assured that "the interview of which you have spoken between Count Tauffkirchen and the Cardinal Secretary of State will hardly be revoked. The Centre party has been disapproved. This disapprobation does not surprise me after the evidences of satisfaction and the expressions of entire confidence which His Majesty, the King, has received from His Holiness, the Pope, on the occasion of the re-establishment of the German Empire." So categorical an avowal at first threw the Catholics into a state of consternation, but Bishop Ketteler, of Mentz, feeling that something was wrong, wrote to Cardinal Antonelli, who at once, on June 5, sent a solemn denial of the interview, which was published as an answer to the declaration of Bismarck.
The chagrin caused by this exposure found its vent in the non-Catholic journals of the time, stigmatizing in the broadest terms the loyalty of Catholics. Bismarck's own newspaper, theGazette of the Cross, called allPrussia to arms against the Centre and Ultramontainism, those internal enemies who must be punished as were the Austrians and the French "for it is time to take up again the work of the Reformation, and to assure the supreme victory of Germanism over Romanism." In accordance with these sentiments the friends of Bismarck set to work with open aggressions. On July 8, 1871, a royal ordinance suppressed the Catholic section of the Ministry of Worship, which had been founded by Frederick William IV. in 1841, to give the Catholics an opportunity of presenting their needs and claims before the Government. The Catholic population was thus shut out from any officially favorable recognition.
At the same time Bismarck hastened to acts whereby the free action of the German bishops were nullified at the caprice of the State. There was at the time, in the Gymnasium of Brauensberg, a certain teacher of Christian doctrine, named Wollmann, who had undertaken to speak openly in opposition to the dogma of Papal Infallibility, and thus incurred the imputation of heresy, together with a director of the Normal School, one Freibel, a member of the Old Catholic sect. Bishop Krementz, of Ermland, after vain endeavors to bring him to a sense of his errors, excommunicated him and his companion, and then reported his action to the Minister of Worship, von Muhler, claiming that an excommunicated heretic should not be permitted to teach in a Catholic school. The Minister refused to remove the objectionable teacher (June 29, 1871), declaring that the dogma of Infallibility in no way affected the relations of Church and State. When, on July 9, following, Bishop Krementz protested in so just and logical a manner that none of the official journals dared to report his words, the Ministryreplied by threatening to expel any student of the Gymnasium who should refuse to attend the lessons of Wollmann.
The persecution proceeded from day to day. On November 23, 1871, the Bavarian Minister, von Lutz, presented before the Reichstag a law entitled "for abuse of the pulpit," the "Kanzel-paragraph," which went into vigor on December 10, 1871, and which was expressed in the following terms: "Any ecclesiastic or official of the Church, who during the exercise, or on the occasion of the exercise of his ministry, be it in the church in presence of the crowd, or in any place set apart for religious gatherings, shall, before several persons take as the theme of his discussions affairs relating to the domain of the State, in such a manner as to jeopardize the public tranquility, shall be punished by imprisonment the duration of which can be extended to two years."
The purport of this law was plainly perceived by the Catholic people. De Lutz, who with Prince Hohenlohe of Bavaria, a Catholic in a Catholic State, had elaborated the law, confessed openly, that "this was the first buttress in the defence of the State against the Catholic Church, and that still others would yet be erected." He admitted even more, that the law's intent was to protect apostasy, the rebellion of disloyal theologians against the dogmas and discipline of the Church. Hence he declared: "The law is framed to give courage to 'good priests,' who might suffer from the tyranny of the infalliblist bishops, who might force them to acts which we would punish." In reply to this declaration Herr Windthorst remarked: "Thus this law is an agreement between the new Empire and the Protestantism of Doellinger."
On the 8th of the following February, 1872, another law was proposed, giving to the Government all rightsover the schools. It had been suggested by Muhler, and was sustained by his worthy successor, Falk, aided by Bismarck. To oppose it more than 500 petitions were placed before the Landtag; those from Silesia alone contained more than 80,000 signatures.
In the discussions, Bismarck brought to sustain his cause the most influential members of the ministerial group, such as Gneist, a Freemason, Lasker, a hostile Jew, the apostate pastor, Richter-Mariendorf, and the materialist professor, Virchow. He himself met with his usual brutal cynicism the protests of Windthorst, and Malincrodt, and all the Polish and Guelph orators who dared to take the stand for justice and honor. The law was finally voted and passed with a majority of 42. Thus the Government had the right to supervise all institutes of education both public and private, the right to appoint the inspectors of schools, or to deprive those exercising such posts of their office. It was a law in fact which placed Catholic pastors under the direct and unreasoning surveillance of the State in a matter most closely connected with religion.
The tyrannical character of the law was recognized not by Catholics alone, but by all fair-minded men. TheKreutzeitung, and theGermania, differing in faith and thought, were in accord in this matter and complained bitterly of a law which meant only "the loss of that which had hitherto been the good fortune of Prussia, since it was clear that the Government and the National Liberals desired only the extinction of religion." The bishops protested with one voice, declaring the law "offensive to the essential and inalienable rights of the Church, and that grave perils and dangers were hovering over Church and State." Then as their protests and petitions remained unheard, they sent forth, on April 11, 1872, a collective letter informing their priests of theirresolution never to yield except to violence: "Since no power on earth can dispense us from the obligation of watching over the Christian education of the little children who have been confided to us by the divine Savior, we are firmly resolved to continue to fulfil faithfully the duties of our pastoral charge in that which touches the popular schools which the law takes away, in principle, from the maternal action of the Church, and that duty we shall fulfil to the end, as long as it is not made absolutely impossible."
The Government, however, which at first pretended to respect the rights of the Church, little by little removed many priests from the schools, took away as far as possible the priestly supervision, and favored mixed schools of Catholics and Protestants. The crucifix was then removed from the school rooms, together with all biblical pictures and the statues of the saints.
The Bishop of Ermland, who in July, 1871, had excommunicated the apostate Wollmann, received from the Minister of Public Worship, Falk, a notification to the effect that: "as the excommunication was not a merely spiritual penalty, but had also a civil signification, so it could not be admitted that it should be inflicted only by an ecclesiastical superior, and that the latter in using it would violate the prerogatives of citizens placed under the protection of the State, and would commit an assault against the rights of the State, which can and ought to oppose it; hence in his action against the two excommunicated persons, he had gone beyond the limits of his ecclesiastical powers; this act was therefore annulled, and the Government would refuse any longer to recognize him who had so acted, as the Bishop of Ermland."
Bishop Krementz answered, on March 30, exposing the absurdity of Falk's doctrine, the justice of his own action in regard to Wollmann and Michelis, and dissipatingthe many sophisms and garbled citations contained in the letter of March 11. The Bishop declared, moreover, that he could not and would not obey, and spurned the malicious action he was commanded to do despite all right and all laws. The words of the courageous Bishop only served to fan the flame of hatred, but had no effect in lessening the injustice and violence of the Government.
When the bureaucrats of Berlin perceived that the bishops of the country were holding firm to their principles, they again had recourse to the dishonest methods of strategy. There was at the time a cardinal in Germany, the brother of that Prince Hohenlohe who had been instrumental in Bavaria in stirring up an agitation against the Papal authority. Cardinal Hohenlohe was one of those ecclesiastics who at the Council of the Vatican had held out most strongly against the definition of infallibility, and though he had finally acquiesced with the other bishops, he harbored in his heart something not at all in harmony with the Catholic position of his native land. He was therefore looked upon by the Government at Berlin as a most favorable subject to act as an intermediary between Berlin and Rome to force the hands of the unwilling bishops. Accordingly in the beginning of 1872, Bismarck caused it to be reported abroad that the Cardinal was to be sent to Rome as the German ambassador to the Holy See. A strange feature of this appointment was that the Pope had received no official intimation of the Government's intention, contrary to all diplomatic usages. The Cardinal accepted the mission without having asked the consent of the Holy See. In fact, the Papal Secretary, Cardinal Antonelli, soon received a laconic dispatch from the Chancellor informing him of the approaching arrival of the new ambassador. The plan of Bismarck was clearly to effectthrough the offices of Cardinal Hohenlohe the suppression of the Centre party, knowing well that in case the Holy See refused to accept the embassy, it would arouse in Germany a storm of animosity which must prove invaluable in aiding the anti-Catholic movement.
The Pope naturally refused to receive Cardinal Hohenlohe as an ambassador. As a result the anti-Catholic press began at once to print its most violent invectives against the Catholic Church. In the Reichstag, the deputy Bennigsen, boiling with fury, demanded the final suppression of the embassy to the Holy See. The embassy was, nevertheless, continued, for Bismarck could not think of thus closing up an avenue, which, he fondly thought, would finally lead to the extinction of that Centre party which he hated as he hated the Catholic Church itself. Moreover, official documents are existent which betray the fact that Bismarck even at that early date was seriously considering the project of directing the future Conclave towards a choice which would favor the political ends he had in view.
On May 28, 1872, Von Roon, Minister of War, suspended Bishop Namszanowski, the high military chaplain, from his office, because the latter had refused to officiate in a place desecrated by the services of the Old Catholics. It was an act of Caesarism which tended to reduce the whole episcopate to the entire will of the State. It was remonstrated that there were no laws to authorize the action of Von Roon; accordingly it was proposed to make such laws.
While these were in preparation the persecution was for a time concentrated upon the Jesuits. For two years, indeed, the more bitter among the Protestants united at Darmstadt had demanded the banishment of the members of this Order. It was a proposition most savory to the Old Catholics, who would find it more easy tobanish the Jesuits than to conquer them, and it was through their efforts principally that the question of their persecution was finally brought before the Reichstag.
In the meantime the Government began to be besieged with petitions, some demanding the expulsion of the Jesuits, others defending them by greater numbers and stronger arguments. By April 29, 1872, there were forty-one such petitions against the Order, while its defenders presented as many as four hundred and seventy-six. On May 16, the Reichstag consigned all petitions to the Chancellor, Bismarck, as was proposed by the Councillor, Wagener. Thus was left to the arbitration of one man a matter which interested the whole Empire, to a man, moreover, who that same day was charged with preparing a law regulating the legal conditions of the religious Orders, congregations and associations, and which "should establish penalties for their activity when hurtful to the State."
While hardly ten thousand signatures demanded from the Reichstag the banishment of the Jesuits, more than four hundred thousand more were presented in their favor. On June 12, a law against the Jesuits was proposed; Prince Hohenlohe and three others aggravated its hostile measures by extending its effects to all Congregations bearing a resemblance to the Society of Jesus. Wagener declared openly that its purpose was to combat Rome, and hence that the law which was to strike the Jesuits should be only the beginning of the war upon Catholics. To give some semblance of plausibility to such a far-reaching design, he spread abroad the rumor that there were Jesuits hidden under every kind of habit. Malincrodt responded ably to the sensational clamorings of Wagener, proving that the intentions of the proposed law were violations of the rights of nature, of existinglegislation, of the particular Constitutions of the States, of that of the Empire, and of the primary elements of justice and good sense. The battle that ensued called for the loftiest eloquence of the Centre, from Windthorst, Ballestrem, the two Reichenspergers, and from Ketteler. One of the Reichenspergers declared that the enemies of the Jesuits "believe they must break every law to create a new law of proscription in order to protect themselves from two hundred Jesuits. Ah, gentlemen! confess that your law is but the failure of Liberalism!" On June 19, the infamous law was passed.
A few days after Pius IX., addressing on June 25, 1872, some Germans at Rome, gave them such advice as might be expected from the great Father of Christendom. "Pray," he said, for prayer is the most powerful means of restraining the persecutors of the Church. He bade them to oppose their enemies by word and writing, with firmness, and yet with respect. It was God's will that they should obey and respect their superiors, but He wills also that we should speak out the truth and combat error. The discourse of the holy Pontiff aroused evil feelings among the enemies of the Church in Germany, who declared it an exhortation to rebellion, and to civil war, that it was an intolerable usurpation, and that the Pope ought not to meddle with such matters.
Meanwhile the sisters were banished from the public schools, and the communes were ordered to break all contracts made with religious Congregations. The young men in the gymnasiums and high schools were forbidden to be members of Catholic societies, though Protestants were permitted full liberty in such matters. Thus in Bavaria the Government forbade the meetings of the great St. Boniface Association which looked after the spiritual interests of Catholics in Protestant districts, while at the same time it tolerated the Society ofGustavus Adolphus, an association which pretended to care for Protestants in Catholic States. Indeed, Falk boasted that his aim was to restrain the Catholic propaganda.
The law against the Jesuits as printed in the decree of July 5, 1872, reads as follows: "The Order of the Company of Jesus, being excluded from the German Empire, it is no longer lawful for the members of that Order to continue to exercise any office of the Order itself, above all in the church and in the school; nor is it permitted to them to preach missions; within six months at the most the houses of the Company of Jesus must be closed."
Following the issue of this decree the Catholics everywhere were subjected to a most humiliating espionage. Jesuits were discovered everywhere and denounced to the authorities. Not only secular priests, but laymen and officials of the army were accused. The decree gave the Jesuits six months; but in many places their persecution began immediately. Colleges, houses and churches were closed; the Jesuits were forbidden to preach, to hear confessions and even to say Mass.
With the Jesuits were included also the Redemptorists, the Lazarists, and the Brothers and Sisters of the Christian Schools; even the pious congregations directed by these Orders were dispersed as being affiliated with the Jesuits.
The Bishops of Germany assembled at Fulda on September 20, 1872, and protested against the persecutions. They made use of the occasion to defend the noble attitude 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 ofJesus 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; God, 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 Constitution 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 space 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 assigned the limits within which the bishops might judge in ecclesiastical affairs, the penalties they were to pronounce, though always with the consent of the civil authorities; an appeal was instituted 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 forbiddingany 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 passed 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 passed, 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 principal 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 petitions 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 God'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 Constitution of the State. She cannot recognize such pretensions without denying the divinity of Christ, the heavenly Source of her doctrine and institution, 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 God and their Church should demand of them.
An election for the Reichstag was approaching, and the influential Catholics of the Empire bent all theirenergies 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 Stolberg-Stolberg. Their efforts were successful and the Catholic candidate was elected by a vote of 6427 against 2155. The glory of this triumph was due principally to the work of the General Association of German Catholics, which now took up the cause of Catholic liberty as never before. As if in gratitude for this and some other similar successes, the General Association, 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 nobility, Bismarck induced Prince Ratibor, a Catholic, whose honor was not immaculate, to address the Emperor in the name of the Catholic people. His memorial entitled "Address of the Catholics of the State," recognized in the imperial Government the right of placing the Church in subjection; but nobody, 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 namesof 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 theGermania, 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 Emperordecided, by an official act, communicated on September 19, to all the provincial governors, that "Bishop" Reinkens constituted a part of the Catholic Church. The document is interesting: "We, William, by the grace of God, 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 assistants, the same Archbishop Ledochowski, together with Bishops Förster 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, Osnabrück, Münster 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 God, 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 passed 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 documents 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 assumed 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 embassy 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, entitled 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 hitherto allotted to dioceses, to institutions 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 assoon 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.
Article 1. Beginning from the day on which the present law shall be published, the payment of all that the Government has hitherto allotted to dioceses, to institutions 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 assoon 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 passed 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 associations 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 pass into the hands of the Old Catholics, should they be in the majority. In fact, in some places, such as Bochum and Wiesbaden, the Catholicswere 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 exactitude 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 Nobiling 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.