The party in Europe who desired the suppression of the Pope’s temporal
rule professed to be actuated by zeal for promoting a more free and useful
exercise of his spiritual authority. It soon became manifest that this was
the merest sham. Switzerland, guided by that narrow kind of Protestantism
which has so often asserted its power, pretended to see only in the Pope
the Chief of the small Roman State; when deprived of that State, he was no
longer a prince or dignitary, with whom diplomatic relations could be
held. His legate at Berne, accordingly, was informed that he must take his
departure from the territory of the Swiss Confederation. It is well
understood that this ungracious measure was secretly advised and promoted
by Germany. That Power speedily followed the example, although not at
first in a very direct or open way. The German ministry appointed to the
Embassy of the Vatican Cardinal Hohenlohe, the only one of the cardinals
who proved unfaithful to Pius IX. in the hour of his great distress. The
Pope remonstrated against the appointment. The inflexible Prussian
minister, Bismarck, replied that he would send no other, suspended and
finally abolished diplomatic relations between the new Empire and the Holy
See. It is by no means matter for surprise that a man of Prince Bismarck’s
views and character should have so acted, or even that he should have
become the promoter of the greatest and most unwarrantable persecution by
which any nation has been disgraced, or to which any portion of the Church
has been subjected in modern times. This minister, who may be truly
described as the political scourge of Germany, is as fanatical in religion
as he is coarse and sceptical in politics. He abandoned his party, and
became, or feigned to become, a liberal in order to gratify his hatred of
the Catholic Church. He belongs to that branch of Protestantism which is
called “orthodox” (_lucus a non lucendo_). On occasion of the debate, 14th
April, 1874, on the law which withdrew the salaries of the Catholic
clergy, a Protestant conservative member of the representative body, Count
de Malrahn, declared that he would vote for this law, because it would
affect only the Catholics, without interfering with the rights of the
Evangelical denomination. Bismarck, by his reply, not only showed an utter
absence of all political faith, but at the same time a degree of political
hypocrisy with which all true history will never cease to stigmatize him.
“I must express the great joy which I experience on hearing the
declaration of the preceding speaker. If, at the commencement of the
religious conflict, the conservatives had taken this ground, and sustained
the government in the name of the Evangelical religion, I never would have
been under the necessity of separating from the Conservative party.”
From Chancellor Bismarck’s own words, therefore, it may be concluded that
it was excessive sectarian fanaticism which made him an infidel and
hypocrite in politics, a traitor to his party, and a savage persecutor of
the Church. When there was question in December, 1874, of obtaining an act
for the suppression of the Prussian legation to the Holy See, the
deep-rooted hatred of Prince Bismarck and his absolute want of conscience
became still more apparent. He audaciously accused the Court of Rome of
having been the ally of France, and even of the revolution in the war
against Prussia in 1870. He pretended that if the Œcumenical Council was
closed abruptly, it was in order to leave complete liberty of action to
Napoleon III.; and, as facts were necessary in order to support this
extraordinary and false assertion, he ascribed to Monsignor Meglia, at the
time nuncio at Munich, the words, “Our only hope is in the revolution.” As
the chancellor uttered this odious calumny, he suddenly took ill. He
became pale, stammered, and had recourse, four or five times, to a glass
of water, which was beside him, in order to recover his spirits and find
the words which he should use. The whole parliament was struck with this
incident. The Abbe Majunke, editor of the Catholic journal _Germania_,
was, however, the only one who spoke of it publicly. Such an offence
against the omnipotent chancellor could not, of course, be overlooked. M.
Majunke was summoned to the police office, and thence consigned to prison,
notwithstanding his inviolability as deputy, and the protestations of the
_Reichstag_ (parliament). What a grand conception Chancellor Bismarck must
have had of constitutional government!
The great success of William I. in the Franco-Prussian war appears to have
so elated that monarch that he considered there was nothing which he might
not successfully undertake. He had annexed to Prussia some of the lesser
States of Germany, and made a German Empire. The Church in Germany enjoyed
many privileges and immunities under his predecessors, who, for the most
part, were, like himself, Protestants. Whether it was that he desired to
show himself a better Protestant than his ancestors, or that he could not
emancipate himself from the control of the minister who had so long
guided, with singular success, the destinies of the empire, as well as his
own career, or that he believed it to be a political necessity to act
according to the views and carry out the principles of the German and
European “Liberals”—the party of revolution and unbelief—he resolved to
oppose no impediment to his chancellor and the liberal majority of
parliament in their endeavors to destroy the Catholic Church in Germany,
unless it chose to become as a mere department of the State, acting and
speaking in the name of the State, receiving its appointments from the
State, as well as the funds requisite for the support of its ministers,
accepting all its orders and instructions, even in the most spiritual
things, from the State; in fine, looking to the State as the sole source
of all its authority, honor, power and influence. There was nothing like
the German Empire. It had conquered in gigantic wars with two Powers that
were considered the greatest in continental Europe. It had attained a
degree of power and greatness, scarcely if at all inferior to that of the
first Napoleon, and, like Napoleon, it aimed at more. It sought, like him,
to have the Church, no less than the police courts, in every respect, in
all circumstances and on all occasions, completely at its orders. This
ill-judged ambition accounts for the long list of oppressive laws which
were enacted at Berlin for the enslavement of the Catholic Church. They
are known as the “May Laws,” all of them having been passed, although not
in the same year, in the month of May. Dollinger, Hohenlohe and the rest
of the anti-Catholic Bavarian _coterie_, deluded the Emperor and his
minister with the idea of an independent German _alt_, or Old Catholic
Church. They sold their country to the new empire, politically. But they
could not sell its church. One of these _alt-Catholics_, Dr. Schulte,
recommended persecution as the surest means of eradicating the ancient
church. “Let his twenty thousand florins be withdrawn from such a one, his
twelve thousand thalers from such another; let the salaries of the bishops
and chapters be suppressed, and the result will soon be manifest. The
humbler clergy will rejoice. Since 18th July, 1870, there has been neither
belief in Christ nor religious conviction among the bearers of mitres and
tonsures.” Thus was the Prussian minister led to imagine that he had only
to transfer the benefices of the Catholic dignitaries to the
_alt-Catholics_ in order to constitute an independent German Church, which
would unite the whole of Germany religiously, as he had already united it
politically. All Catholics, of course, would be members of this new
Church. The State Protestantism of Prussia would, in due time, join this
State Church, and there would be, if not one Faith and one Baptism, one
Church and one State.
The calculations of Chancellor Bismarck were, however, at fault. He soon
discovered that the clergy were grossly calumniated, and that the
_alt-Catholic_ Church in which he trusted never counted more than thirty
priests; that this number increased not, and that the hundreds of
thousands of adherents of whom the pseudo bishop, Reinkens, boasted, were
only some twenty thousand to thirty thousand, scattered over all Germany.
These had no principle of cohesion. They could not agree as to any
fundamental point of religious doctrine or discipline. According to a
census made in 1876, they numbered only one hundred and thirty-six, in a
population of twenty-five thousand Catholics, at the city of Bonn, which
M. Reinkens had selected as the seat and centre of his episcopal
ministrations. Meanwhile, there was a considerable reaction in
prevaricating Bavaria. The Catholic minority was changed into a majority,
and the Prussian Catholic representation, which was called the fraction of
the centre, was strengthened at the elections of 1874 by an increase from
twenty-five to forty votes. The chancellor, although enlightened, was not
corrected. Nothing could divert him from his evil purpose. By a strange
confusion of ideas, he called _Kulturcampf_ (struggle for civilization)
the open war which he waged against the Church, the source of all
civilization and of liberty of conscience. The persecuting laws which,
with the aid of the so-called “liberal” party, or party of unbelief, he
succeeded in causing to be enacted were to the following effect. As was to
be expected of the blind political fanaticism of the party, the Jesuits
were the first objects of hostility, and the first victims of persecution.
The May laws required that these unoffending individuals should be
expelled without any form of trial, and deprived of their rights of
citizens. At the same time, certain religious orders which, it was
pretended, were affiliated with the Jesuits, were subjected to the like
treatment.
All ecclesiastical seminaries were suppressed, the solons of legislation
pretending that it was necessary to oblige the candidates for the
priesthood to imbue their minds in lay schools, with the ideas and wants
of modern society.
The new laws abolished articles fifteen, sixteen and eighteen of the
Prussian Constitution, which guaranteed the autonomy of the different
forms of worship; they bestowed on the State the nomination to
ecclesiastical functions, and went so far as to forbid bishops the use of
their right to declare apostates excluded from the Catholic communion.
They suppressed the subsidies and allowances which the State, until that
time, paid to the diocesan establishments and the clergy generally,
notwithstanding that such subsidies were not gratuitously bestowed by the
government, but were nothing else than, as in France and Belgium, the
restitution, in part, of the debt due by the State to the Church. It was
provided, however, that such members of the clergy as should make their
submission should at once have their salaries restored. By a refinement of
cruelty, all collections and subscriptions, whether public or private, for
the requirements of public worship and the support of the clergy were
forbidden, and elective lay commissions were charged with the management
of all ecclesiastical property. Finally, all religious orders, as well of
men as of women, were suppressed, with the exception, and that
provisionally only, of such as were devoted to the care of the sick.
If Chancellor Bismarck really believed, at any time, that the Catholic
clergy were without faith and conscience, ready to submit to any terms the
State might impose, in order to save their incomes and the institutions of
the Church, he must have been greatly surprised when he found them all,
without exception, prepared to welcome poverty, imprisonment and exile,
rather than abandon the inalienable rights of conscience. On the 26th May,
1873, the Bishops of Prussia signed a collective declaration, in which
they stated, with regret, that it was impossible for them to obey. “The
Church,” said they, “cannot acknowledge the heathen state principle,
according to which the laws of the State are the source of all right, and
the Church possesses only such rights as it pleases the State to grant. By
so doing, it would deny its own Divine origin, and would make Christianity
wholly dependent on the arbitrary will of men.” In regard to temporal
matters connected with the Church they could afford to be less strict: and
so they authorized their people to take part in the election of the new
lay managers of the properties of the churches. This wise policy was
attended with the most happy results. The chancellor’s plans were
everywhere completely marred. He had reckoned that the Catholics would
abstain from voting, and so allow a “liberal” (infidel) minority, however
small, to dispose of the churches and presbyteries.
In reviewing the news of the day, we have been accustomed to think of only
one or two more eminent prelates suffering under the lash of persecution.
The truth is, that the whole Church suffered. The persecution was as cruel
as an age which does not permit the shedding of blood would tolerate. The
bishops were crushed with fines on account of each act which they
performed of their spiritual office. Such fines they refused to pay, lest
they should acknowledge the justice of their condemnation. Their movable
property, accordingly, was seized and sold at auction, and they themselves
were immured in the prisons, where they were mixed up with felons
condemned to the same labors, and designated, like them, by numbers. It
was all in vain. Nothing could shake their constancy. At Berlin was
erected a sort of ecclesiastical tribunal, which arrogated to itself the
power of deposing from sees, and which actually pretended to depose the
Archbishop of Posen, the Bishop of Paderborn, the Prince-Bishop of
Breslau, and several other prelates. The fortresses of Germany were filled
with priests, whose only crime was that they _obeyed God rather than men_.
The public ways were crowded with priests who had been deprived,
afterwards _interned_, and finally banished. Numerous religious people,
both men and women, were in the like sad position, thronging the road of
exile. The people, in tears, escorted these victims of heathenish rage.
They chanted, as they went, the psalm, “_Miserere_,” and the canticle,
“_Wir sind ini waren Christenthum_” (“we are in true Christianity”), until
they reached the railway depots. The Prussian gensd’armes, who were often
no more than two or three in number, were astonished to find that they
could so easily conduct their prisoners, whom thousands and tens of
thousands of other men, the greater number of whom were veteran soldiers,
accompanied, as they passed, expressing their regrets and good wishes.
Persecution is impolitic no less than it is cruel and immoral. The German
people, to say the least, were shocked by the tyranny of their government.
Nothing could prevent them from showing what they felt and thought, on
occasion of the release of the prisoners at the end of their two years’
term of imprisonment. They took every possible means of expressing their
satisfaction. Thus, at Munster, when Bishop Warendorf returned, the
inhabitants paid no attention to the prohibition of the burgomaster, who,
by order of the government, intimated that he would repress, by force,
every external and public demonstration. The whole city rushed to the
gate, St. Mauritius, by which the released prisoner was to enter. Count
Droste-Erhdroste proceeded to receive him in a magnificent carriage, drawn
by four horses, which was followed by four more carriages in charge of his
servants, who were in complete gala dress. An immense crowd strewed
flowers along the route as the bishop advanced, and ceased not to hail him
with joyous acclamations until he reached his residence, where the first
families of the country were in attendance to receive him. In the evening,
the whole town, with the exception of the public buildings, was
illuminated. The citizens of Posen were preparing a like triumphal
reception for their archbishop, Cardinal Ledochowski, on occasion of his
release in February, 1876, from the fortress of Ostrowo, where he had been
incarcerated for two years, when he was carried off in the nighttime and
transported beyond the limits of his diocese, in which he is forbidden
ever again to set foot. Two suffragan bishops were left behind. They also
were imprisoned at Gnesten, one for having administered the Sacrament of
Confirmation without special leave from the government, the other for
having consecrated the holy oils on Maunday Thursday, 1875. By such acts,
which evidently belonged to the spiritual order, they were held to be
guilty of sedition and a violation of the rights of the State.
The whole Catholic world was deeply moved by this modern and unprovoked
persecution. All could not speak, indeed; but all were in sympathy with
the clergy and faithful people of Germany. The bishops of France would
have brought war upon their country by uttering a word of disapproval. The
irascible chancellor actually sought to raise a quarrel with that country
on account of a slight and inoffensive allusion which fell from the lips
of two of the bishops. Could he not see that he will be branded throughout
the ages as a persecutor and a short-sighted politician? Great Britain and
America could speak without fear or hindrance. And they were not slow to
send their words of consolation and encouragement to their suffering
brethren of Germany. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster wrote in a
strain which may be described as apostolical, to the Archbishop of
Cologne, the Primate of Germany, greeting “with the greatest affection
both himself and his brethren, the other bishops who are in prison for
having defended the authority and liberty of the Church.” This letter was
reproduced by all the newspapers, and could not have escaped the notice of
the Prussian minister. Nevertheless, he was silent. Although sensitive in
the extreme, as regarded France and Belgium, his knowledge of geography
and naval statistics, no doubt, enabled him to possess his soul in
patience.
Pius IX. could not but feel for his afflicted children of Germany. He was
moved, accordingly, to address a very earnest remonstrance to the Emperor,
William I. This was done so early as August, 1873. He could not believe
that such cruel measures proceeded from a prince who had so often given
proof of his Christian sentiments. He had even been informed that his
Majesty did not approve of the conduct of his government, and condemned
the laws which were enacted against the Catholic religion. “But, if it be
true that your Majesty does not approve of these measures (and the letters
which you formerly addressed to me appear to me to prove sufficiently that
you do not think well of what is actually taking place),—if, I say, it is
not with your sanction that your government continues to extend more and
more those repressive measures against the Christian religion which so
grievously injure that religion, must you not come to the conclusion that
such measures can have no other effect than to undermine your throne?” He
may possibly have thought so, when, a little later, his life was attempted
by parties who are known to seek the destruction of religion and civil
government at the same time. Be this as it may, his reply to Pius IX. was
not in his usual kindly style. It was scarcely polite, and appeared to be
the work of the savage chancellor rather than of the good-natured monarch.
The appeal of Pius IX. produced no result. The Emperor’s government added
to the harshness of his refusal by advising him to address a letter of
congratulation to the new bishop of the _alt-Catholics_. This was done, as
was expressed, “on account of his complete deference to the State and his
acknowledgment of its rights.” In another letter, which was also made
public, William I. recalled to mind those ancient Emperors of Germany who
were the irreconcilable enemies of the spiritual supremacy of the Popes,
and intimated that he was resuming the work of Frederick Barbarossa and
Henry IV. The association was unfortunate. The chancellor’s commentary was
more so. “We shall never,” he boasted, “go to Canossa!” These words,
spoken before the assembled parliament, were a defiance of Divine
Providence. Was it forgotten that there were other snows than those of
Canossa, in which Emperors could perish? The first Napoleon pursued, in
regard to the Church, the same policy that Germany was now pursuing. He
defied the religious power, and contemptuously asked _whether the arms
could be made to fall from the hands of his soldiers_! They did so fall,
nevertheless, when the demented Emperor led his legions into the snows of
Russia.
Pius IX. could not behold without concern the deep distress of his
brethren in Germany. He addressed an Encyclical letter, under date of 5th
February, 1875, to the Bishops of Prussia, lamenting the persecution which
tried them so severely, dwelling at great length on the evils of the _May
laws_, praising the constancy of the clergy, and exhorting them to
continued patience and perseverance. The whole doctrine of the Encyclical
may be said to be expressed in the following words:
“Let those who are your enemies know that you do no injury to the royal
authority, and that you have no prejudice against it when you refuse to
give to Cæsar what belongs to God; for it is written, ‘_We must obey God
rather than men_.’ ”
This eloquent letter, like everything else that was done in order to
mitigate the most trying persecution of modern times, remained without any
other result than to afford some comfort to the clergy of the afflicted
Church of Germany.
Pius IX., in order to show still further his appreciation of the constancy
under persecution of the German clergy, conferred the dignity of Cardinal
on Archbishop Ledochowski, who courageously accepted the proffered honor.
The persecuting government prevented him from ever enjoying it in his
diocese, by condemning him to perpetual banishment. This was, at least, an
approach to the cruelty practised on Fisher, the illustrious English
Confessor, who was consigned to the Tower of London because he would not
sanction the divorce of Henry VIII., and acknowledge the Royal Supremacy
in questions of religion. The Pope of the time sent him a cardinal’s hat.
But the enraged king took care that he should never wear it by cutting off
his head. The time was past when blood could be shed in hatred of the
truth, even by so hard a tyrant as the Prussian minister. In the
nineteenth century, however, as well as in the sixteenth, there would not
be wanting those who would resist unto blood for religion’s sake.
It was comparatively an easy matter to deprive and banish the legitimate
pastors, but not quite so easy to find priests so unprincipled as to
become their successors. The politic chancellor, apparently, had not
thought of this beforehand. In the course of five years he could find only
two ecclesiastics who would consent to accept benefices at his hands. All
those on whom he might have counted for establishing a schism in the
Church had already joined, with all the encouragement which the minister
could bestow, the _alt-Catholic_ sect, which, as has been shown, was
destined to prove a failure. It is almost superfluous to say that the
parishioners studiously avoided all communication in things spiritual with
the nominees of the State. Meanwhile, the faithful people were not left
destitute. Zealous young priests from the seminaries visited them
privately at their houses, and ministered to their religious wants. Such
as so acted were arrested and conducted to the frontier. They returned by
the next railway train. They were then cast into prison. As soon as they
were free they returned to the post of duty. There was in Germany a
revival of the Primitive Church—of the zeal and self-sacrifice of the
apostolic age. All this was met by the closing of the seminaries, the
severest blow that had, as yet, been struck against the cause of religion.
The chancellor, nevertheless, was not successful. The newspapers in his
interest, which he designated as the _reptile press_, laughed at his
short-sightedness. He had counted on accomplishing his purpose by some six
months of persecution. Generations would not suffice. The endurance of the
Church is unconquerable. It is as an anvil which wears out many hammers.
That which Chancellor Bismarck applied, so vigorously, will prove to be no
exception.(11) Southern Germany, it is a pleasure to record, abhors the
ridiculous _Kulturkampf_ of Chancellor Bismarck. Louis II., of Bavaria,
would fain follow in his wake. But, as is shown by the large Catholic
majorities at the elections, he is not seconded, even passively, as in
Prussia, by the Bavarian people. The persecution, attended by its
essential results, is rendering all Germany more Catholic than ever. When
its work shall have been accomplished, what will remain? The Church or the
_Kulturkampf_?
In the meantime many innocent persons must suffer: many time-honored
institutions will have been swept away: in the pursuit of an ideal
civilization, and by means of cruelties unworthy of an enlightened age,
many monuments which owed their origin to the superior civilizing power of
Christianity will have disappeared forever. In addition to all this,
feelings hostile to the Church, and prejudices hurtful as they are
groundless, are everywhere created. Pius IX. complained of this
unfortunate state of things, when he said (10th January, 1875): “The
revolution, not satisfied with persecuting Catholics in Prussia, excites,
on both sides of the Alps, those governments which profess to be Catholic,
but which have only too plainly led the way, in the shameful career of
religious oppression. It excites them to persist, more boldly than ever,
in the work of persecution, and these governments execute its behests. God
will arise, some day, and, addressing the Protestant oppressor, he will
say to him: Thou hast sinned—grievously sinned; but the Catholic
governments, on all hands, have still more grievously sinned. _Majus
peccatum habent._”