PRUSSIA AND THE CHURCH.
II.
In February, 1848, Louis Philippe was driven from his throne by the people of Paris, and the Republic was proclaimed. This revolution rapidly spread over the whole of Europe. The shock was most violent in Germany, where everything was in readiness for a general outburst. Most of the governments were compelled to yield to the popular will and to make important concessions. New cabinets were formed in Würtemberg, Darmstadt, Nassau, and Hesse. Lewis of Bavaria was forced to abdicate. Hanover and Saxony held out until Berlin and Vienna were invaded by the revolutionary party, when they too succumbed. On the 13th of March the Vienna mob overthrew the Austrian ministry, and Metternich fled to England. Italy and Hungary revolted. Berlin was held all summer by an ignorant revolutionary faction. In September fierce and bloody riots broke out in Frankfort.
Popular meetings, secret societies, revolutionary clubs, violent declamations, and inflammatory appeals through the press kept all Germany in a state of agitation. Occasional outbreaks among the peasantry, followed by pillage and incendiarism, increased the general confusion.
It was during this time of wild excitement that the elections for the Imperial Parliament were held. To this assembly many avowed atheists, pantheists, communists, and Jacobins were chosen—men who fully agreed with Hecker when he declared that “there were six plagues in Germany—the princes, the nobles, the bureaucrats, the capitalists, the parsons, and the soldiers.” The parties in the Parliament took their names from their positions in the assembly hall, and were called the extreme left, the left, the left centre, the right centre, the right, and the extreme right. The first three were composed of red republicans, Jacobins, and liberals. To the right centre belonged the constitutional liberals; and on the right and right centre sat the Catholic members, the predecessors of the party of the Centrum of the present day. The extreme right was occupied by functionaries and bureaucrats, chiefly from Prussia. The Parliament of Frankfort, in the Grundrechte, or Fundamental Rights, which it proclaimed, decreed universal, suffrage, abolished all the political rights of the aristocracy, the hereditary chambers in all the states of Germany, set aside the existing family entails, and, though nominally it retained the imperial power, degraded the emperor to a republican president by giving him merely a suspensive veto.
While this Parliament was sitting the Catholic bishops of Germany assembled in council at Würzburg, and, at the conclusion of their deliberations, drew up a Memorial as firm in tone as it was clear and precise in expression, in which they set forth the claims of the church.
“To bring about,” they said, “a separation from the state—that is to say, from public order, which necessarily reposes on a moral and religious foundation—is not according to the will of the church. If the state will perforce separate from the church, so will the church, without approving, tolerate what it cannot avoid; and when not compelled by the duty of self-preservation, she will not break the bonds of union made fast by mutual understanding.
“The church, entrusted with the solemn and holy mission, ‘As my Father hath sent me, so send I ye,’ requires for the accomplishment of this mission, whatever the form of government of the state may be, the fullest freedom and independence. Her holy popes, prelates, and confessors have in all ages willingly and courageously given up their life and blood for the preservation of this inalienable freedom.”
In virtue of these principles the bishops, in this Memorial, claimed the right of directing, without any interference on the part of the state, theological seminaries, and of founding schools, colleges, and all kinds of educational establishments; of exerting canonical control, unfettered by state meddling, over the conduct of their clergy, as well as that of introducing into their dioceses religious orders, congregations, and pious confraternities, for which they demanded the same rights which the new political constitution had granted to secular associations. Finally, they asserted their right to free and untrammelled communication with the Holy See; and, as included in this, that of receiving and publishing all papal bulls, briefs, and other documents without the Royal Placet, which they declared to be repugnant to the honor and dignity of the ministers of religion.
The Frankfort Parliament decreed the total separation of church and state, and was therefore compelled to guarantee the freedom of all religions. This separation was sanctioned by the Catholic members of the Assembly, who looked upon it as less dangerous to the cause of religion and morality than ecclesiastical Josephism. In the present conflict between the church and the German Empire the Catholic party has again demanded, and in vain, the separation of church and state. In rejecting their urgent request, Dr. Falk declared that the leading minds in England and America are already beginning to regret that their governments have so little control over the ecclesiastical organizations within their limits.
Whilst the representatives of the German people at Frankfort were abolishing the privileges of the nobles, decreeing the separation of church and state, and forgetting the standing armies, the governments were quietly gathering their forces. Marshal Radetzky put down the Italian rebellion, Prince Windischgrätz quelled the democracy of Vienna, and General Wrangel took possession of Berlin, without a battle. Russia, at the request of Austria, sent an army into Hungary to destroy the rebellion in that country, and the disturbances in Bavaria and in the Palatinate were suppressed by Prussian troops under the present Emperor of Germany. The representatives of the larger states withdrew from the Frankfort Parliament, which dwindled, and finally, amidst universal contempt and neglect, came to an end at Stuttgart, June 18, 1849.
But the liberties of the church were not lost. In Prussia, as we have seen, a better state of things had begun with the imprisonment of the heroic Archbishop of Cologne in 1837. In the face of the menacing attitude of the German democrats and republicans, Frederick William IV. confirmed the liberties of the Catholic Church by the letters-patent of 1847.
The constitutions of December 5, 1848, and January 31, 1850, were drawn up in the lurid light of the revolution, which had beaten fiercest upon the house of Hohenzollern. The king had capitulated to the insurgents, withdrawn his soldiers from the capital, and abandoned Berlin, and with it the whole state, for nine months to the tender mercies of the mob. He was forced to witness the most revolting spectacles. The dead bodies of the rioters were borne in procession under the windows of his palace, while the rabble shouted to him: “Fritz, off with your hat.”
It is not surprising, in view of this experience, that we should find in the constitution of 1850 (articles 15 to 18 inclusive) a very satisfactory recognition of the rights of the church. Why these paragraphs granting the church freedom to regulate and administer its own affairs; to keep possession of its own revenues, endowments, and establishments, whether devoted to worship, education, or beneficence; and freely to communicate with the Pope, were inserted in the constitution, we know from Prince Bismarck himself. In his speech in the Prussian Upper House, March 10, 1873, he affirmed that “they were introduced at a time when the state needed, or thought it needed, help, and believed that it would find this help by leaning on the Catholic Church. It was probably led to this belief by the fact that in the National Assembly of 1848 all the electoral districts with a preponderant Catholic population returned—I will not say royalist representatives, but certainly men who were the friends of order, which was not the case in the Protestant districts.”
The provisions of the constitution of 1850 with regard to the church were honorably and faithfully carried out down to the beginning of the present conflict. Never since the Reformation had the church in Prussia been so free, never had she made such rapid progress, whether in completing her internal organization or in extending her influence. The Prussian liberals and atheists, who had fully persuaded themselves that without the wealth and aid of the state the Catholic religion would have no force, were amazed. The influence of the priests over the people grew in proportion as they were educated more thoroughly in the spirit and discipline of the church under the immediate supervision of the bishops, unfettered by state interference; the number of convents, both of men and women, rapidly increased; associations of all kinds, scientific, benevolent, and religious, spread over the land; religious journals and reviews were founded in which Catholic interests were ably advocated and defended; and all the forces of the church were unified and guided by the harmonious action of a most enlightened and zealous episcopate.
This was the more astonishing as the Evangelical Church, whose liberties had also been guaranteed by the constitution of 1850, had shown itself unable to profit by the greater freedom of action which it had received. In fact, the Evangelical Church was lifeless, and it needed only this test to prove its want of vitality. It was a state creation, and in an age when the world had ceased to recognize the divine right of kings to create religions. It was only in 1817 that the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches of Prussia, together with the very name of Protestant, were abolished by royal edict, and a new Prussian establishment, under the title of “evangelical,” was imposed by the civil power upon a Protestant population of nearly eight millions, whose religious and moral sense was so dead that they seemed to regard with stolid indifference this interference of government with all that freemen deem most sacred in life. Acts of parliament may make “establishments,” but they cannot inspire religious faith and life; and it was therefore not surprising that, when the mummy of evangelicalism was put out into the open air of freedom by the constitution of 1850, it should have been revealed to all that the thing was dead.
Nevertheless, the Prussian government continued to act toward the Catholic Church with great justice, and even friendliness, and the war against Catholic Austria in 1866 wrought no change in its ecclesiastical policy. Even the opening of the Vatican Council caused no alarm in Prussia; on the contrary, King William, as it was generally believed at least, was most civil to the Holy Father; and Prince Bismarck himself at that time saw no reason for apprehension, though he had been the head of the ministry already eight years. To what, then, are we to attribute Prussia’s sudden change of attitude toward the church? Who began the present conflict, and what was its provocation?
This is a question which has been much discussed in the Prussian House of Deputies and elsewhere. Prince Bismarck has openly asserted in the House of Deputies within the past year that the provocation was the definition of papal infallibility by the Vatican Council on the 18th of June, 1870, and subsequently the hostile attitude of the party of the Centrum toward the German Empire.
Herr von Kirchmann, a member of the German Parliament and of the Prussian House of Deputies, a national liberal, and not a Catholic, but in the main a sympathizer with the spirit of the Falk legislation, has recently discussed this whole subject with great ability, and—as far as it is possible for one who believes in the Hegelian doctrine that “the state is the present god”—also with fairness.[255]
To Prince Bismarck’s first assertion, that the definition of papal infallibility was the unpardonable offence, which has been so strongly emphasized by Mr. Gladstone and re-echoed with parrot-like fidelity by the anti-Catholic press of Europe and America, Herr von Kirchmann makes the following reply:
“It is difficult to understand how so experienced a statesman as Prince Bismarck can ascribe to this decree of the council such great importance for the states of Europe, and particularly for Prussia and Germany. To a theorizer sitting behind his books such a decree, it may be allowed, might appear to be something portentous, since, taken from a purely theoretical stand-point and according to the letter, the infallibility of the Pope in all questions of religion and morals gives him unlimited control over all human action; and many a Catholic, when called upon to receive this infallibility as part of his faith, may have found that he was unable to follow so far; but a statesman ought to know how to distinguish, especially where there is question of the Catholic Church, between the literal import of dogmas and their use in practical life. In the Catholic Church as a whole, this infallibility, as is well known, has existed from the earliest times; its organ hitherto has been the Ecumenical Council in union with the Pope; but already before 1870 it was disputed whether the Pope might not alone act as the organ of infallibility. In 1870 the question was decided in favor of the Pope; but we must consider that the ecumenical councils have, as history shows, nearly always framed their decrees in accordance with the views of the court of Rome; and this, of itself, proves that the change made in 1870 is rather one of form than of essence. Especially false is it to maintain that by this decree a complete revolution in the constitution of the church has been made. To the theorizer we might grant the abstract possibility that something of this kind might some day or other happen; but such possibilities of the abuse of a right are found in all the relations of public life, in the state and its representatives as well as in the church. Even in constitutions the most carefully drawn up such possibilities are found in all directions. What a statesman has to consider is not mere possibilities, but the question whether the possessor of such right is not compelled, from the very nature of things, to make of it only the most moderate and prudent use. So long, therefore, as the Pope does not alter the constitution of the church, that constitution remains, precisely in its ancient form, such as it has been recognized and tolerated by the state for centuries: and wherever the relations between particular states and the court of Rome have been arranged by concordats, these too remain unchanged, unless the states themselves find it convenient to depart from them. We see, in fact, that this infallibility of the Pope has in no country of Europe or America altered one jot or tittle in the constitution of the Catholic Church; and where in particular countries such changes have taken place, they have not been made by the ecclesiastical government, but by the state and in its interest. In Germany even, and in Prussia itself, the Pope has, since 1870, made no change in the church constitution, as determined by the Canon Law; and when, in some of his encyclicals and other utterances, he has taken up a hostile attitude towards the German Empire and the Prussian state, he has done this only in defence against the aggressive legislation of the civil government. He has never hesitated to express his disapprobation of the new church laws, but he has in no instance touched the constitution of the Catholic Church or the rights of the bishops.”[256]
It seems almost needless to remark that there is no necessary connection between the doctrine of Papal infallibility and that of the essential organization of the church; that the jurisdiction of the Pope was as great, and universally recognized as such by Catholics, before the Vatican Council as since; and consequently that it is not even possible that the definition of 1870 should make any change in his authoritative relation to, or power over, the church. His jurisdiction is wider than his infallibility, and independent of it; and the duty of obedience to his commands existed before the dogma was defined precisely as it exists now; and therefore it is clearly manifest that the Vatican decree cannot give even a plausible pretext for such legislation as the Falk Laws.
“Not less singular,” continues Herr von Kirchmann, “does it sound to hear the party of the Centrum in the Reichstag and Prussian Landtag denounced as the occasion of the new regulations between church and state. The members of this party notoriously represent the views and wishes of the majority of their constituents, and just as faithfully as the members of the parties who side with the government. The reproach that they receive their instructions from Rome is not borne out by the facts; and if there were an understanding with Rome of the kind which their adversaries affirm, this could only be the result of a similar understanding on the part of their constituents. Nothing could more strikingly prove that the Catholic party faithfully represent the great majority in their electoral districts than the repeated re-election of the same representatives or of men of similar views. To this we must add that the Centrum, though strong in numbers, is yet in a decided minority both in the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag, and has always been defeated in its opposition to the recent ecclesiastical legislation. If in other matters, by uniting with opposition parties, it has caused the government inconvenience, we have no right to ascribe this to feelings of hostility; for on such occasions its orators have given substantial political reasons for their opposition, and instances enough might be enumerated in which, precisely through the aid of the Centrum, many illiberal and dangerous projects of law have fallen through; and for this the party deserves the thanks of the country.
“The present action of the state against the Catholic Church would be unjustifiable, if better grounds could not be adduced in its favor. For the attentive observer, however, valid reasons are not wanting. They are to be found, to put the whole matter in a single word, in the great power to which the Catholic Church in Prussia had attained by the aid of the constitution and the favor of the government—a power which, if its growth had been longer tolerated, would have become, not indeed dangerous to the existence of the state, but a hindrance to the right fulfilment of the ends of its existence.”[257]
Neither the Vatican Council, then, nor the Catholics of Prussia have done anything to provoke the present persecution. To find fault with the German bishops for accepting the dogma of infallibility, after having strongly opposed its definition by the council, would be as unreasonable as to blame a member of Congress for admitting the binding force of a law the passage of which he had done everything in his power to prevent. Their duty, beyond all question, was to act as they have acted. This was not the offence: the unpardonable crime was that the church, as soon as she was unloosed from the fetters of bureaucracy, had grown too powerful. We doubt whether any more forcible argument in proof of the indestructible vitality of the church can be found than that which may be deduced from the universal consent of her enemies, of whatever shade of belief or unbelief, that the only way in which she can be successfully opposed is to array against her the strongest of human powers—that of the state. A complete revolution of thought upon this subject has taken place within the last half-century. Up to that time it was confidently held by Protestants as well as infidels that, to undermine and finally destroy the church, it would be simply necessary to withdraw from her the support of the state; that to her freedom would necessarily prove fatal. The experiment, as it was thought, had not been satisfactorily tried. Ireland, indeed, had held her faith for three hundred years, in spite of all that fiendish cruelty could invent to destroy it; but persecution has always been the life of the faith. In the United States the church had been free since the war of independence, but of us little was known; and, besides, down to, say, 1830 even the most thoughtful and far-sighted among us had serious doubts as to the future of the church in this country.
But with the emancipation of the Catholics in Great Britain, the new constitution of the kingdom of Belgium, and the completer organization of the church in the United States, the test as to the action of freedom upon the progress of Catholic faith began to be applied over a wide and varied field and under not unfavorable circumstances. What the result has been we may learn from our enemies. Mr. Gladstone expostulates for Great Britain, and reaches a hand of sympathy to M. Emile de Laveleye in Belgium. Dr. Falk, Dr. Friedberg, and even the moderate Herr von Kirchmann, defend the tyrannical May Laws as necessary to stop the growth of the church in Germany; and at home the most silent of Presidents and the most garrulous of bishops, forgetting that the cause of temperance has prior claims upon their attention, have raised the cry of alarm to warn their fellow-citizens of the dangerous progress of popery in this great and free country. Time was when “the Free Church in the Free State” was thought to be the proper word of command; but now it is “the Fettered Church in the Enslaved State,” since no state that meddles with the consciences of its subjects can be free.
If there is anything for which we feel more especially thankful, it is that henceforth the cause of the church and the cause of freedom are inseparably united. We have heard to satiety that the Catholic Church is the greatest conservative force in the world, the most powerful element of order in society, the noblest school of respect in which mankind have ever been taught. Praised be God that now, as in the early days, he is making it impossible that Catholics should not be on the side of liberty, as the church has always been; so that all men may see that, if we love order the more, we love not liberty the less!
“I will sing to my God as long at I shall be,” wrote an inspired king; “put not your trust in princes.” No, nor in governments, nor in states, but in God who is the Lord, and in the poor whom Jesus loved. From God out of the people came the church; through God back to the people is she going. We know there are still many Catholics who trust in kings and believe in salvation through them; but God will make them wiser. The Spirit that sits at the roaring Loom of Time will weave for them other garments. The irresistible charm of the church, humanly speaking, lies in the fact that she comes closer to the hearts of the people than any other power that has ever been brought to bear upon mankind.
Having shown that the oppressive ecclesiastical legislation of Germany was not provoked by the church, and that its only excuse is the increasing power of the church, Herr von Kirchmann reduces all farther discussion of this subject to the two following heads: 1st. How far ought the state to go in setting bounds to this power of the Catholic Church? and 2d. What means ought it to employ?
In view of the dangers with which every open breach of the peace between church and state is fraught for the people, it would have been advisable, he thinks, from political motives, to have tried to settle the difficulty by a mutual understanding between the two powers; nor would it, in his opinion, be derogatory to the sovereignty of the state to treat the church as an equal, since she embraces in her fold all the Catholics of the world, who have their directing head in the Pope, whose sovereign ecclesiastical power cannot, therefore, as a matter of fact, be called in question.
That Prussia did not make any effort to see what could be effected by this policy of conciliation may, in the opinion of Herr von Kirchmann, find some justification in the fact that the government did not expect, and could not in 1871 foresee, the determined opposition of the Catholics to the May Laws of 1873. At any rate, as he thinks, the high and majestatic right of the state is supreme, and it alone must determine, in the ultimate instance, how far and how long it will acknowledge any claim of the church. Thus even this statesman, who is of the more moderate school of Prussian politicians, holds that the church has no rights which the state is bound to respect; that political interests are paramount, and conscience, in the modern as in the ancient pagan state, has no claim upon the recognition of the government. English and American Protestants, where their own interests are concerned, would be as little inclined to accept this doctrine as Catholics; in fact, this country was born of a protest against the assumption of state supremacy over conscience; and yet so blinding and misleading is prejudice that the Falk Laws receive their heart-felt sympathy.
Though Herr von Kirchmann accepts without reservation the principles which underlie the recent Prussian anti-Catholic legislation, and thinks the May Laws have been drawn up with great wisdom and consummate knowledge of the precise points at which the state should oppose the growing power of the church, he yet freely admits that there are grave doubts whether the present policy of Prussia on this subject can be successfully carried out. That Prince Bismarck and Dr. Falk had but a very imperfect knowledge of the difficulties which lay in their path, the numerous supplementary bills which have been repeatedly introduced in order to give effect to the May Laws plainly show. Where there is question of principle and of conscience Prince Bismarck is not at home. He believes in force; like the first Napoleon, holds that Providence is always on the side of the biggest cannons; sneers about going to Canossa, as Napoleon mockingly asked the pope whether his excommunication would make the arms fall from the hands of his veterans. He knows the workings of courts, and is a master in the devious ways of diplomacy. He can estimate with great precision the resources of a country; he has a keen eye for the weak points of an adversary. His tactics, like Napoleon’s, are to bring to bear upon each given point of attack a force greater than the enemy’s. He has, in his public life, never known what it is to respect right or principle. With the army at his back he has trampled upon the Prussian constitution with the same daring recklessness with which he now violates the most sacred rights of conscience. Nothing, in his eyes, is holy but success, and he has been consecrated by it, so that the Bismarck-cultus has spread far beyond the fatherland to England and the United States. Carlyle has at last found a living hero, the very impersonation of the brute force which to him is ideal and admirable; and at eighty he offers incense and homage to the idol. We freely give Prince Bismarck credit for his remarkable gifts—indomitable will, reckless courage, practical knowledge of men, considered as intelligent automata whose movements are directed by a kind of bureaucratic and military mechanism; and this is the kind of men with whom, for the most part, he has had to deal. For your thorough Prussian, though the wildest of speculators and the boldest of theorizers, is the tamest of animals. No poor Russian soldier ever crouched more submissively beneath the knout than do the Prussian pantheists and culturists beneath the lash of a master. Like Voltaire, they probably prefer the rule of one fine Lion to that of a hundred rats of their own sort. Prince Bismarck knew his men, and we give him credit for his sagacity. Not every eye could have pierced the mist, and froth, and sound, and fury of German professordom, and beheld the craven heart that was beneath.
Only men who believe in God and the soul are dangerous rebels. Why should he who has no faith make a martyr of himself? Why, since there is nothing but law, blind and merciless force, throw yourself beneath the wheels of the state Juggernaut to be crushed? The religion of culture is the religion of indulgence, and no godlike rebel against tyranny and brute force ever sprang from such worship. So long as Prince Bismarck had to deal with men who were nourished on “philosophy’s sweet milk,” and who worshipped at the altar of culture, who had science but not faith, opinions but not convictions, amongst whom, consequently, organic union was impossible, his policy of making Germany “by blood and iron” was successful enough. But, like all great conquerors, he longed for more kingdoms to subdue, and finding right around him a large and powerful body of German citizens who did not accept the “new faith” that the state—in other words, Prince Bismarck—is “the present god,” just as a kind of diversion between victories, he turned to give a lesson to the Pfaffen and clerical Dummköpfe, who burnt no incense in honor of his divinity. In taking this step it is almost needless to say that Prince Bismarck sought to pass over a chasm which science itself does not profess to have bridged—that, namely, which lies between the worlds of matter and of spirit. Of the new conflict upon which he was entering he could have only vague and inaccurate notions. Nothing is so misleading as contempt—a feeling in which the wise never indulge, but which easily becomes habitual with men spoiled by success. To the man who had organized the armies and guided the policy which had triumphed at Sadowa and Sedan what opposition could be made by a few poor priests and beggar-monks? Would the arms fall from the hands of the proudest soldiers of Europe because the Pfaffen were displeased? Or why should not the model culture-state of the world make war upon ignorance and superstition?
Of the real nature and strength of the forces which would be marshalled in this great battle of souls a man of blood and iron could form no just estimate. “To those who believe,” said Christ, “all things are possible”; but what meaning have these words for Prince Bismarck? The soul, firm in its faith, appealing from tyrant kings and states to God, is invincible. Lifting itself to the Infinite, it draws thence a divine power. Like liberty, it is brightest in dungeons, in fetters freest, and conquers with its martyrdom. Needle-guns cannot reach it, and above the deadly roar of cannon it rises godlike and supreme.
“For though the giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break and work their will;
Though world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round us, each with different powers
And other farms of life than ours,
What know we greater than the soul?
On God and godlike men we build our trust.”
Men who have unwrapt themselves of the garb and vesture of thought and sentiment with which the world had dressed them out, who have been born again into the higher life, who have been clothed in the charity and meekness of Christ, who for his dear sake have put all things beneath their feet, who love not the world, who venerate more the rags of the beggar than the purple of Cæsar, who fear as they love God alone, for whom life is no blessing and death infinite gain, form the invincible army of Christ foredoomed to conquer. “This is the victory which overcometh the world—our Faith.”
Who has ever forgotten those lines of Tacitus, inserted as an altogether trifling circumstance in the reign of Nero?—“So for the quieting of this rumor [of his having set fire to Rome] Nero judicially charged with the crime, and punished with most studied severities, that class, hated for their general wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians. The originator of that name was one Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius suffered death by sentence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. The baneful superstition, thereby repressed for the time, again broke out, not only over Judea, the native soil of the mischief, but in the City also, where from every side all atrocious and abominable things collect and flourish.”[258]
“Tacitus,” says Carlyle, referring to this passage, “was the wisest, most penetrating man of his generation; and to such depth, and no deeper, has he seen into this transaction, the most important that has occurred or can occur in the annals of mankind.”
We doubt whether Prince Bismarck to-day has any truer knowledge of the real worth and power of the living Catholic faith on which he is making war than had Tacitus eighteen hundred years ago, when writing of the rude German barbarians who were hovering on the confines of the Roman Empire, and who were to have a history in the world only through the action of that “baneful superstition” which he considered as one of the most abominable products of the frightful corruptions of his age.
That the Prussian government was altogether unprepared for the determined though passive opposition to the May Laws which the Catholics have made, Herr von Kirchmann freely confesses. It was not expected that there would be such perfect union between the clergy and the people; on the contrary, it was generally supposed that, with the aid of the Draconian penalties threatened for the violation of the Falk Laws, the resistance of the priests themselves would be easily overcome. These men love their own comfort too much, said the culturists, to be willing to go to prison and live on beans and water for the sake of technicalities; and so they chuckled over their pipes and lager-beer at the thought of their easy victory over the Pfaffen. They were mistaken, and Herr von Kirchmann admits that the courage of the bishops and priests has not been broken but strengthened by their sufferings for the faith.
“So long as we were permitted to hope,” he says, “that we should have only the priests to deal with, there was less reason for doubt as to the policy of executing the laws in all their rigor; but the situation was wholly altered when it became manifest that the congregations held the same views as the bishops and priests.… It is easy to see that all violent, even though legal, proceedings of the government against these convictions of the Catholic people can only weaken those proper, and in the last instance alone effective, measures through which the May Laws can successfully put bounds to the growing power of the church. These measures—viz., a better education of the people and a higher culture of the priests—can, from the nature of things, exert their influence only by degrees. Not till the next generation can we hope to gather the fruit of this seed; and not then, indeed, if the reckless execution of the May Laws calls forth an opposition in the Catholic populations which will shake confidence in the just intentions of the government, and beget in the congregations feelings of hatred for everything connected with this legislation. Such feelings will unavoidably be communicated to the children, and the teacher will in consequence be deprived of that authority without which his instructions must lack the persuasive force that is inherent in truth. In such a state of warfare even the higher culture of the clergy must be useless. Those who stand on the side of the government will, precisely on that account, fail to win the confidence of their people; and the stronger the aged pastors emphasize the Canon Law of the church, the more energetically they extend the realms of faith even to the hierarchical constitution of the church, the more readily and faithfully will their congregations follow them.
“It cannot be dissembled that the government, through the rigorous execution of the May Laws, is raging against its own flesh and blood, and is thereby robbing itself of the only means by which it can have any hope of finally coming forth victorious from the present conflict. It may be objected that the resistance which is now so widespread cannot be much longer maintained, and that all that is needed to crush it and bring about peace with the church is to increase the pressure of the law. Assertions of this kind are made with great confidence by the liberals of both Houses of the Landtag whenever the government presents a new bill; and the liberal newspapers, which never grow tired of this theme, declare that the result is certain and even near at hand.
“Now, even though we should attach no importance to the contrary assertions of the Catholic party, it is yet evident, from the declarations of the government itself, that it is not all confident of reaching this result with the aid of the means which it has hitherto employed or of those in preparation, but that it is making ready for a prolonged resistance of the clergy, who are upheld and supported by the great generosity of the Catholic people. The ovations which the priests receive from their congregations when they come forth from prison are not falling off, but are increasing; and this is equally true of the pecuniary aid given to them. It is possible that much of this may have been gotten up by the priests themselves as demonstration; but the displeasure of the still powerful government officials which the participants incur, and the greatness of the money-offerings, are evidence of earnest convictions.
“Nothing, however, so strongly witnesses to the existence of a perfect understanding between the congregations and the priests as the fact that, though the law of May, 1874, gave to those congregations whose pastors had been removed or had not been legally appointed by the bishops the right to elect a pastor, yet not even one congregation has up to the present moment made any use of this privilege. When we consider that the number of parishes where there is no pastor must be at least a hundred; that in itself such right of choice corresponds with the wishes of the congregations; farther, that the law requires for the validity of the election merely a majority of the members who put in an appearance; that a proposition made to the Landrath by ten parishioners justifies him in ordering an election; and that, on the part of the influential officials and their organs, nothing has been left undone to induce the congregations to demand elections, not easily could a more convincing proof of the perfect agreement of the people with their priests be found than the fact that to this day in only two or three congregations has it been possible to hunt up ten men who were willing to make such a proposal, and that not even in a single congregation has an election of this kind taken place.”[259]
This is indeed admirable; and it may, we think, be fairly doubted whether, in the whole history of the church, so large a Catholic population has ever, under similar trials, shown greater strength or constancy. Of the peculiar nature of these trials we shall speak hereafter; the present article we will bring to a close with a few remarks upon what we conceive to have been one of the most important agencies in bringing about the perfect unanimity and harmony of action between priests and people to which the Catholics of Prussia must in great measure ascribe their immovable firmness in the presence of a most terrible foe. We refer to those Catholic associations in which cardinals, bishops, priests, and people have been brought into immediate contact, uniting their wisdom and strength for the attainment of definite ends.
Such unions have nowhere been more numerous or more thoroughly organized than in Germany, though their formation is of recent date. It was during the revolution of 1848, of which we have already spoken, that the German Catholics were roused to a more comprehensive knowledge of the situation, and resolved to combine for the defence of their rights and the protection of their religion. Popular unions under the name and patronage of Pius IX. (Pius-Vereine) were formed throughout the fatherland, with the primary object of bringing together once a week large numbers of Catholic men of every condition in life. At these weekly meetings the questions of the day, in so far as they touched upon Catholic interests, were freely discussed, and thus an intelligent and enlightened Catholic public opinion was created throughout the length and breadth of the land. In refuting calumnies against the church the speakers never failed to demand the fullest liberty for all Catholic institutions.
On the occasion of beginning the restoration and completion of the Cathedral of Cologne, the most religious of churches, the proposition that an annual General Assembly of all the unions should be held was made and received with boundless enthusiasm. The first General Assembly took place at Mayence in October, 1848; and thither came delegates from Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and all the other states of Germany, whose confidence and earnestness were increased by the presence of the Catholic members of the Parliament of Frankfort. For the first time since Luther’s apostasy the Catholics of Germany breathed the air of liberty. The bishops assembled at Würzburg, gave their solemn approbation to the great work, and Pius IX. sent his apostolic benediction. Since that time General Assemblies have been held at Breslau, May, 1849; Ratisbon, October, 1849; Linz, 1850; Mayence, 1851; Münster, 1852; Vienna, 1853; Linz, 1856; Salzburg, 1857; Cologne, 1858; Freyburg, 1859; Prague, 1860; Munich, 1861; Aix-la-Chapelle, 1862; Frankfort, 1863, and in other cities, down to the recent persecutions.
These assemblies represented a complete system of organization, in which no Catholic interest was forgotten. Every village and hamlet in the land was there, if not immediately, through some central union. We have had the honor of being present at more than one of these assemblies, and the impressions which we then received are abiding. Side by side with cardinals, bishops, princes, noblemen, and the most learned of professors sat mechanics, carpenters, shoemakers, and blacksmiths—not as in the act of worship, in which the presence of the Most High God dwarfs our universal human littlenesses to the dead-level of an equal insignificance, but in active thought and co-operation for the furtherance of definite religious and social ends. The brotherhood of the race was there, an accomplished fact, and one felt the breathing as of a divine Spirit compared with whose irresistible force great statesmen and mighty armies are weak as the puppets of a child’s show.
We have not the space to describe more minutely the ends, aims, and workings of the numberless Catholic associations of Germany; but we must express our deep conviction that no study could be more replete with lessons of practical wisdom for the Catholics of the United States. Organization is precisely what we most lack. Our priests are laborious, our people are devoted, but we have not even an organized Catholic public opinion—nay, no organ to serve as its channel, and make itself heard of the whole country. Many seem to think that the very question of the necessity of Catholic education is still an open one for us; and this is not surprising, since we have no system of Catholic education. Catholic schools, indeed, in considerable number, there are, but there is no organization. The great need of the church in this country is the organization of priests and people for the promotion of Catholic interests. Through this we will learn to know one another; our views will be enlarged, our sympathies deepened, and the truth will dawn upon us that, if we wish to be true to the great mission which God has given us, the time has come when American Catholics must take up works which do not specially concern any one diocese more than another, but whose significance will be as wide as the nation’s life.