At a time when crime abounded, the governments of certain petty States of Germany, instead of directing their energies towards its repression, and so fulfilling one of the chief duties incumbent on the State, employed all the authority with which they were invested to disorganize the church and destroy its salutary influence. As is usual, when States, forgetting the great objects for which they are entrusted with the sword of justice, follow such a course, they attacked the ministers of the church, banishing, imprisoning, thwarting and molesting them in every possible way. In the Grand Duchy of Baden the civil authorities arrogated the right to appoint parish priests and other members of the sacred ministry. They went so far as to endeavor to poison religious instruction at its source, and declared that the students in Catholic seminaries must undergo, before ordination, an examination by civil officials. This tyrannical law was courageously opposed by the [pg 128] venerable archbishop, Vicary, of Friburg.
An archbishop and other priests cruelly persecuted. Sustained by Pius IX. and finally by the people.
Although eighty years of age, he was dragged before the courts, and placed like a criminal under charge of the police. The faithful clergy were banished, imprisoned and fined. The Holy Father, with his usual zeal, remonstrated. It was to no purpose. At length the Catholics of Germany were roused. They could no longer be indifferent. The day was come when the church, in her utmost need, could not dispense with their assistance. All must now be for her or against her. The great majority flocked around her standard. Meanwhile, the public offices in the churches were suspended. The bells and organs were heard no more. Silence and death-like gloom overspread the land. Baden gave way. Wurtemberg, Hesse Cassel and Nassau, which had done their best to follow in the wake of Baden, paused in their mad career. Thus, throughout those lesser States peace reigned once more, and continued to reign in Germany until a greater State, Prussia, unwisely disturbed the religious harmony which so happily prevailed. The chiefs of States, alarmed by the revolutionary spirit which spread, like contagion, throughout Germany as well as the rest of Europe, adopted a more rational policy. They encouraged the clergy to hold missions everywhere. They invited the Liguorians and Jesuits, as well as the secular clergy, to assemble the people in the towns and throughout the country, knowing full well that they would preach peace and concord no less than respect for property and life. These pastoral labors were attended with extraordinary success. Faith, piety, and every virtue flourished among the Catholic people. All honest Protestants were filled with admiration. Among the latter there was also a remarkable movement. Some striking conversions took place, especially in the higher and better educated classes of society. The Countess de Hahn, so renowned in the literary world for her wit, abilities, and fine writings, joined the Catholic church, and published [pg 129] her reasons for so doing. Not satisfied with this step, she came to the town of Angers, in France, and placed herself as a novice under the direction of the devout sisters of the Good Shepherd. It is on record also, that a Protestant journalist of Mecklenburgh, in view of the commotions which prevailed, and the anti-social doctrines which pervaded society, went so far as to declare that there was no other remedy for Protestant Germany than a return to the Catholic church. His remarks conclude with the following words, extraordinary words, indeed, when it is considered whence they proceed: “Forward, then, to Rome!”
Pius IX. laments the state of religion in Sardinia.—Condemns the Act secularizing marriage.
In countries nearer the Holy City, and professing to be Catholic, the venerable Pontiff found not such a source of consolation. Sardinia had banished the archbishop of Turin. It not only refused to recall him, but added to its list of exiles the archbishop of Cagliari. Many more bishops were, at the same time, threatened with banishment. A professor in the Royal University of Turin, encouraged by the government, attacked the doctrine of the church, and was so bold as to deny, in public, that matrimony is a sacrament. Pius IX. issued a condemnation of his anti-Catholic writings. The sentence did not move him. Nor did it stay the hand of the Sardinian government which was raised against the church and her institutions. It continued the preparation of its anti-marriage law. In addition, accusations were laid against the clergy. The king himself, evading the real question at issue, accused them of disloyalty, and declared that they were warring against the monarchy. The Holy Father, in the following letter to the king, distinctly set forth the real state of the case:
“If by words provoking insubordination are meant the writings of the clergy against the proposed marriage law, we declare, without endorsing the language which some may have adopted, that in opposing it the clergy simply did their duty. We write to your Majesty that the law is not Catholic. Now, if the law is not Catholic, the clergy are bound to warn the [pg 130] faithful, even though by doing so they incur the greatest dangers. It is in the name of Jesus Christ, whose Vicar, though unworthy, we are, that we speak, and we tell your Majesty, in His sacred name, not to sanction this law, which will be the source of a thousand disorders. We also beg your Majesty to put a check to the press which is constantly vomiting forth blasphemy and immorality. Your Majesty complains of the clergy. But these last years the clergy have been persistently outraged, mocked, calumniated, reviled and derided by almost all the papers published in Piedmont.”
That country, unfortunately, appears to have been entirely at the mercy of the party of unbelief. It was ever ready to inflict new wrongs on the church, and occasion anxiety and sorrow to the Holy Father.
Pius IX. puts an end to the celebrated Goa Schism in 1851.
There are few readers of ecclesiastical history who are not deeply interested in that portion of India which was the first field of the extraordinary apostolic labors of Saint Francis Xavier. The blessing of the Saint appears to have rested on the land of Goa; for after many years of trial and difficulty and schism, this Portuguese settlement, once so great and important, still remains a province of the church. The Portuguese government, by unjustly claiming right of patronage, originated the schism which, unfortunately, was of such long continuance. It was reserved for Pius IX. to restore harmony to the Colonial church of Goa. Happily, in 1851, the schism was brought to an end.
Encyclical on the Immaculate Conception—1849.