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 forbidding any criminal act, would lead an inflamed public opinion to believe such a criminal act had really been perpetrated.
Such were the May laws which despite the pleading of the Centre orators, and their innate and evident injustice 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."