Pope Leo XIII gave evidences of friendliness toward me whenever he could. For instance, on the occasion of one of my visits to Rome, he accorded my suite and servants the honor of a special audience; he sent Prince-Bishop Kopp as Papal Delegate on the occasion of the consecration by me of the portal which I had had added to the cathedral at Metz, and was so kind as to inform me of the naming of Archbishop Fischer of Cologne as Cardinal, which was done to celebrate that day.
On the occasion of the Papal Jubilee in 1903 to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession to the Papacy, I sent a special mission to convey my congratulations to the Pope, at the head of which was Freiherr von Loë, for many years intimately acquainted with him.
Not long after that—and only a few months before his death—I paid my third and last visit to the Pope. Though he was very weak, this ninety-three-year-old man came up to me, holding both his hands outstretched. Concerning this visit, which was characterized by great cordiality on both sides, I immediately jotted down some notes, which recently came into my possession again.
The Pope said, among other things, that he could not but give his full approval to the principles according to which I governed; that he had followed with interest my methods of governing and recognized with pleasure that I had built up my rule on a foundation of firm Christianity; that such lofty religious principles underlay it that it behooved him to ask the blessing of Heaven upon myself, my dynasty, and the German Empire, and to grant me his apostolic benediction.
"SWORD OF CATHOLIC CHURCH"
It was of interest to me that the Pope said to me on this occasion that Germany must become the sword of the Catholic Church. I remarked that the old Roman Empire of the German nation no longer existed and that conditions had changed. But he stuck to his words.
Then the Pope went on to say that he must thank me once more for my unflagging attention to the welfare of my Catholic subjects; that he had heard about this from so many sources that he was glad to tell me personally how grateful both he and the German Catholics were for this attention to their interests; that he could assure me that my Catholic subjects would stand by me, in good and bad times, with absolute fidelity. "Ils resteront absolument et infailliblement fidèles" ("They will remain absolutely and infallibly faithful").
I rejoiced greatly at these words of appreciation from such an exalted source. I answered that I considered it the duty of a Christian sovereign to care for his subjects to the best of his ability, irrespective of creed; that I could assure him that, during my reign, everybody could profess his religion without interference and fulfill his duties toward his ecclesiastical overlord; that this was a fundamental principle of my life, from which I could not be swerved.
Because I showed my Catholic fellow countrymen from the very beginning that I wished to allow them complete freedom in the exercise of their religion, a quieter spirit was engendered in the land and the aftermath of the "Kulturkampf" disappeared more and more. But I did not conceal from myself the fact that, despite all politeness and friendliness, the prelates, with the sole exception of Cardinal Kopp, still continued to look upon me as the Emperor, and I was compelled to take into account that, in the Catholic south and west, this idea would never quite vanish. Grateful acknowledgment has repeatedly been made to me of the fact that the Catholics were as well off, during my reign, as they could possibly desire; but the constantly more uncompromising attitude of the Church on mixed marriages, and that of the Centrist party in politics, were certainly a sign that the antiheretical tendency still lived beneath the peaceful surface.