The Persecution Of The Church In The German Empire.
Concluded.
In the spring of 1870, whilst the discussion concerning the opportuneness of defining the infallibility of the Pope was attracting the attention of every one, and when the distant mutterings of the Franco-Prussian war were not yet audible, the leading organs of the Party of Progress in Berlin sought to weigh the probable results of a definition, by the Vatican Council, of the much-talked-of dogma. In case the Pope should be declared infallible, the Volkszeitung, of Berlin, affirmed that many would favor the interference of the government to prevent all further intercourse between the bishops of Prussia and the Roman Pontiff, which would result in the creation of a national church wholly independent of Rome.
But this organ of the Party of Progress openly avowed that there was not the slightest probability that the state could, by any means at its command, succeed in separating the Catholic Church in Prussia from communion with the See of Peter; nor was there, it confessed with perfect candor, a single bishop in Germany who would desire such a separation.
And yet, as we have shown in a former article, the task which the German Empire has set itself is precisely the one which is here pronounced impossible; and we propose now to continue the history of the tyrannical enactments and harsh measures by which the worshippers of the God-State hope to destroy the faith of thirteen millions of Catholics. The project of the Falk laws was brought before the Landtag on the 9th of January, 1873, and on the 30th of the same month the Catholic episcopate of the kingdom of Prussia entered a solemn protest against this iniquitous attempt to violate the most sacred rights of conscience and religion.
In the name of the natural law, [pg 434] of the historical and lawfully-acquired rights of the church in Germany, of the treaties concluded by the crown of Prussia with the Holy See, and, in fine, in the name of the express recognition of these rights by the Constitution, they protest against the violation of the inalienable right of the Catholic Church to exist in the integrity of its doctrine, its constitution, and its discipline.
It is of the duty and right of each bishop, they declare, to teach the Catholic doctrine and administer the sacraments within his own diocese; it is also of his duty and right to educate, commission, and appoint the priests who are his co-operators and representatives in the sacred ministry; and it is of his duty and right to exhort and encourage them in the fulfilment of their charge, and, when they obstinately refuse to obey the doctrine and laws of the church, to depose them from office, and to forbid them the exercise of all ecclesiastical functions; all of which rights are violated by the proposed laws. As to the Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs, they affirm that they can never recognize its competency, and that they can see in it only an attempt to reduce the divinely-constituted church to a non-Catholic and national institution.
The Memorial concludes with the following noble and solemn words:
“Concord between church and state is the safeguard of the spiritual and the temporal power; the indispensable condition of the welfare of all human society. The bishops, the priests, the Catholic people, are not the enemies of the state; they are not intolerant, unjust, rancorous towards those of a different faith. They ask nothing so much as to live in peace with all men; but they demand that they themselves be permitted to live according to their faith, of the divinity and truth of which they are most thoroughly convinced. They require that the integrity of religion and their church and the liberty of their conscience be left inviolate, and they are resolved to defend their lawful freedom, and even the smallest right of the church, with all energy and without fear.