Imagine the Bernese government being eager to confirm nominations made under such circumstances!
As to the Catholics, they continue to assemble in barns and cart-sheds, and there to lift with faith their hands towards heaven, and to rest firm in their fidelity. This attitude only aggravates the rage of their persecutors. We have already spoken of the suppression of the Ursulines of Porrentruy. The last remaining religious congregation in that town could not long escape the same fate. It was that of the Sisters of Charity of Ste. Ursanne, who had for twenty years ministered in the hospital for the poor of the chief town of the Bernese Jura. They began with seizing their chapel and handing it over to schism. Then, without any pretext, they cast into prison the Superior and two of the Sisters, where they remained four days. At length, one fine morning, they were informed that they must leave the place within four hours; at the expiration of which period, if they had not left, “they would be forcibly expelled.” The execution soon followed the sentence; and these religious ladies, whose presence had only been known by good works, were, in their turn, compelled to tread the path of exile!
In spite of the implacable intolerance of their enemies, the Jurassians do not cease petitioning the federal authorities; and to the number of 9,000 they have demanded the restitution of their churches and of their ecclesiastical property, the re-establishment of the Catholic worship, and the recall of the 97 priests unjustly expelled. The restitution of the churches, and the re-establishment of the Catholic as a public worship, have been flatly refused, on the plea that there cannot exist in the canton any other public Catholic worship than that established by the law of January, 1874! But the federal council, notwithstanding its notorious hostility, shrunk from an open and avowed approbation of the ostracism of the faithful priests; and it requested of the Bernese government an explanation of the reasons which, in its opinion, justified the continuance of that rigorous measure; reserving to itself to give a subsequent decision on the appeal which had been made to it.
Opinions are divided as to the real intentions of the federal council, and at the moment when we write the definitive decision has not been announced. But whatever may be the fate of the appeal, the situation of the church in the Jura will remain no less lamentable.
Whilst the Jurassian population give, thus, an example of fidelity worthy of the first ages of the Christian era, the tempest has burst upon the Catholic parish of the town of Bern.
This parish possesses a church built by the late Mgr. Baud, predecessor of the present curate, M. Perroulaz, and paid for by the alms of the Catholics of the entire country. The schismatics cast longing eyes upon it; but their designs were for a while impeded by the fear of displeasing the ambassadors. This fear was unfounded. For since the overthrow of governments caused by the detestable policy of Napoleon III., there is no longer an Europe; and everywhere violence and injustice, having nothing to fear from the once protective influence of the great powers, commit themselves to every license. It is thus, then, they set about to compass their end.
First, an assembly of the parish was convoked to elect a parochial council. But as such an assembly owes its existence to the late law of worship, and as the faithful Catholics could not consequently take any part in it, the council was chosen by one hundred out of three hundred and sixty electors. Scarcely was it installed when it received a request from the professors of the Old Catholic faculty of Bern, that the church might be placed at their disposition, for their Masses, worship, and preachings. It eagerly acceded to this request, and desired M. Perroulaz to open the gates of the church to the schismatic priests of the university. He refused. They ordered him to give up the keys. He did nothing of the kind. They went to his house and took them from him; and on Sunday, 28th February, Dr. Friedrich and his accomplices took possession of the sanctuary. M. Perroulaz, to avoid scandal, assembled his parishioners for the celebration of their worship in the great hall of the Museum. Thither they flocked in crowds. Foremost amongst the worshippers were the ambassadors of France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, etc. Thirty years ago, such a demonstration of the diplomatic body would not have remained without results. But in the year of grace 1875, “might makes right,” and the petty tyrants of Bern, supported by certain foreign cabinets, satiate with impunity their hatred of the church.
But even this did not content them. It was not sufficient for them to have deprived Catholics of their church. They wanted, further, to compel M. Perroulaz to say Mass in it together with the apostates. The Council of State designed, in this way, to place him in a position in which they might be able, in due form of law, to relieve him of his functions. On his refusal it decided to institute a process of revocation; and, pending the trial, it suspended him! Then he was driven out of the presbytery, and a Bavarian impostor was installed in his place. What! After having despoiled the faithful of the sanctuary built by their own hands and with their own money, they command them, besides, to make common cause with renegades, and make it a crime in their pastor to assemble them elsewhere to adore God according to their conscience. At Rome, under the pagan emperors, the Christians had the freedom of the Catacombs; at Bern, in 1875, even such freedom would be grudged by the ingrates whose cradle was enlightened by the rays of divine truth!
At Geneva affairs are as gloomy as in the canton of Bern. Last August, at the moment when we were relating the high-handed proceedings of the government, M. Loyson had just distinguished himself by breaking his connection with the lay chiefs of the schism. “I will not engage,” he said, “in useless discussions with men who confound liberalism with radicalism, Catholicism with the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard vicar.” The poor apostate would, we suspect, have been but too glad to return to the venerable church which received his first oaths. But how dispose of Mme. Loyson and the little Emmanuel? He continued therefore schismatic, and he announced that he should remain at Geneva “until the election of a bishop, who, with his synod, was the only authority,” he added, “which he could recognize in the religious order.” In pursuance of this secession, he founded a free worship, which has a small number of sectaries as its following.
As to the official church, its misfortunes are beyond calculation. The town of Geneva itself was favored with three curates, each receiving from four to five thousand francs a year, and a few vicars. After the retirement of M. Loyson, the second of the three curates—M. Hurtault—left, in order to occupy one of the chairs of the Old Catholic faculty at Bern. It was, no doubt, to console the new church in these bereavements, that one of the vicars, M. Vergoin, in imitation of his accomplices, took to himself a wife in the person of a Freyburg damsel.