In passing from our own to other lands, we cannot do so, at the opening of the second century of our country’s life, without a glance at something larger and wider than the mere local interests of every-day life which touch us most nearly. Beyond doubt there is much to criticise, much, perhaps, to be ashamed of, much to deplore, in the conduct of our government, local and national, and in the social state generally of our people. Still, we see nothing at present existing or threatening that is beyond the remedy of the people itself. It is a fashion among our pessimists to contrast the America of to-day with the America of a hundred years ago. Well, we believe that we can stand the contrast. The country has expanded and developed, and promises so to continue beyond all precedent in the history of this world. When the experiment of a century ago is contrasted with the established fact—the nation—of a free and prosperous people of to-day, we can only bless God. And allowing the widest margin for the evils and shortcomings in our midst, when we glance across the ocean at nations armed to the teeth, looking upon one another as foes, and either rending with internal throes or threatening to be rent, pride in this country deepens, and the heart swells with gratitude that in these days God has raised up a nation where all men may possess their souls in peace.
We have some alarmists among us who look in the near future to the occurrence of scenes in this country similar to those now being transacted in Europe, where men are persecuted for conscience’ sake. We cannot share in these alarms. As we see no evils in our midst which are beyond the remedy of the people, so we see no religious or other questions that may arise which cannot be civilly adjusted. This is not a country where the raw head and bloody bones thrive. The question of religion is decided once for all in the Constitution. Catholics, of course, have a large heritage of misrepresentation to contend against, but that is rapidly diminishing. A Bismarck may strive to introduce into our free country, through a band of fanatics and weak-minded politicians, the persecuting spirit which he has attempted to introduce into England by a Gladstone, which he has succeeded in introducing into Italy by a Minghetti, and into Switzerland by a Carteret; but before they reach the hundredth part of the influence of the disgraceful Know-Nothing party, the good sense and true spirit of our countrymen will, as it did in the case of that party, brand all who have had any prominent connection with the movement with the note of infamy. The fanatical cry of “No Popery” is evidently played out at its fountain-source in old England, while the attempt to revive its echoes will meet with still less success in new England. We see no clouds on the American horizon that should cause Catholics any grave apprehension.
The end of such attempts always is that those who strike the sparks only succeed in burning their fingers. All we have to do is to walk straight along in the path we have been following of common citizenship with those around us, in order to secure for ourselves all the rights which we are ready to concede to others.
The European situation during the past year may be summed up under two headings—the struggle between church and state, and the prospects of war. To enter at any length into the question between church and state in Germany and in other countries in Europe would be going over old ground which has been covered time and again in The Catholic World. Only such features of the contest will be touched upon as may set the present situation clearly before the mind of the reader.
The official Provincial Correspondence, at the opening of the past year, said in a retrospective article on the events of 1874: “The conviction has been forced upon the German government that the German ultramontane party are a revolutionary party, directed by foreigners and relying mainly upon the assistance of foreign powers. The German government, therefore, are under the necessity of deprecating any encouragement of the ultramontane party by foreign powers. It was for this reason that the German government last year thought it incumbent on them to use plain language in addressing the French government upon the sayings and doings of some of the French bishops. France had taken the hint, and had prevented her ultramontanes setting the world on fire merely to vent their spite against Germany.… It was, perhaps, to be expected under these circumstances that, abandoning at last all hope of foreign assistance, the German ultramontanes would make their peace with the government in Prussia, and no longer object to laws they willingly obey in Baden, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Oldenburg, not to speak of Austria and other states. At all events, it was very desirable that the ultramontanes should yield before the church was thrown into worse confusion by their malicious but impotent resistance.”
Such was the pleasant prospect held out for the Catholics by the official organ at the opening of the year. The programme sketched in it has been faithfully carried out, and Germany has taken another step in the path of freedom, internal peace, and consolidation by planting its foot nearer the throat of the church. It is useless to enter into a refutation of the falsehoods contained in the extract from the official journal. They have been refuted in the German Reichstag and all the world over. It is needless, also, to call attention to the tone of the official journal, and the manner, become a fashion of late with German statesmen and writers at large, of warning foreign powers to keep a civil tongue in their heads respecting German matters, or it may be the worse for them. How far the Catholics have yielded to the kindly invitation held out to them the world has seen. We have before this remarked on the strange anxiety manifested by a government, convinced of the justice of its cause and the means it was pursuing towards its end, to stifle the expression of public opinion, not only at home, but abroad. Moreover, the very fact of its being compelled to deprecate “any encouragement of the ultramontane party by foreign powers” says as plainly as words can say it that those powers see something in the party to encourage.
Here is a sample—one out of hundreds such—of the manner in which the members of the “revolutionary party” have been treated during the year, and of the crimes, sympathy with which on the part of foreign powers is so earnestly deprecated by the German government. That extremely active agent of Prince Bismarck, the Prussian correspondent of the London Times, tells the story of the deposition of the Bishop of Paderborn by the “Ecclesiastical” Court thus: “He has been sentenced to-day (Jan. 6) to innumerable fines, chiefly for appointing clergymen without the consent of the secular authorities. [Is this a crime, reverend and right reverend gentlemen of the Protestant churches?] Never paying any of these forfeits, he has been repeatedly imprisoned and forcibly prevented from exercising his functions. [And now for the perversity of the man, the “malicious but impotent resistance.”] Notwithstanding the measures taken against him, he has continued his opposition to the state. He would not allow his clerical training-schools to be visited by government inspectors; he has declined to reappoint a chaplain he had excommunicated without the consent of the government [What criminals SS. Peter and Paul would be were they living in Germany to-day!]; and he has continually issued pastorals and made speeches to deputations breathing the most hostile sentiments against crown and parliament [sentiments not quoted]. He has received addresses covered with more than one hundred thousand signatures, and on a single day admitted twelve thousand persons to his presence, who had come to condole with him on the martyr’s fate he was undergoing.” Let it be borne in mind that this is not our description, but that of an agent of the Prussian government. Could words establish more clearly the side on which the criminality lies?
Only passing mention can be made of events which have been already anticipated and commented on. The extension of the civil registration of births, deaths, and marriages from Prussia to the whole German Empire passed in January. Perhaps no measure yet has so aroused the indignation, not only of Catholics, but of believing Protestants also. As the correspondent already quoted tersely puts the matter: “In all Germany this law does away with the services of the clergy in celebrating the three great domestic events of life.” That is to say, there is no longer need to baptize Christian children in the name of God; there is no longer need of God in the marriage service; finally, as man comes into the world, so he may go out of it, without the name or the invocation of God, without God’s blessing over his grave or the ceremonies of religion attending the last act. Like a dog he may come, like a dog he may live, like a dog he may go. And yet this is an evangelical power! Verily, but of a strange evangel. The result of it is shown already. Since the Prussian Civil Registration Law was passed, only twenty-five per cent. of all Berlin marriages have been celebrated in churches, while only thirty per cent. of the children born in the capital have been baptized by clergymen.
The passing of the Landsturm Bill converts the whole German Empire into an armed camp. “Henceforth every German sound in wind and limb must be a soldier. From the age of seventeen to forty-two, every man not belonging to the army or the reserve is to be liable to be called out in the case of an actual or even a threatened invasion,” says the London Times. “At the word of command Germany is arming en masse, and the surrounding nations—that is, the best part of the world—cannot but do as she does.” They are doing as she does, and all the European powers to-day sleep beside their arms. In face of this fact, what comfort can men take from the meeting and hobnobbing of the crowned heads of Europe here, there, and everywhere, or of their assurances of peace? Who is strong enough to keep the peace, who too weak to enkindle war? No man and no people. It is this arming and incertitude of one another that alone prevented what locally was so insignificant an affair as the outbreak within the year of the Bosnian insurrection against Turkey from lighting a universal conflagration. The eagles of the great powers gather around the Turkish carcase. England seizes beforehand on the control of the Suez Canal by way of preparing for eventualities, and the Eastern question begins at last to resolve itself into this simple form: not, How shall we uphold the empire? but, How shall we divide the spoils?
The present rulers of Germany profess to look upon their Catholic subjects as the great foes of the German Empire. The mistake is a fatal one; for in binding the church they bind the only power that can stop the dry-rot which is slowly eating into the heart, not alone of Germany, but of all nations to-day. That dry-rot is socialism, the first-born of infidelity. That socialism prevails in Germany the rulers of that empire know, and its utterances are as dreaded as an encyclical of the Pope. Here are the elements of socialism as pictured by the Cologne Gazette at the opening of the year: “In 1874, although the great bubble schemes burst in the summer of 1873, and although last year a plentiful harvest of corn and wine came to our relief, the consequences of the crisis are still felt. Numerous undertakings are depreciated, and even more lamentable than the losses of the promoters are the mischievous results of the sudden excessive rise in wages, which could not possibly last, the luxurious habits, the strikes, and all that these involve on the laboring classes and the whole industrial life of the German nation. Habits of indolence and gluttony have been established which it will be hard to eradicate,” and much more in the same strain.