The government took alarm, and offered to let fall the Hermesians, if the archbishop would yield in the affair of mixed marriages; and as this expedient failed, measures of violence were threatened, which were soon carried into effect; for on the evening of the 20th of November, 1837, the archbishop was secretly arrested and carried off to the fortress of Minden, where he was placed in close confinement, all communication with him being cut off. The next morning the government issued a “Publicandum,” in which it entered its accusations against the archbishop, in order to justify its arbitrary act and to appease the anger of the people. Notwithstanding, a cry of indignation and grief was heard in all the Catholic provinces of Prussia, which was re-echoed throughout Germany and extended to all Europe. Lukewarm Catholics grew fervent, and the very Hermesians gathered with their sympathies to uphold the cause of the archbishop.
The Archbishop of Posen and the Bishops of Paderborn and Münster announced their withdrawal from the secret convention, which the Bishop of Treves had already done upon his death-bed; and henceforward the priests throughout the kingdom held firm to the ecclesiastical law on mixed marriages, so that in 1838 Frederic William III. was forced to make a declaration recognizing the rights for which they contended. But the Archbishop of Cologne was still a prisoner in the fortress of Minden. Early, however, in 1839, health began to fail; and as the government feared lest his death in prison might produce unfavorable comment, he received permission to withdraw to Münster. The next year the king died, and his successor, Frederic William IV., showed himself ready to settle the dispute amicably, and in other ways to do justice to the Catholics. A great victory had been gained—the secret convention was destroyed—a certain liberty of communication with the Pope was granted to the bishops. The election of bishops was made comparatively free, the control of the schools of theology was restored to them, the Hermesians either submitted or were removed, and the Catholics of Germany awoke from a deathlike sleep to new and vigorous life.
An evidence of the awakening of faith was given in the fall of 1844, when a million and a half of German Catholics went in pilgrimage, with song and prayer, to Treves.
Nevertheless, many grievances remained unredressed. The Censur was still used against the church; and when the Catholics asked permission to publish journals in which they could defend themselves and their religious interests, they were told that such publications were not needed; but when Ronge, the suspended priest, sought to found his sect of “German Catholics,” he received every encouragement from the government, and the earnest support of the officials and nearly the entire press of Prussia; though, at this very time, every effort was being made to crush the “Old Lutherans.”
The government continued to find pretexts for meddling with the affairs of the bishops, and the newspapers attacked the church in the most insulting manner, going so far as to demand that the religious exercises for priests should be placed under police supervision. We have now reached a memorable epoch in the history of the Catholic Church in Prussia—the revolution of 1848, which convulsed Germany to its centre, spread dismay among all classes, and filled its cities with riot and bloodshed. When order was re-established, the liberties of the church were recognized more fully than they had been for three centuries.
GARCIA MORENO.
FROM THE CIVILTA CATTOLICA.