Chapter V · (continued 2)

In the meantime a dissension had arisen in the Camp of the enemy. Arnim, who had served Bismarck during the Council of the Vatican, had come into disfavor with his powerful employer, and began to show revolutionary tendencies. One of the results of this discord between the Chancellor and his former tool was the disclosure of certain shady operations of Bismarck prior to 1870. Certain documents were brought forth showing that, in 1869, Doellinger had influenced the Bavarian Prince Hohenlohe to begin the war against Rome, and that at that time Bismarck was laboring in every part of Europe to arouse the Governments against the definition of papal infallibility. It was shown also that from June 18, 1870, this Arnim, whom Pius IX. called the "New Architofel," had suggested against the Church all the measures of which Bismarck had made use during the year that followed. These revelations coming thus in 1874, in the very heat of the persecution, gave additional evidence that the Council and the infallibility were only pretexts, and not the real causes of the Kulturkampf, an event which had been in preparation long before the Council was convened.

The greater indignities perpetrated upon the heads of the Catholic Church in Germany now followed each other with such rapidity and violence as to overshadow the thousands of minor grievances. On July 27, 1874, Bishop Janiczewski, auxiliary of the See of Posen, was imprisoned at Kosmin for fifteen months for having assumed the episcopal office without the permission of the Government. The same day, Mgr. Koryskowski, delegated by the Archbishop of Gnesen to administer the affairs of that diocese, was sent into exile at Stargard. The Canon Woiyewski was imprisoned for having continued in his capacity as ecclesiastical judge after the imprisonment of his Archbishop. Bishop Martin of Paderborn was deposed from his bishopric; he refused to read the sentence which was nailed to the door of his prison cell; he was liberated, however, but conducted to the frontiers at Wesel. On January 18, 1875, the Seminary of Fulda, the most ancient establishment of its kind in Germany, was closed.

The record of persecution during the first five years of the Kulturkampf is an appalling arraignment of its perpetrators. Five bishops imprisoned, and all bishops fined and insulted, fourteen hundred priests incarcerated, all the seminaries closed, it seemed little short of miraculous that religion survived the merciless onslaught. Yet the end had not arrived. On December 4, 1874, Bismarck suppressed the embassy to the Vatican, an act which moved the Catholic people to send to the Sovereign Pontiff an address signed by all the faithful of the Empire. It was in answer to this address that Pius IX. published that eloquent encyclical of February 5, 1875.

Strange to say, however, all the previous legislation had not begotten the results that were expected. The clergy like the episcopate resisted the anti-religious laws, preferring exile, imprisonment and fines to defection, however tempting. The faithful stood loyally by their afflicted pastors, refusing with one mind the ministrations of ecclesiastics sent to them by governmental orders.

The Chancellor, therefore, was driven to a final resort to effect his purpose of extinguishing Catholic faith in Germany. Accordingly a new series of laws was elaborated, entitled the Sperrgesetz, or laws suppressing the payments made to ecclesiastics by the State. One cannot rightly term these payments "salaries," a word which indicates no other claim than remuneration for services performed. The amounts annually payed to the Church by the State were moneys which the State owed to the Church since the beginning of the century on account of the wholesale confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and revenues following upon the Treaty of Luneville in 1803. As such they had been formally recognized, and hence their payment to the officials of the Church was a matter of justice which the State could not afford to refuse without incurring the stigma of robbery.

This, however, was the object of the new laws which were as follows:

Article 1. Beginning from the day on which the present law shall be published, the payment of all that the Government has hitherto allotted to dioceses, to institutions and to ecclesiastics who belong to such dioceses shall be suppressed. The same measure shall be extended to such ecclesiastical funds as the State administers permanently.

Art. 2. The ecclesiastical salaries shall be re-established whenever the bishop, or the diocesan administrator shall pledge himself in writing to observe the laws of the State.

Art. 3. In the dioceses of Posen-Gnesen and Paderborn the ecclesiastical salaries shall be re-established as soon as a new bishop shall be appointed in concert with the Government.

Art. 5. If in any diocese, in which the ecclesiastical salaries shall have been re-established, any priest refuses obedience to the laws of the State despite the pledges given by his bishop, the Government is authorized to suppress anew any allowance in favor of such recalcitrants.

Art. 6. The Government is authorized to re-establish the salaries of priests who by their acts manifest the intention of obeying the laws of the State. If after that they shall violate the law, the suppression of their salaries shall be enforced.

This was the law, variously called the Brodkorbgesetz, the Sperrgesetz and the like, which was passed on April 22, 1875, with the hope thereby of starving the priesthood of Germany into submission.

On May 13, 1875, the minister Falk brought forth another law placing under the power of the State all sales and alienations of ecclesiastical properties and of pious foundations. A law of June 20 gave to the State the temporal administration of Catholic parishes; it was a law very much like that of the present French regime which would impose associations cultuelles upon the French churches. On July 4 came a still more iniquitous ordinance, regulating "the rights of the Old Catholics to the property of the churches." Thereby these sectaries were authorized to claim a part of the usufruct of parochial properties, and to employ in their services the use of Catholic churches and vestments.

If a pastor or curate should apostatize to this sect he might claim possession of the rectory and church, which at his death would pass into the hands of the Old Catholics, should they be in the majority. In fact, in some places, such as Bochum and Wiesbaden, the Catholics were expelled from their Church by a very small minority of the sectaries.

On February 18, 1876, the priest was deprived of the right of directing Catholic instruction in the primary schools. On June 7, of the same year, the State claimed formally the right of surveillance over the administration of the property of the Catholic Church.

There was little more that the State could now do to subjugate Catholic faith short of absolute murder. The Kulturkampf had reached its most critical stage. It was, indeed, a moment when the human pride of the persecutors impelled them to boast of their crimes, and promise, if it were possible, greater exactitude in the future. The Chancellor could declare, in 1877, that the Kulturkampf was then at its zenith. In consequence it was time to look for that civilization which Virchow had prophesied as its ultimate result. Its real fruits were not what Bismarck or his Protestant clientele would have wished.

A new order had arisen in Germany, an order of unrest and anarchy which manifested its existence in a manner not at all to the liking of the ruling powers. Thus, on May 11, 1878, the Socialist Hoedel attempted the life of the Emperor, and the crime was repeated by Nobiling a few weeks after, on June 2. Even Protestantism felt the destructive force of the blow aimed at Catholicity. There were hardly any more marriages performed by Protestant ministers; their temples were deserted; their pastors openly attacked the divinity of Christ, while everywhere like a shadow of death a reign of crime and immorality rested upon the population.

TURN OF THE TIDE.

The country at length began to awaken to a sense of the criminality of those laws which it had imposed upon an inoffensive people. Even the Gazette of the Cross, the organ of the orthodox conservatives, could say: "It is through the Kulturkampf that we have encountered our moral and material miseries, miseries that are evident in every part of the German Empire. It is only by renouncing the Kulturkampf, and the ideas which brought it forth, that we can hope to escape from our embarrassments. Such is our opinion, and it is becoming more general every day. Where there is a will there is a way." The Gazette but echoed the sentiments of nearly all the German Protestants who had retained anything of Christian faith, and in consequence a demand was sounded throughout the Empire for a cessation of the persecution.

Bismarck, himself, though still wedded to his hope of dominating the spiritual life of the Church, saw clearly that his methods had proven abortive. Hence, from 1878 onward, the trend of governmental action proceeded slowly but surely towards a reconciliation with the Catholic elements in the nation. Moreover, it was becoming more and more evident that the Government needed the co-operation of the Catholics in curbing the spirit of revolution now making itself heard above the clamor of intrigue and oppression.

It was not surprising, therefore, that Prince Bismarck should turn to the Holy See for succor in his difficulty. Mgr. Masella, the papal nuncio at Munich, afterwards Cardinal, was therefore invited to Berlin to confer upon matters touching the relations of Church and State. Such a visit, however, was entirely out of the question as long as the laws against Catholics continued in vigor. The Chancellor contrived nevertheless to arrange a meeting at the baths of Kissingen, but without arriving at any satisfactory agreement. The Prince then sent his representative, Count Hübner, to Vienna to confer with the papal nuncio at that Court, Mgr. Jacobini. Again negotiations were opened at Gastein in the duchy of Salzburg, but like the others came to naught, as the papal representative refused conciliation as long as the May Laws should continue.

It now became quite evident that the plans of Bismarck must require a reversal of his former policy. Accordingly, in 1880, a beginning was made by a slight modification of the obnoxious laws. The Government thereby yielded its claim to the right of deposing ecclesiastics; in 1881, it recognized the vicars-general who had been appointed through ecclesiastical channels to administer the dioceses of Paderborn, Osnabrück and Breslau; nor were these prelates required to take the oath of blind obedience to obnoxious laws. The bishoprics of Fulda and of Treves had been filled by papal appointment, the former receiving as its incumbent, Mgr. Kopp, and the latter, Mgr. Korum; strange to say, the Chancellor recognized both prelates.

These victories of the Catholics, slight in themselves, were powerful as evidencing the direction of governmental policies. The reversion, however, of Bismarck, was not so quickly followed by the creatures whom he had placed in the Chambers, and whose hostility to Catholic interests continued as violent and bitter as ever. "Let us be patient for one or two years," cried Bennigsen, the leader of the Liberals, "and we shall see the fruits of our glorious policy; we shall have conquered the Pope." In two years, 1882, the Pope remained unconquered, while in Germany the Catholic party increased in numbers and in power.

On May 31, 1883, new concessions were made to the Catholics. Provision was made for the pardoning of deposed bishops, the legal formalities required by candidates for ecclesiastical offices could be dispensed with at the option of the Minister of Worship, the State examinations of ecclesiastical students were set aside. Still the May Laws remained upon the statute books, and against them the Centre party, under the leadership of Windthorst, continued to protest even though advised to show some leniency by Mgr. Galimberti. The firmness of the great leader was rewarded. The affair of the Caroline Islands, disputed between Germany and Spain, gave Bismarck an opportunity of approaching the Holy See with better grace than before. Accordingly the Chancellor arranged that the Holy Father, Leo XIII., should be invited to arbitrate between the contending nations. The Sovereign Pontiff could not help being happily impressed by this diplomatic action on the part of the two powers, which thereby recognized the Holy Father as a temporal sovereign despite the Piedmontese occupation of Rome.

The successful result of the papal arbitration opened up new avenues whereby reconciliation might be effected in Germany. The Sees of Cologne and Fribourg were at once filled, and Mgr. Kopp, Bishop of Fulda, was offered a seat in the Upper House of Prussia. In return for the many evidences of good feeling thus betrayed by the Government, Cardinal Ledochowski, who knew himself to be a persona non grata to the Prussian State, resigned his diocese of Posen, which was immediately filled by a new incumbent, Mgr. Dinder. On May 21, 1886, the theological schools were re-established as they had been before the beginning of the Kulturkampf. The High Court instituted for the adjudging of ecclesiastical affairs was suppressed, and the Sovereign Pontiff was hitherto to be recognized as the superior judge in such matters. The elections of February, 1887, increased the numbers of the Centre party, and Bismarck, thereupon, deemed the time fitting to end once for all the supreme trial of the Kulturkampf. Certain modifications of the May Laws were placed in the hands of the Centre; some were accepted, others rejected. The concessions, however, were of such a nature that they might be in a way accepted, inasmuch as they gave promise of other and larger benefits. Through that diplomatic farsightedness which ever distinguished the great Pope Leo XIII., affairs were gradually assuming a condition satisfactory to the Catholics of Germany, although Windthorst and the Centre Party still claimed many concessions due in ordinary justice. The peace finally concluded, the Holy Father conferred upon the Chancellor the Order of Christ. It was a complimentary decoration that if it did not win the real convictions of Bismarck, at least served to silence any open hostility on his part for the future. The May Laws were finally revised in the Reichstag and abolished. Thenceforth cordial relations were established between the Pope and the Emperor William II. The Catholics of Germany began to taste the fruits of peace; today they have become a power in the country.