Chapter III. Aggressions of the Civil Power.

Mr. Gladstone says:—

'It is the peculiarity of Roman theology that, by thrusting itself into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even necessarily, comes to be a frequent theme of political discussion. To quietminded Roman Catholics it must be a subject of infinite annoyance that their religion is on this ground more than any other the subject of criticism; more than any other the occasion of conflicts with the State and of civil disquietude. I feel sincerely how much hardship their case entails, but this hardship is brought upon them altogether by the conduct of the authorities of their own Church.'¹

His pamphlet from beginning to end bristles with the same accusations against the Catholic Church. His whole argument might be entitled, 'Reasons to show that in all Conflicts the Christian Church is always in the wrong, and the Civil State always in the right;' or, 'On the outrageous Claims'² and 'Exorbitances of Papal Assumptions,³ contrasted with the Innocence and Infallibility of Civil States.' This seems to me to be history read upside down; and not history only, but also Christianity. I can hardly persuade

¹ Vatican Decrees, p. 9.

² Ibid. p. 11.

³ Ibid. p. 25.

page 98 myself that Mr. Gladstone would contend that even in the Constitutions of Clarendon¹ St. Thomas of Canterbury was the aggressor, and Henry II. was within the law; or that either the Pope or Archbishop Langton began the conflict with the 'Papal minion John;' or, again, that in the question of Investitures and Ecclesiastical Simony, the Emperors of Germany were on the side of law and justice, and St. Gregory VII. and Innocent III. were aggressors. And yet all this is necessary to his argument. If he is not prepared to maintain this, the whole foundation is gone. But I do not know how any man who believes in the Divine office of the Christian Church can maintain such a thesis. And I have always believed that Mr. Gladstone does so believe the Christian Church to have a Divine office, which, within some limit at least, is independent of all human authority.

But as the contention before us is not of the past so much as of the present, I will come to the facts of the days in which we live.

¹ Mr. Gladstone says, upon what evidence I do not know, 'The Constitutions of Clarendon, cursed from the Papal Throne, were the work of the English Bishops.'^*St. Thomas himself says that 'Richard de Luci and Jocelin de Balliol, the abettors of the Royal tyranny, were the fabricators of those heretical pravities.'^† Herbert of Bosham, who was present at Clarendon, says that they were the work of 'certain nobles (proceres) or chiefmen of the kingdom.'^‡ The Bishops were indeed terrified into submitting to them, but the Constitutions were in no sense their work.

^* Vatican Decrees, pp. 57, 58.

^† Ep. St. Thomæ, tom. iii. p. 12, ed. Giles, 1845.

^‡ Vita St. Thomæ, tom. vii. p. 115, ed. Giles.

page 99 My third proposition, then, is, that any collisions now existing between the Catholic Church and the States of Europe have been brought on by changes, not on the part of the Church, much less of the Vatican Council, but on the part of the Civil Powers, and that by reason of a systematic conspiracy against the Holy See. No one will ascribe to the Vatican Council the Revolution in Italy, the seizure of Rome in 1848, the invasion of the Roman State in 1860, the attacks of Garibaldi against Rome, ending with Montana. And yet there are people who ascribe to the Vatican Council the breach at the Porta Pia, and the entry of the Italians into Rome. Such reasoners are proof against history, chronology, and logic. If anybody will persist in saying that the two and twenty years of aggression against the Holy See, from 1848 to 1870, were caused by Pius IX., I must address myself to other men. That Pius IX. has been in collision with those who attacked him is true enough. So is every man who defends his own house. Who, I ask, began the fray? From the Siccardi laws down to the laws of the Guarantees, who was the aggressor? But where the Pope is concerned logic seems to fail even in reasonable men. The other day Prince Von Bismarck told the Catholics of the Reichstag that they were accomplices of Kulmann, and therefore, as he implied, his assassins. Moreover, he affirmed that the war of France against Prussia was forced on the French Emperor by the Pope and the Jesuits. How providentially, then, page 100 though altogether fortuitously, no doubt, had Prussia been for three years massing its munitions of war and putting France in the wrong by intrigues in Spain, and fables from Ems. Nevertheless, all these things, are believed. Prince Yon Bismarck has said them. But surely they belong to the Arabian Nights.

Now, I have already shown that, before the Vatican Council assembled, there was an opposition systematically organised to resist it. It was begun by certain Professors at Munich. The Munich Government lent itself as an agent to Dr. Döllinger, and endeavoured to draw the other Governments of Europe into a combined attempt to hinder or to intimidate the Council. And this was done on the plea that the Council would not be free. I well remember that at one time we were told in Rome, that if the Council persevered with the Definition of the Infallibility, the French troops would be withdrawn. That is to say, that the Garibaldians would be let in to make short work of the Definition. It was said that the presence of the French troops was an undue pressure on the freedom of the Council, and that their departure was essential to its true liberty. There was a grim irony amounting to humour in this solicitude for the liberty of the Council.

I will now trace out more fully the history of this conspiracy, in order to put beyond question my assertion that the plan of attack was prepared before the Council met, and that the Falck Laws are a page 101 deliberate change made by the Civil Power of Prussia, the status of the Catholic Church in Germany being still unchanged.

I will here ask leave to repeat what I stated two years ago:—

'In the year 1869 it was already believed that the Bavarian Government, through Prince Hohenlohe, had begun a systematic agitation against the Council. It was known that he had addressed a circular note to the European Governments. But the text of that note was not, so far as I know, ever made public. I am able now to give the text in full. It affords abundant proof of the assertion here made, that a deliberate conspiracy against the Council was planned with great artifice and speciousness of matter and of language. Moreover, the date of this document shows how long before the opening of the Council this opposition was commenced. The Council was opened on December 8, 1869. Prince Hohenlohe's note is dated on the 9th of the April preceding, that is to say, about eight months before the Council began. It runs as follows:—

'"Monsieur,—It appears to be certain that the Council convoked by His Holiness Pope Pius IX. will meet in the month of December next. The number of prelates who will attend it from all parts of the world will be much greater than at any former Council. This fact alone will help to give to its decrees a great authority, such as belongs to an Œcumenical Council. Taking this circumstance into consideration, it appears to me indispensable for every government to give it their attention, and it is with this view that I am about to address to you some observations.

'"It is not probable that the Council will occupy itself page 102 only with doctrines appertaining to pure theology; there does not exist at this moment any problem of this nature which requires a conciliar solution. The only dogmatic thesis which Rome would wish to have decided by the Council, and which the Jesuits in Italy and Germany are now agitating, is the question of the Infallibility of the Pope. It is evident that this pretension, elevated into a dogma, would go far beyond the purely spiritual sphere, and would become a question eminently political, as raising the power of the Sovereign Pontiff, even in temporal matters, over all the princes and peoples of Christendom. This doctrine, therefore, is of such a nature as to arouse the attention of all those Governments who rule over Catholic subjects.

'"There is a circumstance which increases still more the gravity of the situation. I learn that among the commissions delegated to prepare matter, which later on is to be submitted to the deliberations of the Council, there is one which is occupied only on mixed questions, affecting equally international law, politics, and canon law. All these preparations justify our believing that it is the fixed intention of the Holy See, or at least of a party at present powerful in Rome, to promulgate through the Council a series of decrees upon questions which are rather political than ecclesiastical. Add to this that the Civiltà Cattolica—a periodical conducted by the Jesuits, and bearing an official character through the brief of the Holy Father—has just, demanded that the Council shall transform into conciliar decrees the condemnations of the Syllabus, published on December 8, 1864. Now, the articles of this encyclical being directed against principles which are the base of modern public life, such as we find it among all civilised nations, it follows that Governments are under the necessity of asking themselves if it is not page 103 their duty to invite the serious consideration both of the Bishops who are their subjects, and of the future Council, to the sad consequences of such a premeditated and systematic overturning of the present relations between Church and State. It cannot, indeed, be denied that it is a matter of urgency for Governments to combine, for the purpose of protesting, either through their agents in Rome, or in some other way, against all decisions which the Council may promulgate without the concurrence of the representatives of the secular power, in questions which are at the same time of a political and religious nature.

'"I thought that the initiative in so important a matter should be taken by one of the great Powers; but not having as yet received any communication on this subject, I have thought it necessary to seek for a mutual understanding which will protect our common interests, and that without delay, seeing that the interval between this time and the meeting of the Council is so short. I therefore desire yon to submit this matter to the Government to which you are accredited, and to ascertain the views and intentions of the Court of * * * in respect to the course which it deems advisable to follow. You will submit, for the approbation of M. * * *, the question whether it would not be advisable to fix beforehand the measures to be taken, if not jointly, at least identically, in order to enlighten the Holy See as to the attitude which the Governments of the Continent will assume in reference to the Œcumenical Council; or whether conferences composed of representatives of the States concerned would not be considered as the best means to bring about an understanding between their Governments.

'"I authorise you to leave a copy of this despatch with page 104 the Minister for Foreign Affairs at * * *, if he desires it; and I wish you to inform me as early as possible of the manner in which this communication may be received.

'"I have the honour, etc.,

'"Hohenlohe.

'"Munich,

April 9, 1869."'

No one could fail to see that this Circular had not Prince Hohenlohe for its author. We shall hereafter trace it to its legitimate origin.

'The indiction of the Council was no sooner published than the well-known volume called Janus appeared. It was said to be the work of many hands, and of various nations—of two at least. The chief object of its animosity was Rome, and its detailed hostility was levelled against the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff and the Syllabus. The book was elaborately acrimonious and extravagantly insolent against Rome. Its avowed aim was to rouse the Civil Governments against the Council. The Sovereign Pontiff had, with great wisdom and justice, dealt with the Governments of Europe on the ground chosen by themselves. They had renounced the Catholic relations of union hitherto subsisting between the Civil and Spiritual Powers. Pius IX. took them at their word. He convened the Spiritual Legislature of the Church; he did not invite those who have gloried in their separation from it. This, again, sharpened the jealousy and suspicion of the Governments. At this time came forth certain publications—to which I will not more explicitly refer—avowedly intended to excite the Civil Powers to active opposition.

'About the month of September 1869, as I have already said, a document containing five questions was proposed by the Bavarian Government to the Theological Faculty at Munich. No one could for a moment doubt by what hand page 105 those interrogatories also were framed; they were intended to elicit the answer, that the action of the Council, if it were to define the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, would be irreconcilable not only with Catholic doctrine, but with the security of Civil Governments. In due time the answers appeared, leaving no doubt that both the questions and the replies were inspired by one mind, if not written by one and the same hand.

'We have already seen that Prince Hohenlohe, President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bavaria, addressed a letter to the French and other Catholic Governments, calling on them to interfere and to prevent the "fearful dangers" to which the Council would expose the modern world. Next, the Spanish Minister, Olozaga, hoped that the Council would not meet, or at least would "not approve, sanction, or ratify the Syllabus, which is in contradiction with modern civilisation." He then threatened the Church with the hostility of a league formed by the Governments of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Bavaria. An Italian infidel then took up the game, and proposed an Anti-Œcumenical Council to meet at Naples. A French infidel was invited, who promised that his soul should be present, and said: "It is an efficacious and noble idea to assemble a council of ideas to oppose to the council of dogmas. I accept it. On the one side is theocratic obstinacy, on the other the human mind. The human mind is a divine mind, its rays on the earth, its star is above. . . . If I cannot go to Naples, nevertheless I shall be there. My soul will be there. I cry, Courage! and I squeeze your hand." The reader will forgive my repeating this trash, which is here inserted only to show how the liberals and infidels of Europe rose up at the instigation of Dr. Döllinger to meet the coming Council.

page 106

'About the month of June, in 1869, another despatch had been addressed by Prince Hohenlohe to the other Governments, inviting them to make common cause against the Council. It was extensively believed to be inspired by Prussia, the policy of which was thought to be, to put in contrast the liberty accorded to its own Catholic subjects in respect of the Council with the pedantic meddling of the Bavarian Government. At this time General Menabrea, under the same inspiration, addressed a circular to his diplomatic agents, proposing to the Powers to prevent the assembling of the Council, on the ground of their not having been invited to it. It was supposed at that time that this policy also was secretly supported by Berlin. A joint despatch was sent by Prince Hohenlohe and the Italian Government to the French Government, urging the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome during the Council, to insure its freedom of deliberation.'

These preparations to oppose the Council were made before it had assembled. It met on December 8, 1869. In the following January, Dr. Döllinger received the freedom of a German city, in reward for his attacks on the Holy See.

'When the well-known postulatum of the Bishops, asking that the definition of the Papal Infallibility should be proposed to the Council, was made public, Dr. Döllinger openly assailed it; and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Darn, addressed a letter to the Holy See with a view to prevent the definition. Rome was at that time full of rumours and threats that the protection of the French army would be withdrawn. I had personally an opportunity of knowing that these threats were not mere rumours.

page 107

'At the same moment, while France was attacking the definition of the Pope's Infallibility, the Protestant Chancellor of Austria, Count Yon Beust, addressed himself to the Canons of the Schema published in the Augsburg Gazette, which he declared would "provoke deplorable conflicts between the Church and State." Every European Government from that time put a pressure more or less upon the Council to prevent the definition.

'The source of this opposition, then, was Munich. The chief agent, beyond all doubt, was one who in his earlier days had been greatly venerated in Germany and in England. Truth compels me to ascribe to Dr. Döllinger the initiative in this deplorable attempt to coerce the Holy See, and to overbear the liberty of the Bishops assembled in Council. Prince Hohenlohe is assuredly no theologian. The documents published by him came from another mind and hand. Such was the opposition before and during the Council.

'What I have hitherto said to prove the conspiracy of certain European Governments, and the intrigues of the Old Catholics against the Council, both before the assembling and during its sessions, would not have been needed if the Diary of the Council by Professor Friedrich had sooner come into my hands. I have been feeling in the dark for proofs which he brings to light by a series of astounding confessions. I had always believed in the conspiracy; but I never knew how systematic and how self-confident it was. I had always known that the Gnostic vainglory of German scientific historians was its chief instigator; but I never before imagined the stupendous conceit or the malevolent pride of its professors. A critique of Professor Friedrich's Diary, by some strong German hand, has appeared lately in one of our journals, and I cannot refrain from giving certain passages in final confirmation of what I have said above.

page 108

'And first as to the Governments. Professor Friedrich puts into the mouth of a diplomatist the following words: "The means by which the greatest amount of influence might be brought to bear on the Council would be a determined and plain manifestation of the public opinion of Europe in favour of the minority. Clearly the Curia could not prevent this; and it would add strength and numbers to the opposition, by giving it the assurance that, if at the last moment it found itself obliged to protest and appeal to the nation, the Governments and all intelligent laymen would support it. This measure would also secure 'weak and doubtful Bishops'" (Diary, p. 184). On the 26th of December, 1869, Friedrich wrote, "That he was considered by many persons to be residing in Rome as the representative of an approaching schism, if the majority obtained the upper hand in the Council" (p. 41). He says in another place: "It would not be the first time in the history of the Church that a schism had broken out. Church history recounts many such, besides that of the Greeks" (p. 196). The critic of Professor Friedrich's book writes as follows: "The alliance between 'German science' and diplomacy was not productive of all the results which at first had been looked for. Friedrich expresses himself very bitterly on this point; nevertheless he endeavoured all the more to excite German science to fresh efforts." Under date of the 27th of March (p. 202) he writes: "The Governments are by degrees acting an almost ridiculous part towards the Council—first boasts; then embarrassment connected with meaningless threats; and at last the confession that the right time has passed by, and that the Curia has command of the situation. If German science had not saved its position, and been able to establish a firm opposition in the Council, even in contradiction to its own will, and kept it alive; and if our Lord God had not also set stupidity and ignorance on the side of the page 109 Curia and of the majority, the Governments would have been put to shame in the sight of the whole world. Prince Hohenlohe, in fact, is the only statesman possessed of a deeper insight in this question, and by degrees he has come to be looked upon as belonging to the minority."

'Of all the foreign sources from which the English newspapers drew their inspiration, the chief perhaps was the Augsburg Gazette. This paper has many titles to special consideration. The infamous matter of Janus first appeared in it under the form of articles. During the Council it had in Rome at least one English contributor. Its letters on the Council have been translated into English, and published by a Protestant bookseller in a volume by Quirinus.'

A distinguished bishop of Germany, one of the minority opposed to the definition, whose cause the Augsburg Gazette professed to serve, delivered at the time his judgment on Janus, and the letters on the Council.¹

'Bishop Yon Ketteler of Mainz publicly protested against "the systematic dishonesty of the correspondent or the Augsburg Gazette." "It is a pure invention," he adds, "that the Bishops named in that journal declared that Döllinger represented, as to the substance of the question (of Infallibility), the opinions of a majority of the German Bishops." And this, he said, "is not an isolated error, but part of a system which consists in the daring attempt to publish false news, with the object of deceiving the German public, according to a plan concerted beforehand." . . . . "It will be necessary one day to expose in all their naked

¹ Preface to Vol. III. Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, p. xxv. &c.

page 110 ness and abject mendacity the articles of the Augsburg Gazette. They will present a formidable and lasting testimony to the extent of injustice of which party-men, who affect the semblance of superior education, have been guilty against the Church." Again, at a later date, the Bishop of Mainz found it necessary to address to his diocese another public protest against the inventions of the Augsburg Gazette. "The Augsburg Gazette," he says, "hardly ever pronounces my name without appending to it a falsehood." . . . "It would have been easy for us to prove that every Roman letter of the Augsburg Gazette contains gross perversions and untruths. Whoever is conversant with the state of things here, and reads these letters, cannot doubt an instant that these errors are voluntary, and are part of a concerted system designed to deceive the public. If time fails me to correct publicly this uninterrupted series of falsehoods, it is impossible for me to keep silence when an attempt is made with so much perfidy to misrepresent my own convictions."

'Again, Bishop Hefele, commenting on the Roman correspondents of the Augsburg Gazette, says: "It is evident that there are people not bishops, but having relations with the Council, who are not restrained by duty and conscience." We had reason to believe that the names of these people, both German and English, were well known to us.

'Now the testimony of the Bishop of Mainz, as to the falsehoods of these correspondents respecting Rome and Germany, I can confirm by my testimony as to their treatment of matters relating to Rome and England. I do not think there is a mention of my own name without, as the Bishop of Mainz says, the appendage of a falsehood. The whole tissue of the correspondence is false.'¹

I have quoted all this to show the small chance the people of England had of knowing the truth as to the state and acts of the Council, and also how systematic was the opposition organised against it in Germany.

After the suspension of the Council, the action of this conspiracy, hitherto secret, became open. Dr. Von Döllinger and certain Professors openly rejected the Vatican Council, accusing it of innovation. They therefore either took, or were called by, the name of 'Old Catholics.' This schism has never been in one stay. Its development has had three progressive stages. At first the Old Catholics professed to hold by the Council of Trent, and to reject only the Council of the Vatican. As such they claimed to be recognised by the Prussian law. But next, at a meeting at Augsburg, a large infusion of German Rationalists compelled them to enlarge their comprehension, and to include those who rejected most of the doctrines of the Council of Trent.

Lastly, at Cologne and Bonn, they received the accession of Anglicans, American Episcopalians, Greeks, and various Protestants.

The Old Catholic schism, therefore, has lost its meaning and its character, and has become a body without distinctive creed. Dr. Von Döllinger, at Bonn, last September, declared (if the report be correct) that Old Catholics are not bound by the Council of Trent.

In the sphere of theology and religion the movement is already paralysed, and has no future; but in the sphere of politics it has a great power of mischief, I have already shown how the first acts of the diplomatic and political hostility to the Council began at Munich. There can be little doubt that it reached Berlin through the Circular of Prince Hohenlohe, the present German Ambassador at Paris. The Berlin Government supported the Old Catholic Professors who rejected the Vatican Decrees, on the plea that the Council of Trent was known to the law in Prussia, but that the Council of the Vatican was not known to it. It was exlex. Therefore the Government recognised the legal status of the Old Catholics who held to the Council of Trent. How they will still recognise them as Old Catholics, now that they have rejected the Council of Trent at Bonn, it is not so easy to say. However, Dr. Reinkens was consecrated Bishop by a Jansenist Prelate, and received from the Berlin Government, both legal recognition and a good salary. We shall see hereafter that the Government would thereby try to tempt the Catholic Clergy to its friendship, and to use the 'Old Catholic' schism as a weapon against the Catholic Church. The 'Old Catholic' schism has an attraction for certain minds in which there is a strong hankering after the Catholic Church without the courage to suffer for the truth's sake. An attempt, we have been told, was made to set up an 'Old Catholic' Church in London, but it met with little encouragement.

There is not a doubt that the Berlin Government aims at changing all the Catholics in Germany into Old Catholics.

The Old Catholics, in their appeal to the Civil Power, are doing what the Arians did after the Council of Nicæa. They have been, and they will be, the instigators of persecution against the Catholic Church. But they are blindly doing God's will. When the Church has been purified, their place will know them no more.

Before we enter upon the present conflict in Germany, so carelessly touched and dismissed by Mr. Gladstone, it is necessary to record the fact that, in the year 1849, the 15th Article of the German Constitution affirmed, that 'Every religious Society shall order and manage its own affairs independently, but shall remain subject to the general power of the State.' The Prussian Constitution also recognised this independence. Such was the law until 1872. Under this law the Catholics were loyal, peaceful, and of unimpeachable allegiance to the State. They served it in peace; they fought for it in war. They helped to found the Empire in their blood. Who made the change? The Government of Berlin. The laws of 1849 have been violated, and a series of laws, which I will hereafter describe, have been forced upon the Catholics of Prussia. The conflict was thus begun, not by the Catholics nor by the Church, but by the Civil Power. Prince Yon Bismarck is so conscious of this page 115 fact, that he has spared no accusation, how wild soever, against the Catholics to disguise and to mask it. The laws resisted now by the Bishops and Catholics of Prussia are not the old laws of their country, but innovations, intolerable to conscience, newly introduced, and inflicted upon them by the fine and imprisonment of five Bishops and 1,400, it is even said 1,700, clergy. Surely the day is past when anyone believes that the Falck Laws were caused by the Vatican Council. The French war was scarcely ended when Prince Von Bismarck accused the Catholics of Germany of disloyalty and conspiracy against the Empire. They had not even had time to be disloyal or to conspire. The Catholic blood shed in the war was not yet dry. He said then, as he said the other day, that he had secret evidence. Not a particle has ever been produced. For a time Englishmen were perplexed. They did not know what to believe. They could not conceive that Prince Von Bismarck would make such charges without evidence; but, little by little, the truth has come out. The Old Catholic conspiracy has been laid, open to the world. The manly and inflexible constancy of the Catholic Bishops, Priests, and people of Germany has roused the attention of Englishmen, and they have come to know that no body of men were more gladly loyal to the Prussian Government than the Catholic on the basis of the laws of their country from 1848 to 1872; that no change what oever, by a page 116 jot or tittle, was made on their part; that, on the part of Government, a new and elaborate legislation, anti-Catholic and intolerable to conscience, was introduced in 1872. The whole innovation was on the part of Government. The new laws excluded the Clergy from the schools; banished the religious orders; made Government consent necessary to the nomination of a Parish Priest; fined and imprisoned Bishops for the exercise of their Spiritual office; subjected to the State the education of the Clergy, even to the examination for orders; and established a final tribunal of Ecclesiastical appeal in Berlin. And yet men were found who had still the hardihood to say that the Church had begun the conflict. At last, Dr. Friedberg, Professor of Law at Leipsic, and one of the chief advisers of Government in its Ecclesiastical policy, let out the real cause. With an incautious candour he has told us the truth.

I will take the account of Dr. Friedberg's book, 'The German Empire and the Catholic Church,' from a pamphlet of the Bishop of Mayence, entitled,' The New Prussian Bills on the Position of the Church in reference to the State.'¹

Bishop Ketteler begins by asking, 'What could prompt the Liberal party to denounce as Ultramontane presumption, and as a surrender of the essential

¹ A translation made in Germany has been published by Messrs. Burns & Oates, 17 Portman Street.

page 117 rights of the State, that which, in the years 1848-1850, it had acknowledged as the necessary "consequence of its own principles"' (p. 9)?

Bishop Ketteler answers, 'The true reason of the thorough systematic change of the Liberal party, as well as of all those measures aimed against the lawful rights of the Church, is "the spiritual power of the Church based upon the foundation of freedom"' (p. 11).

He then quotes an Address of Dr. Friedberg, in which he says, 'The Doctrinaires will still tell us that the all-sufficient remedy of this is the separation of the Church from the State; but, on the contrary, under actual circumstances, this would be a very injurious measure, for the Church has become too much united to the people.'

He then shows that wherever the Church is free, as in the United States, it is powerful, because it is the Church of the people. 'What would be the consequence,' he asks, 'with us if the Church were freed from the control of the State?' 'On the contrary,' says Dr. Friedberg, 'as the whole question has become now one of main force, the State must go so far as to deprive the Church of her influence over the people, in order that its own power may be firmly established' (pp. 10, 11).

Dr. Newman, more than thirty years ago, said that Governments establish and endow Churches as people cut the wings of magpies, that they may hop upon the lawn and pick up worms. 'Liberals love a tame Church.'

I quote this in answer to those who have been taunting the German Bishops with complaining of persecution and of yet holding to their legal status: Pharaoh has taught all oppressors 'not to let the people go.'

'Our crime as endangering the State,' says Bishop Ketteler, 'consists in this—that wheresoever the people and the Church are free, the people turn to the Church, and not to the doctrines of the Liberal party' (p. 13).

'Here we have the whole undisguised truth. To separate the Christian people from the Church, to deprive it of freedom, to subjugate it by force to Liberal Statecraft and human wisdom, thus reducing it to a Liberal State-religion—this is the triumph of modern science and knowledge which Liberalism and its professors offer to the German people' (p. 14).

Bishop Ketteler then goes on to give Dr. Friedberg's argument: 'The Protestant Church is, at this day, an essential political agent—solely by its opposition to Catholicism.'

Dr. Yon Holzendorff says of the Protestant Church, that 'it has no intellectual unity, because a short-sighted orthodoxy has sown and fostered indifference towards the Church; and also from the fact that the Protestant Church did not create a constitution suited to its own spirit. Who could count upon the High Consistory Court of Berlin outliving for a day the separation of the Church from the State? page 119 or that the fiercest party strife would not break it up into sects? But what an opportunity for the compact mass of the Catholic Church as opposed to these dismembered elements,' &c.¹ This lets in light.

Bishop Ketteler then sums up: 'These confessions of a pretended Liberal deserve notice.

'First, the Protestant Church is "an essential political agent," and especially so by her opposition to Catholicism.

'Secondly, the Protestant Church cannot endure freedom and independence. "After separation from the State it would be 'dismembered.' The High Consistory of Berlin would scarcely survive a day."

'Thirdly, out of these dismembered elements an increase would fall to the Catholic Church. Principles truly Liberal. No longer shall the power of truth under the protection of equal freedom decide between the different creeds. In the hands of the Liberals the Protestant Church is to become a "political agent," "a tool of the State," to fight against Catholicism. Even liberty of conscience on the part of the people is to be destroyed to avert the danger of their turning to the Catholic Church.

'Lastly, Dr. Friedberg refused to separate the Church from the State, because it would be "a severity and an injustice," forsooth, to the Old Catholics. If

¹ Year-Book of the German Empire. By Dr. F, von Holzendorff, Leipzig, p. 478, 1872.

page 120 the Church were set free, the Government would lose "an immediate support and a co-operation so necessary to the State for the internal reform of the Church."'

The Bishop then sums up as follows:—The Government has changed its relations to the Catholic Church, 'not because the Catholic Church is dangerous to the State, nor because it is hostile to the Empire, nor because it will overbear the State; these are not the motives, though they are daily expressed in Parliament and in the press by the Liberal party, to show that the Catholic Church must be robbed of her liberty, but because the German people must be torn away by force from the Church; and in order to attain this end, the Protestant State Church and the "Old Catholics" are to be used as weapons to fight the Catholic Church, and to destroy it internally,' &c. (p. 17).

Such is the end and aim: now for the means. Dr. Friedberg says, 'One must first attempt to draw off the waters carefully, letting them flow into other channels, and conducting them into reservoirs; what remains will then be easily absorbed into the air' (p. 19). In other words, dry up the Church; draw from it all intellectual, moral, and spiritual influence over the people; paralyse the action of its Pastors; substitute Bureaus, Registrars, Professors, State Teachers, and State Officials; make its worship a State Ritualism, a ceremonial of subjective feelings, not of objective Truth, This done, religion will soon page 121 evaporate. The sum of all, Bishop Ketteler says, is that

'The State will regard the Church as a historical established institution, which may be very useful to the State by fulfilling its peculiar and necessary mission for the civilisation of the German people, but which, on the other hand, may become dangerous to the State, and has become so.

'For the first reason the Church shall be not only tolerated but also be authorised by the State. For the second reason, it is to be rendered harmless.'

'This will dry up the stream, and the rest will evaporate.'

After this I think even an English Nonconformist would read the Unam Sanctam with new eyes.

Now, the proximate means of accomplishing this draining of the Pontine Marshes is 'the inward and outward release' of the Clergy from all dependence on powers 'outside our nation,' and 'strangers to our national consciousness;' that is to say, a spiritual blockade against the Church throughout the world, or 'our German consciousness' against Christianity.

All independent seminaries and religious colleges for boys are interdicted.

The Bishop is to be, in all these relations, dependent on the State; the State forms the Catholic Clergy to its own fashion; and the Bishop has only to receive them and to give them cure of souls.

The Bishop of Mayence justly says: 'A Clergy inwardly deprived of faith, falling under the bondage of unbelief and the spirit of the times, would, no doubt, become the perfect ideal of national education' (pp. 35, 36).

Next for the 'outward release' of the Clergy.

First it means that the State will regulate the appointment and deposition, and the correctional discipline of the Clergy by local Civil authorities, and partly by a Supreme Royal court for Clerical affairs.

An unlimited veto is an unlimited right of patronage.

What kind of man will grow up out of the soil of State Universities, and under the sun of State Patronage?

What Priest of fidelity to the Church and of personal dignity of character will sell or lend himself to such a despotism?

We have read lately a little too much of the 'pliancy and servility' and 'degradation' of the Catholic Episcopate. What is the ideal of a Bishop in those who assail the Vatican Council and sympathise with the Old Catholics? By these laws the Clergy and Bishops are liberated or released from the foreign oppression of Rome. The Pope cannot suspend one of them. But the Royal Court may depose them all. Is Dr. Reinkens, with his sixteen thousand thalers a year, under the Falck Laws, independent, high-minded, and manly? Is the Archbishop of Posen, in his prison, pliant, servile, and degraded? This seems to me to 'put light for darkness, and dark- page 124 ness for light.' It would he an anxious sign of our time and state if an inverted moral sense should grow upon us.

The Bishop of Mayence finally sums up this external release of their Clergy as follows:

Are faith and conscience 'institutions' to be 'estimated' 'relatively'? Is religious freedom, to the vindication of which Mr. Gladstone has given a long public life, a matter to be measured by geographical or political conditions? I do not recognise this voice.

It may, I think, with safety be affirmed, that in the lamentable conflict now waging in Germany, the Berlin Government, urged on by the conspiracy of the 'Old Catholics,' aided, no doubt, at a later stage, by the pseudo-Liberals of Prussia, has been the aggressor.

The same could be abundantly proved in respect to the persecution of the Church in Switzerland. I have before me full and authentic evidence of the aggression of the Cantonal Governments of Bale, Soleure, and Berne and others. But I will not prolong this chapter by a recital. The proof will be found in the Appendix C.

It would be as easy also to show that in Brazil the Government was the aggressor. The Bishop of Olinda is at this moment in penal servitude, for refusing religious rites at the burial of an excommunicated person.

This will, I hope, be deemed a sufficient proof of my third proposition, which in sum is this, that the present collisions between the Civil and Spiritual Powers have not been caused by the Church. There is everywhere a party aiming at the subversion of page 127 Christianity. The great barrier in their way is the Catholic Church. They are now openly conspiring for its overthrow.

In England our old craters are extinct and the mountains are quiet. Such a conflict has, happily, not yet been rekindled among us. No change on the part of the Catholic Church, of a kind to provoke such a conflict, either has been or will be made. The declining to accept a scheme of education based on principles dangerous to Catholic Faith is certainly no such cause. To reject a tempting gift is no aggression. If we are again to be distracted by religious conflicts, the responsibility will rest undividedly upon the head of anyone who shall break our present public confidence and peace. And that misdeed would be indelibly written in our history.