Part 43

§ 197.10. =Proof of the Prussian Government’s willingness to be Reconciled, 1880-1881.=--Notwithstanding this brusque refusal on the part of the papal curia, the government, at the instance of the minister of public worship, Von Puttkamer (§ 193, 6), resolved in May, 1880, to introduce a bill which gave a wide discretionary power for moderating the unhappy state of matters that had prevailed since the passing of the May Laws, throughout Catholic districts, where 601 pastorates stood wholly vacant and 584 partly so, and nine bishoprics, some by death and others by deposition. Although the need of peace was readily admitted on both sides, the Liberals opposed these “Canossa proposals” as far too great; the Centre, Poles, and Guelphs as far too small. Yet it obtained at last in a form considerably modified, through a compromise of the conservatives with a great part of the national liberals the consent of both chambers. This law, sanctioned on =July 14th, 1880=, embraced these provisions:

1. The royal court shall no longer depose from office any church officers, but simply pronounce incapable of administering the office;

2-4. The ministry of the state is authorized to give the episcopal administrator charged by the church with the interim administration of a vacant bishopric a dispensation from the taking of the prescribed oath; further, an administration by commission of ecclesiastical property may be revoked as well as appointed; also state endowments that had been withdrawn are to be restored for the benefit of the whole extent of the diocese;

5. Spiritual official acts of a duly appointed clergyman by way merely of assistance in another vacant parish are to be allowed;

6. The minister of the interior and of public worship are empowered to approve of the erection of new institutions of religious societies which are devoted wholly to the care of the sick, as to allow revocably to them the care and nurture of children not yet of school age; and more recently added were

7. The particular, according to which Articles 2, 3, and 4 cease to operate after January 1st, 1882.

The government was particularly careful to carry out the provisions temporarily recognised in Article 3, for the restoration of orderly episcopal administration by regularly elected episcopal administrators in bishoprics made vacant by death. Fulda, which was longest vacant, from October, 1873, had to be left out of account, since in that case there was only one member of the chapter left and so a canonical election was impossible. But without difficulty in March, 1881, the Vicar-General Dr. Höting for Osnabrück and Canon Drobe for Paderborn, without taking the oath of allegiance, succeeded in obtaining independent administration of the property as well as the restoration of state pay for the entire dioceses, though they did not give the notification required by the May Laws for the interim administration. In October, 1881, the deposed Prince Bishop Förster of Breslau died, and the suffragan bishop, Gleich, elected by the chapter, undertook with consent of the government the office of episcopal administrator.--Meanwhile the pope, by a hearty letter of congratulation to the emperor on his birthday, March 22nd, had given new life to the suspended peace negotiations. And now also, when the respective chapters transferred their right of election to the pope, the orderly appointments of the Canon Dr. Korum of Metz, a pupil of the Jesuit faculty of Innspruck [Innsbrück], very warmly recommended by Von Manteuffel, governor of Alsace and Lorraine, to the episcopal see of Treves, in August, 1881, of Vicar-General Kopp of Hildesheim to Fulda in December, 1881, of the episcopal administrators Höting and Drobe, in March and May, 1882, respectively to Osnabrück and Paderborn, were duly carried into effect. For Breslau the chapter drew up a list of seven candidates, but the government pointed out the Berlin provost, Rob. Herzog, as a mild and conciliatory person. The chapter now laid its right of election in the hands of the pope, and in May, 1882, Herzog was raised to the dignity of prince-bishop. There now remained vacant only the sees of Cologne, Posen, Limburg and Münster, which had been emptied by the depositions of the civil courts.--Meanwhile, too, the negotiations carried on at the instance of the government by privy councillor Von Schlözer, with the curia at Rome for the restoration of the embassy to the Vatican had been brought to a close. The chamber voted for this purpose an annual sum of 90,000 marks, and Schlözer himself was appointed to the post in March, 1882.

§ 197.11. =Conciliatory Negotiations, 1882-1884.=--With January 1st, 1882, the three enactments of the July law of 1880, which might be enforced at the discretion of the government, ceased to operate. Von Gossler, minister of public worship since June, 1881, on behalf of government, introduced a new bill into the Chamber on January 16th, 1882, for their re-enactment and extension, which by a compromise between the Conservatives and the Centre, after various modifications secured a majority in both houses. This second revised law embraced the following points:

1. Renewal of the three above-named enactments till April 1st, 1884;

2. Restoration of the “Bishop’s Paragraph,” lost in 1880, in this new form: If the king has pardoned a bishop set aside by the ecclesiastical court, he becomes again the bishop of his diocese recognised by the state;

3. The setting aside of the examination in general knowledge (_Kulturexamen_) for those who bring a certificate of having passed the Gymnasium exit examination, or have attended with diligence lectures on philosophy, history and German literature during a three years’ course at a German university, or at a Prussian seminary of equal rank, and have given proof of this by presenting evidence to the chief president;

4. The setting aside of the rights of the patron and congregation of themselves filling the vacant pastorates during a vacancy in the episcopal see.

The new law obtained royal sanction on =May 31st, 1882=. But its two most important articles, 2 and 3, remained for a long time a dead letter, and even Article 1 was only carried out by the resumption of the state emoluments for the Hohenzollerns and the five newly instituted bishoprics (§ 197, 10), but not for the other seven. But the ill humour of the ultramontane Hotspurs was raised to the boiling point by the fate of the bill introduced by the Centre into the Reichstag to set aside the Expatriation Law of May 4th, 1874, which seemed to the government indispensable on account of its applicability to the agitations against the empire of the Polish clergy. This bill, after violent debates, was carried on January 18th, 1882, by a two-thirds majority; but it was cast out by the Federal Council on June 6th, almost unanimously, only Bavaria and Reuss _jüngere Linie_ voting in its favour. This was the result mainly of the failure of all the attempts of Von Schlözer to render the government’s concessions acceptable to the papal curia.--On the other hand, the government of its own accord brought in a third revision scheme in June, 1883, by which it sought to relieve as far as possible the troubles of the Catholic church. By adopting this law:

1. The obligation of notification on the part of the bishops and the right of the state to protest on the change of temporary assistants and substitutes into regular spiritual officers, were abolished; as also

2. the competence of the court for ecclesiastical affairs in appeals against the protest of the chief president, which now therefore, according to the generally prevailing rule, are referred to the minister of worship, the whole ministry, the parliament, the king;

3. the immunity from punishment in the execution of their office guaranteed in Article 5 of the July law of 1880 (§ 197, 10) was extended to all spiritual offices whether vacant or not;

4. the ordaining of individual candidates in vacant dioceses by bishops recognised by the state was declared to be legal.

In spite of repeated declarations of the curia that it could and would agree to the notification only after a previous sufficient guarantee of perfectly free training of the clergy and free administration of the spiritual office, the king while residing at the Castle of Mainau on Lake Constance, on July 11th, 1883, sanctioned the so-called Mainau Law that had passed both houses, and on the 14th, the minister of public worship demanded that the Prussian bishops, without making notification, should fill up vacancies in pastorates by appointing assistants, and should name those candidates who were eligible for such appointment under the conditions of the May Law of the previous year (§ 197, 3). The pope at last, in September, 1883, allowed the dispensation required, but for that time only and without prejudice for the future. By the end of May, 1,884 applications had been made to the senior of the Prussian episcopate appointed to receive such, Marnitz of Kulm, by 1,443 clergymen, of whom the government rejected only 178 who had studied at the Jesuit institutions of Rome, Louvain, and Innsbrück.--In December, 1883, Bishop Blum of Limburg, and in January, 1884, Brinkmann of Münster were restored by royal grace, and for both dioceses, as well as for Ermeland, Kulm and Hildesheim, and at last also on March 31st, shortly before the closing of the door, even for Cologne, in this case, however, revocably, the arrest of salaries ceased, so that only the two archiepiscopal sees of Cologne and Posen remained vacant, and only Posen continued bereft of its endowments. On the other hand the government allowed the three discretionary enactments that were in operation till April 1st, 1884, to lapse without providing for their renewal. Also the proposal for abolishing the Expatriation Law of November, 1884, introduced anew by the Centre and again adopted by the Reichstag by a great majority, was thrown out by the Federal Council; but in the beginning of December, on the opening of the new Reichstag, it was again brought in by the Centre and passed, but was left quite unnoticed by the Federal Council. The repeated motions of the Centre for payment of the bishops’ salaries from the state exchequer, as well as for immunity to those who read mass and dispensed the sacraments, were again thrown out by the House of Deputies in April, 1885.

§ 197.12. =Resumption on both sides of Conciliatory Measures, 1885-1886.=--The next subject of negotiation with the curia was the re-institution of the archiepiscopal see of Posen-Gnesen. In March, 1884, the pope had nominated Cardinal Ledochowski secretary of the committee on petitions, in which capacity he had to remain in Rome. He now declared himself willing to accept Ledochowski’s resignation of the archbishopric if the Prussian government would allow a successor who would possess the confidence of the holy see as well as of the Polish inhabitants of the diocese. But of the three noble Polish chauvinists submitted by the Vatican the government could accept none. Since further no agreement could be reached on the question of the bishop’s obligation to make notification and the state’s right to protest, the negotiations were for a long time at a standstill, and were repeatedly on the point of being broken off. But from the middle of 1885, a conciliatory movement gained power, through the counsels of the more moderate party among the cardinals. Archbishop Melchers, who lived as an exile in Maestricht, was called to Rome, and as a reward for his assistance was made cardinal, and the pope consecrated as his successor in the archbishopric of Cologne, Bishop Krementz of Ermeland (§ 197, 2), who also was acknowledged by the Prussian government and introduced to Cologne on December 15th, 1885, with great pomp, with 20,000 torches and twenty bands of music. After a long list of candidates had been set aside by one side and the other, some here, some there, the pope at last fell from his demand for one of Polish nationality, and in March, 1886, appointed to the vacant see Julius Dinder, dean of Königsberg, a German by nation but speaking the Polish language.--Meanwhile at other points advance was made in the peaceful, yea, even friendly, relations between the pope and the Prussian government. The diplomatist Leo showed his admiring regard for the diplomatist Bismarck by sending him a valuable oil-painting of himself by a Münich [Munich] master, and the latter astonished the world by making the pope umpire in a threatening conflict with Spain on the possession of the Caroline islands. His decision on the main question was indeed in favour of Spain, but not unimportant concessions were also made to Germany. The pope sent the prince two Latin poems as _pretium affectionis_, and conferred upon him, the first Protestant that had ever been so honoured, at the close of 1885 or beginning of 1886, the highest papal order, the insignia of the Order of Christ, with brilliants, after the cardinal secretary of state Jacobini as president of the papal court of arbitration had been rewarded with the Prussian order of the Black Eagle, and the other members of the court with other high Prussian orders; and at the end of April, 1886, the German emperor sent the pope himself thanks for his mediation, with an artistic and costly Pectoral (§ 59, 7) worth 10,000 marks.--The government had, meanwhile, on February 15th, 1886, brought in a new proposal of revision of church polity, the fourth, and in order to secure the advice of a distinguished representative of the Prussian episcopate, called Bishop Kopp of Fulda to the House of Peers. But as his demands for concessions, suggested to him, not by the pope, but by the Centre, went far beyond what was proposed, they were for the most part decidedly opposed by the minister of worship and rejected by the house. The law confirmed by the king on May 24th, 1886, made the following changes: Complete abolition of the examination in general culture; freeing of the seminaries recognised by the minister as suitable for clerical training, as well as faculties established in universities, seminaries and gymnasia from any special state inspection (as laid down in the May Laws), and subjecting such to the common laws affecting all similar educational institutions. Removal of restrictions requiring ecclesiastical disciplinary procedure to be only before German ecclesiastical courts; Abolition of the Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs and transference of its functions partly to the ministry of worship, which now as court of appeal in matters of church discipline dealt only with those cases which entailed a loss or reduction of official income, partly to the Berlin supreme court, which has jurisdiction in case of a breach of the law of the state by a church officer as well as in case of a refusal to fulfil the oath of obedience; The discretionary enactments of the government of 1880 (§ 197, 10) are again enforced and the modifications of these in Article 6 of that law are extended to all other institutions engaged on the home propaganda; All reading of private masses and dispensing of sacraments are no longer subjected to the infliction of penalties.--Some weeks before royal sanction was given to this law, Cardinal Jacobini had, at the instance of the pope, expressed his profound satisfaction with the success of the advice in the House of Peers, as also particularly at the prospect of other concessions promised by the government. In an official communication to the president of the House of Deputies, he proposed the addition that the notification of new appointments to vacant pastorates should begin from that date. In August there followed, on the part of the government, the hitherto refused dispensation for those trained by the Jesuits in Rome and Innsbrück, and in November, with consent of the minister of public worship, the re-opening of the episcopal seminaries at Fulda and Treves.

§ 197.13. =Definitive Conclusion of Peace, 1887.=--In February, 1887, the state journal published a new form of oath for the bishops, sanctioned by royal ordinance, in which the obligation hitherto enforced “to conscientiously observe the laws of the state,” was omitted, and the asseveration added, “that I have not, by the oath, taken to his Holiness the pope and the church, undertaken any obligation which can be in conflict with the oath of fidelity as a subject of his Royal Majesty.”--The promised fifth revision, meanwhile accepted by the pope in its several particulars and acknowledged by him as sufficient basis for a definitive peace, was on February 13th, 1887, contrary to precedent, first laid before the House of Peers. Bishop Kopp proposed a great number of changes and additions, of which several of a very important nature were accepted. The most important provisions of this law, which was passed on =April 29th, 1887=, are the following: The obligation on bishops to make notification applies only to the conferring of a spiritual office for life, and the right of protest by the state must rely upon a basis named and belonging to the civil domain; All state compulsion to lifelong reinstatement in a vacant office is unlawful; The previously insured immunity for reading mass and dispensing the sacraments is now applied to members of all spiritual orders again allowed in the kingdom; The duty of ecclesiastical superiors to communicate disciplinary decisions to the Chief President is given up. Those orders and congregations which devote themselves to aiding in pastoral work, the administering of Christian benevolence, and, on Bishop Kopp’s motion, those which engage in educational work in girl’s high schools and similar institutions, as well as those which lead a private life, are to be allowed and are to be also restored to the enjoyment of their original possessions; The training of missionaries for foreign work and the erection of institutions for this purpose are to be permitted to the privileged orders and congregations.--Bishop Kopp, and also the pope, with lively gratitude, accepted these ordinances as making the reconciliation an accomplished fact; but they also expressed the hope that the success of this peaceful arrangement will be such as shall lead to further important concessions to the rightful claims of the Catholic church. After this conclusive revision, besides the extremely contracted obligation of notification by the bishops and the almost completely insignificant right of civil protest, there remain of the _Kulturkampf_ laws only: the _Kanzelparagraph_, the Jesuit and the exile enactments (all of them imperial and not Prussian laws), and the abrogation of the three articles of the Prussian constitution (§ 197, 8). Insignificant as the concessions of the papal curia may seem in comparison to the almost complete surrender of the Prussian government, it can hardly be said that Bismarck has been untrue to his promise not to go to Canossa. With him the main thing ever was to restore within the German empire the peace that was threatened by thunderclouds gathering from day to day in the political horizon in east and west, and thus, as also by nurturing and developing the military forces, to set aside the danger of war from without. But for this end, the sovereignty of the Centre, which hampered him on every side, allying itself with all elements in the Chamber and Reichstag hostile to the government and the empire, must be broken. But this was possible only if he succeeded in breaking up the unhallowed artificial amalgamation of Catholic church interests for which the Centre contended with the political tendencies of the party hostile to the empire, by recognising those interests in a manner satisfactory to the pope and to all right-minded loyal German Catholics, and so estranging them from the political schemes of the leader of the Centre. This indeed would have scarcely been possible with Pius IX., but with the much clearer and sharper Leo XIII. there was hope of success. And the statesmanlike insight and self-denial of the prince succeeded, though at first only in a limited measure, and this was a much more important gain for the state than the papal concessions of episcopal notification and the state’s right of protest.--When in the beginning of 1887, at the same time that the fear was greatest of a war with France and Russia, the renewal and enlargement of the military budget, hitherto for seven years, was necessary, and its refusal by the Centre and its adherents was regarded as certain, Bismarck prevailed on the pope to intervene in his favour. The pope did it in a confidential communication to the president of the Centre, in which he urged acceptance of the septennial act in the Reichstag for the security of the Fatherland and the conserving of peace on the continent, expressly referring to the friendly and promising attitude of the imperial government to the papacy and the Catholic church. But the president kept the communication secret from the members of his party, and they continued strenuously and unanimously opposed to the Septennate. The Reichstag was consequently dissolved. The pope now published this correspondence with the leaders of the Centre, thirty-seven Rhenish nobles separated from the party, and the new elections to the Reichstag were mainly favourable to the government. Although the Deputy Windthorst as chief leader of the Prussian _Ecclesia militans_ had on every occasion protested his and his party’s profoundest reverence for and conditional submission to every expression of the papal will, and shortly before (§ 186, 3) had styled the pope “Lord of the whole world,” he opposed himself, as he had done on the Septennate question, on the fifth revision of the ecclesiastical laws, to the will of the infallible pope by publishing a memorial proving the absolute impossibility of accepting this proposed law, which, however, this time also he failed to carry out.

§ 197.14. =Independent Procedure of the other German Governments.=

1. =Bavaria’s= energy in the struggle against ultramontanism (§ 197, 4) soon cooled. Yet in 1873 the Redemptorists were instructed to discontinue their missionary work (§ 186, 6), and all theological students were forbidden to attend the Jesuit German College at Rome (§ 151, 1). Also in 1875, the jubilee processions organized by the episcopate without obtaining the royal _Placet_ were inhibited.

2. =Württemberg=, which since 1862 possessed more civil jurisdiction over Catholic church affairs and exercised it more freely (§ 196, 6) than Prussia laid claim to in 1873, could all the more easily maintain ecclesiastical peace, since its peaceful Bishop Hefele (§ 189, 3, 4; 191, 7) avoided all occasion of conflict and strife.