tihvavy of trhe t:heolo0ical ^eminarjp PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY The Rev. Mr. Joel Schevers BX 945 .P3 1886 v. 6 Parsons, Reuben, 1841-1906. Studies in church history / STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY BY REV. REUBEN PARSONS, D. D. VOL. VI CENTURY XIX. (Part II). THIRD EDITION ' ' That a theologian should be well versed in history, is shown by the fate of those who, through ignorance of history, have fallen into error Whenever we theologians preach, argue, or explain Holy Writ, we enter the domain of history." — Melchior Canus, Loc. TheoL, B. XL, c. ii. JOHN JOSEPH McVEY PHILADELPHIA imprimatur: ^ MICHAEL AUGUSTINUS, Archieplscopui, Neo-Eboracensis. Copyright, 1900, JOHN JOSEPH McVEY STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. CHAPTEE I. THE BISMARCKIAN SO-CALLED " WAR FOR CIVILIZATION." After the persecution of Mgr. Duniu, archbishop of Gne- sen and Posen, and of Mgr. Droste-Vischering, archbishop of Cologne (1), the Prussian government accorded a period of rest to its CathoHc subjects ; and when the Constitution of 1850 had been wrung from Frederick WiUiaip IV. , the situation of the Catholics became at least tolerable, principally because of tiie creation of a " Catholic Department " in the Ministry of Worship and of Public Instruction — an institution, the benefit of which has been persistently exaggerated by German enemies of the Church, but which certainly enabled the- Prussian Catholics to lay their complaints before their govern- ment. The Catholics of Prussia were grateful for this andl other petty instalments of justice ; and the Catholics of other German states so far forgot the almost constant history of the northern kingdom as to believe that it could desire to treat their religion with something approaching to equity. When the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 had been declared, and the Bavarian Diet was hesitating as to the conrse to be pursued by the Cabinet of Munich, one of the most influential leaders of the Catholic party, Peter Reichensperger, per- suaded his colleagues to vote for tJie Prussian alliance. No more convincing proof than this tact can be needed to de- monstrate tliat the Catholics of Germany trusted the govern- ment of Prussia at that time. But they did not know the spir- it of that government, remarks one of its victims (2), as it was (1) See our Vol. v., p; 254 and p. 257. (••J) HMury of the Persrcutinn of the Catholic Church in Prusifia (1870-1876), tiij Mgr. Janiszewski, Auxiliarfi Bishop of Post^n and Gnesen, Formerly Member of the Dietni Berlin. Paris, 1879. Z STUDIES m CHURCH HISTORY. known bj the Polish subjects of the Hohenzollern — by those heroic Poles, whose complaints against the government of Berlin the deluded German Catholics were then wont to de- ride. The Catholics of Germany seemed not to realize that their co-religionists of the Rhenish Provinces were treated with comparative gentleness, simply because of their geo- graphical position ; because of their proximity to the French frontier. "It was a great fault on our part," said another victim, Mgr. Ketteler, bishop of Mayence, in the preface to one of his writings, " to have believed in the stability of the Prussian Constitution, in the rights which it plainly allowed us. We were blamable for having believed that in Prussia justice could triumph over the inveterate prejudice against Catholics, and over party passion. We were deceived ; but the fault is not one which should cause us to blush." As for William I., the Catholics had indeed felt some anxiety when he mounted the throne in 1861, and precisely because of his Masonic affiliations ; but like his chancellor, William I. was apt at dissimulation. At as late a period as 1870, just after the new German Empire had been proclaimed at Ver- sailles, and when the dogs of persecution were about to be unleashed against his too faithful Catholic subjects, the " pious and loyal " emperor-king feigned an affectionate inter- est in the independence of the Holy See which no Catholic monarch of the time manifested. Replying to an address from the Knights of Malta of the Rhenish Provinces and of Westphalia, he said : " I regard the occupation of Rome by the Italians as an act of violence ; and when this war is end- ed, I shall not fail to take it into consideration, in concert with other sovereigns." But the reverberations of the last cannonades of the Franco-German war had scarcely died away, when the blindly loyal Prussian Catholics found them- selves denounced, threatened, and finally crushed ; and many of the priests and Sisters of Charity, who were brutally thrust out of the empire, had just been decorated by the persecutor in testimony to their heroic care for the German wounded, both Protestant and Catholic, during the recent struggle. At that time Catholics wondered, and ever since those days they have wondered, as to the earthly reason for this THE BISltARCKIAX SO-CALLED " WAU FOR CIVILIZATION." 3 persecution. Of course, the prime racjtive was to be sought in the iinphicable hatred of the powers of hell for the Church of God ; but by what argumeuts had Satau induced " German intelliger.ee " to become his instrument in the at- tempt to render the Hohenzollern successful in a task which had been impossible to the Hohenstaufen ? Some discerned the cause of the persecution in the revolutionary principles adopted by Prussia before 1866, and which were then ap- plied— principles which logically implied the direst conse- quences (1). Others ascribed the madness of the " Iron Chancellor " and of his imperial tool to the arrogance which had resulted from the war in which Germany, aided by the anger of God against France, had been so unexpectedly successful— an arrogance which seemed to ask : " Who is our God? " These latter speculativists deemed it not un- natural that Prussia, born of sacrilege, should have con- ceived the idea that to her was reserved the " historical mission " to complete the work of Luther. However, the Prussian government itself, its official and its " officious " press, and its agents among the deputies of parliament, en- deavored to justify the barbarous " War for Civilization," firstly, because the Vatican Council had defined the dogma of Papal Infallibility ; secondly, because the Catholic Church had " assumed an attitude of aggression against the laws of the State "; and thirdly, because the Catholics had con- tributed to the formation of the parliamentary party which was styled the Centre, and which Bismarck stigmatized as a "mobilization against the State," In regard to the first excuse, first formulated by Bismarck in a despatch dated May 14, 1872, and which was acclaimed by " German intel- ligence " as though it believed that the Roman Pontiff was about to lead several millions of soldiers who would force all heretics and Jews to obey his behests, we need only say that less than four months before he wrote this despatch, that is, on Jan. 30, the cliancellor had declared that it was the duty of the State to abstain from all interference in the dogmatic teachings of the Church. On this occasion, dur- ing a parliamentary discussion as to whether the " Lutz (1) Jaxiszewski; loc. ci(., p. 11. STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. Law," subjecting the pulpit to police supervision, should be applied also to primary schools, Bismarck said : " The Prussian government is very far from wishing to enter on any dogmatic disputations concerning the changes (sic) in the teachings of the Catholic Church ; for ever}- one of those teachings, which are received by so many German citizens, ought to be sacred for both the nation and the government." As for the second excuse, the pretense that the Church was guilty of " aggressions " on the authority of the State, the chancellor never pretended to substantiate his charge ; when summoned in parliament to produce his proofs, he simply replied : " Search in your hearts, gentlemen ! " and the Lib- erals exploded with laughter, because of what they deemed a side-splitting joke. The most bitter reproaches, on the part of the Catholic deputies, never induced the persecutor to (lefend his course with anything else than bare assertion ; hence it was that in the session of Feb. 4, 1874, Mallinckrodt tliiis reproved the Minister of Public Instruction : " The deputy, Keichensperger, in his last discourse on this matter, frequently asked the Minister for proofs of his allegations, but the Minister thought proper to remain silent. As for me, I must regard this course as worthy of an intelligent man ; but only in the supposition that the Minister could give no satisfactory reply. But in spite of this silence, the govern- ment, realizing that it ought to show the world that it is obliged to defend itself, and knowing that it cannot justify its conduct, continually advances, in all of its arguments for new laws, innumerable assertions which it presents as axioms. Thus to-day, in the first paragraph which treats of its motives, it tells us of ' proceedings which are hostile to the State,' of a war ' which is forced on the government,' and of ' means which the State must adopt in its own defence.' There is as much truth in all these axioms as there was in the famous announcement of the wolf to the lamb in the ancient fable." The third excuse, the pretended crime of the Catholics in helping to form the party of the Centre, a party which was composed of Protestants as well as of Cath- olics ; every man of sense in Germany knew well that the object of the Centre was not to curtail the prerogatives of THE BISMARCKIAN SO-C.\LLED " WAU FOR CIVIUZATION." 5 the new empire, but solely to uphold the principles which are preservative of true liberty and real civilization, princi- ples which Bismarck had threatened from the moment of the triumph of Germany over France. After the war with Aus- tria in 18()(), it became evident to all the conservatives of Prussia that the royal chancellor had taken Cavour for his model ; and after the Franco-German war, when a false Lib- eralism began to dominate all Germany, the fears of the conservatives were augmented, although many still retained some confidence in that \Yilliam I. who had so persistently talked about God in all his telegrams from the battle-fields of France, and in that Bismarck whose conservatism had been so absurdly extravagant since 1848. But the mask soon fell from the faces of both emperor and chancellor ; and then, in the spring of 1871, a few of the principal conservatives (1) met in Berlin, and drew up the following programme of political action : " I. To defend as a fundamental principle, the federal character of the German Empire {Justitia funda- menium regnorum), and consequently to prevent, by every possible means, any change in the federal character of the Constitution of the empire, and to yield not one particle of the independence of the several states, unless such conces- sion should be absolutely necessary for the integrity of the said empire. 11. To uphold, as far as possible, the moral and material welfare of all classes of the population ; and to endeavor to procure Constitutional guarantees for civil and religious liberty, and above all for the rights of religious associations, against the violence of the legislature. III. Guided by these principles, the party (of the Centre) will de- liberate on all subjects presented in the imperial jjarlia- ment ; but its members will always be free to vote in a sense contrary to that of the majority." Certainly there was nothing in this programme which could justify the Bis- marckian assertion that the Centre was a " mobilization against the State.'.' What were the true causes of the pretended " War for Civilization " ? The prime author of the persecution was il) Sayigny, Windhorst (of Meppeti), Mallinckrodt. Probst, Reichensperger(OIpe). Lov- vensteiu, and Vrajtag. 6 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. Bismarck ; but it is certain that the idea of such a move- ment would not have been conceived even by that self-con- fident personage, had he not found the way for it already prepared — had he not found in nearly every German Prot- estant, Jewish, and infidel mind, a number of notions which had attained the dignity of axioms, and whicli had only waited for Prussian development in order to actuate them- selves in a persecution of the Catholic Church. The first of these notions was that of the omnipotence of the State, the Caesarism of ancient Paganism, which regarded the people as existing for the State or emperor, ignoring the rational conception that the State or emperor should be for the peo- ple. " These instinctive ideas which dominated in Prussia after the Reformation," says Janiszewski, " were soon sys- tematized by German philosophy ; Fichte eflfected much in this regard, but the Pantheism of Hegel, with its theory of an absolute State, perfected the system. That which the French Revolution actuated in a moment of delirium, Ger- man philosophy reduced to precision, recognizing as a su- preme being a certain absolute which, according to the var- ious systems, is sometimes ideal, and sometimes material. This absolute idea, this supreme something with various names, is by its own nature without reason and without consciousness. Thus Hartmann, one of the latest philoso- phers of that school, called its teaching ' the philosophy of that which has no consciousness of itself.' That which the Christian world has always termed ' God ' is, according to that school, an ideal unity, a Universal All which has an existence only in the imagination of its adherents. This creation of the unregulated mind of man is, to speak clearly, a complete deification of man ; and since, according to this system, the State is collective individualism endowed with power, it follows that the system is the deification of the State. The relation of man to the State is that of a drop to the ocean in which it is lost. ... No wonder that with such theories for a foundation of philosophy, we hear men de- manding a National Church ! If God is confined within the limits of a nation, of a State, how can the Church, estab- lished for His glorification, be universal ? On theories like THE BISMARCKIAN SO-CALLED " WAll FOE CIVILIZATION. 7 these rests all science in Protestant Germany, and especially in Prussia. On these principles are based history, the natural sciences, political economy, and above all, Public Law. From the chairs of the Universities these ideas si)read into the gi/nDicisia, where professors and students, often in good faith, advocate principles and opinions whose baneful nature they do not perceive, believing that through them they will attain the light of true civilization. This doctrine has penetrated all Prussian intelligence, especially in the bureaucracy, from the Ministers down to the ushers ; and the journalists propagate it among the people, without under- standing it themselves. The enlightened men of Prussia have been trained in these ideas (1). I know not whether the authors of the persecution really proposed to annihilate Christianity ; but it is indubitable that, starting from such principles, and holding such opinions concerning the State, they struck at the heart of Christianity." Based as it was on the principles just described, it is not strange that " Ger- man science " should have entertained an extravagant idea of " the historical mission of Prussia," that mystical thing which was known as " Borrussianism," and which was in- terpreted according to his own whims by every heterodox politician, Protestant theologaster, and socialistic dreamer in Prussia, although all of these united in denying the right of existence to any school of thought which opposed their fantastic doctriuarianism. It was this " Borrussianism " that threw Austria out of Germany in 1866 (2) ; and under the guidance of Bismarck it became the chief instrument in the latest German persecution of the Church. And it may be well to note here that in Bismarck, the chief among the (!) In his famous hook entitled The Reptile Fund, Henry Wiittke. professor in tlie Uni- versity of Leipsic, cites a remark made in the public court at Mayence, on Dec. 19, 1873, by the imperial procurator, Schcen : " The emperor Is a sacred person, whose majesty is superior to all the laws of the State." (2) *' During many years, the Prussian journals, and those which were sold to Prussia, used the phrase, * The Mission of Prussia in Germany,' to hide the greed of conquest which tormented the Cabinet of Berlin. After the victory of Prussia (over Austria) in 1866, most of these journals went into transports of joy because Prussia hart happily realized ihe ' unity ot Germany.' But a third of the (iermans had been excluded from Germany, and these gentry prated about the unity of Germany. This unity of Germany, as it really ex- ists, means that the lesser sovereigns have become Prussian prefects." WrtTKK; Tfie Reptile Fund, French Transl., p. 158. O STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. latest apostles of " Borrussianism," such a thing as German patriotism was an unknown quantity during the greater part of his active political career. After 1848, he belonged to the Prussian party which was known as the " Junkers," a party which was so exclusively Prussian, that it hated the mention of German unity, and was wont to distinguish it- self by fastening the German cockades to the tails of dogs. Alluding to this " Borrussianism " of the " Junkers," Mgr. Janiszewski declared in the Diet of Berlin, and not one voice contradicted him, that Bismarck, the vaunted German patriot, had hitherto been one of those who lamented : " What a pity it is that no one has yet invented a Prussian language, so that we may not be obliged to speak in tliat beggarly German tongue ! " (1). Unless one remembers the deej) significance of this " Borrussianism," he will be un- able to account for the wicked absurdities of the " War for Civilization" ; with its meaning well fixed in his mind, he will be surprised by none of the extravagancies which it originated. (1) " Bismarck was generally known as an ardent Prussian patriot, as a votary of the House of Hohenzolleru ; but never as a Grcj-jnao patriot. He wisheil to see Prussia, and its reiffning family, great and powerful; as for Germany, he regarded it as a neighbor which might be easily conquered, and thus become a means for the aggrandizement of Prussia. Because Bismarck, at a convenient moment, raised the standard of German nationality, are we to consider him a German patriot "? Did he not act similarly in Bohe- mia and Hungary, during his war against Austria? His love for a nationality lasted as long as his interests demanded such affection. 'Vhe Memnircs of General La Marmora demonstrate the Prussian patriotism of Bismarck ; he always placed Germany in the rear. If Germany wastohfive been governed by the House of Hapsburg or by that of Wittelsbach (Bavaria), would the patriotism of Bismarck have upheld German unity ? Would he not rattier have used every means to prevent that unity, as he did in 1848 and the ensuing years ? A true patriot considers only the unity of the nation ; he places provincial or dynastic interests in a secondary position. If we Poles were to-day so happy as to be able to unite the fragments of our dismembered country, would we dispute as to what family should wear the crown of Poland ? Would we, merely for a matter of minor in porta nee, rep^l from the unity of Poland seven or ei.'ht millions of our brethren, as Bismarck did in the affair of the Austrian -Germans? The sole object of Bismarck was to clothe all Ger- mans in the Prussian uniform, and to put a Prussian helmet on every German head. It was no patriotic enthusiasm for Germany that impelled the chancellor to war on the Catholic Church ; he was impelled by the d^■ep^y-rooted ideas of Prussia concerning its ■ historical mission,' and by the Prussian greed of glory, which had been excited by its recent and unexpected successes. This intellectual and psychological di^■position, raised to the superlative by success, so blinded Bismarck, that he persuaded himself that the 'historical mission' of Prussia—or, as it would be termed in Christian language, the * providential mission '—reposed entirely on his shoulders ; that he alone was called to conquer the ene.ny of the State-Absolute, an enemy which no power of earth had yet been able to subdue. Qmin Dem punij-e vult, dementat.'''' Janiszewski ; Joe. cit., Ch.3. THE BISMARCKIAN SO-CVLLED " WAIl FOK CIVILIZATION." \) Besides the theory so goueiully received in Pnissi.i ooii- . 10 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. the Polish Jew, Lasker, the founder of the " National Liberal " party, avowed in the Keichstag, in Nov., 1873, that he and his friends had arranged with Bismarck in 1869 for an immediate war on the Catholic Church ; and that hostilities had been deferred, merely because German unity was not yet completed. These testimonies lead us to reject the belief that hatred of the Catholic Church was not the j^rimary motive for the " War for Civilization "; but we do- not deny that Bismarck regarded a religious war as a dis- traction for his political enemies — one that would enable him to avoid many parliamentary quarrels. And for the purpose of attracting to himself the dog of Liberalism,, what bone could he throw into its gaping jaws, which would be more toothsome than Catholicism ? Again, a war on the Church would afford the absolutistic chancellor an oppor- tunity for the destruction of the comparatively liberal Prussian Constitution of 1850, which contravened his projects in many instances. And now, before we dismiss this subject of the causes of the " War for Civilization," we must not fail to notice the close alliance which then, as ever, subsisted between the Prussian government and Free- masonry. General Selazinski spoke the exact truth when, in his Freemasonry and Christendom, which was printed in Berlin with the authorization of the Grand Lodge of Ger- many, he said : " Among all the European powers which have concerned themselves with Masonry, only two have been consistent : Prussia, which has always protected our order ; and the Papacy, which has ever opposed it." William I. had been an ardent Mason since 1840. On Nov. 5, 1853, while he was still heir-apparent, he officiated, in his ca- pacity of Protector of all the German Lodges, at the in- itiation of his son, the future Frederick III. ; and in his salutatory discourse, he said to the young adept : " Be a firm support to this order ! If you are such, you will not only assure your future, luit you will have the grand satis- faction of having propagated around yourself that which is beautiful and true " (1). When the " War for Civilization " had been well inaugurated, the organs of Masonry deemed (1) The Masonic BtrVuicr Taoehlatt for Oct., 1882. THE BISMAllCKIAN SO-CALLED " WAR FOli CIVILIZATION." 11 it wise to forego their customary policy of reticeuce cou- cerniug the campaigns aud victories of the order; they coukl not restrain their joy as they pictured to them- selves a speedy " destruction of the tii/amous one,'" and they called on the earth to witness that the adepts of the Square and Triangle had taken the chief part in the foundation of the new German Empire, and in the " glorious " war then being waged against the Papacy. Thus the B/icnish Herald of Oct. 25, 1873, proclaimed : " We are justified in asserting that it was the spirit of Freemasonry which, in the last ar- raignment of Ultramontanism, pronounced sentence through the ever-memorable letter of His Majesty to the Pope. The ideas of the Emperor William, who, as every one knows, is a Freemason, do not date from yesterday ; nor have tiiose ideas been inspired only by his actual counsel- lors, as certain parties would have men believe. Long ago, when the emperor was in the flower of his age, he announced those ideas in a session of our order, at a time when the world held a very different opinion in regard to him. On that occasion, he gave utterance to sentiments which befitted a prince and a man ; and he has proved himself faith- ful to them. If he now fulfils his promises, future ages will praise him." A few days after this interesting efi'usion was published, the Freemasons Journal of Leipsic perorated as follows : " When Freemasonry is thus brought into the presence of two antagonists, that is, in presence of the emperor who, in his fraternal capacity, protects our order, and in the presence of the Pope, who curses it and would sink it into hell, it can and ought take but one side. It must range itself on the side where it is loved. . . . Together Nvith the emperor, we are progressing toward freedom of mind without sub- jection, toward a pacification of society without any dis- tinction of creeds, and toward an abolition of all egoistic prejudices That venerable hero is our Brother (Will- iam I. ) ; he is bound to us by an indestructible chain. The ideal pursued by our order associates him witli us; with us and for us, he handles the Mallet of force, the Square of wis- dom, and the Compass of a common inspiration which serves to regulate, according to an ideal type, acts which are worthy X2 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. of man We arc confident that all our Brethren are ani- mated by these sentiments, and that they will not forget, in the banquets which are given on stated occasions, to kindle three Hresin honor of, and for the love of, the noble old man who knows how to combat the powers of darkness which would destroy our projects." The first information concerning the hostile intentions of the Prussian government in their regard was conveyed to the Catholics by a sequence of articles in the Gazette of the Cross,. a journal which was practically owned by Bismarck ; and very soon, that is, during the first months of 1871, all the subsi- dized press — those journals which now came to be known as the " reptile press " — began to ring the changes on the impu- dent lies of the chancellor. The world was informed that, hav- ing vanquished " her external enemies," Germany had now de- termined to conquer " her internal foes " ; namely, the Ultra- montanes who, by their acceptance of the decrees of the Vati- can Council, had " caused a lamentable division in the Catholic Church, and were thus endangering the peace of the empire." It was not the intention of His Majesty, the world was assured, to disturb the " real Catholics " (so the chancellor styled the handful of Dollingerites) ; the enemy was that " Jesuitism " which had become insupportable, since the de- claration of Papal Infallibility. The first attack on the Catholics, or on Jesuitism, as the lying Minister described it, was the suppression of the Catholic Department in the Ministry of Worship on July 8, 1871 — a measure \\ Inch was equivalent to a declaration that thereafter the government would pay no attention to any grievances which the Catholics mio-lit suffer. Tlie next blow was directed against a dogma of Catholic faith, and against ecclesiastical jurisdiction. A priest named Wolmann, professor of religion in the Catholic College of Braunsberg, having persisted in rejecting the Vat- ican decrees, his ordinary, the bishop of Ermland, had ex- communicated him. In spite of the protests of the parents of the students, the Minister of Worship threatened with ex- pulsion all the lads who would not take their lessons in the Catholic faith from an excommunicated man. The third en- terprise was directed against " the abuses of the pulpit." A THE BISMARCKIAN SO-CALLED " WAlt Foil CIVILIZATION.'" 13 law was proi)()se(l in the German Reii'lista^ by tlie Bavarian Minister, Lutz, an avowed patron of the " Old Catholics," ac- cording to which imprisonment for perhaps two jc^ars was to be tlie punishment of any priest who, in a clmrcli or else- wliere, in a sermon or in any kind of speecli, shouhl " dis- turb public tranquillity." This law, sacrificing to " Ijor- russianism" the liberty and honor of all the German clergy, was rushed through the Reichstag on Nov. 28. In Feb.,, 1872, the same Reichstag was asked to consider a law which would deprive the clergy of their right of surveillance over primary schools ; the law was passed, and the consequences were terri- ble. In some places, the new government inspectm's forbade the children to use the " superstitious " salutation, " Praised be Jesus Christ ! " universally given by German Catholics where we are satisfied with a " How d'y do? " In many dis- tricts the crucifixes and hoh* pictures were thrown out of the schools, and were replaced by portraits of their Sacred Majes- ties, the emj)eror and empress. In nearly all schools the little pupils were taught that the Biblical stories with which their Catholic teachers had loaded their memories, were mere fables. Some inspectors gave to young girls themes for composition, which were more " patriotic " than moral ; thus, a favorite subject was : "What are the sentiments which ought to agitate the heart of a young woman, when she sees an officer of hussars ? " (1). From the middle of May until the end of June, the imperial government occupied itself with measures for the expulsion of all Jesuits and their " affiliated orders " from the empire. The impudence of the design was so pat- ent, however, that it became necessary to show that the gov- ernmental action was caused by the " pressure of public opin- ion." On Sept. 22, 1871, the " Old Catholics " had proclaimed, in their Congress of Munich, that the good of the State deman- ded the expulsion of the Jesuits. "It is notorious," said the Dijllingerites in the sixth article of their programme, " that the said Society of Jesus is the cause of the dissensions at present troubling the Catholic Church. This Society uses its power- ful influence in order to propagate in the hierarchy, among the clergy, and among the people, tendencies which are contrary (!) Jaxiszkwski ; loc. cit., p. 115. 14 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. to civilization, dangerous to the State, aud anti-national. It preaches a false morality, and it strives for power. Therefore we are of opinion that peace, happiness, and unity in the Church, as well as amicable relations between the Church and civil society, are impossible, if an end is not put to the bane- ful proceedings of this Society." It was to this declaration of a few excommunicated recalcitrants that Bismarck pointed, when he asserted that even among Catholics, " public opinion " called for the banishment of the Jesuits. That the same ac- tion was demanded by " public opinion " among Protestants, was said to be evident from the fact that a representative body of Protestants, who had met at Darmstadt eight days after the " Old Catholic " pronouncement, had adopted a resolution con- demning the Jesuits in the strongest terms. In the parliamen- tary debates to which this " public opinion " gave rise, it was evident that the ministerial orators were attacking the Catholic Church, although the Jesuits alone were mentioned ; one of these declaimers, Windthorst of Berlin (never to be con- founded with his uncle, Windthorst of Meppen), in a moment of passion, exclaimed : " There is no other way. ' Ecrasez V infume ! ' " By a vote of 181 against 63, the German par- liament banished from the empire " the Society of Jesus, as well as all the orders or congregations affiliated to it." In vain the Catholics of Westphalia and of the Rhenish Provinces appealed for relief to the much-vaunted justice of the emper- or ; the " pious and loyal " William I. refused to receive their deputation, and on July 4, 1872, he signed the infamous de- cree. The reader will note that this ordinance was framed so as to affect not only the Society of Jesus, but also " all the orders or congregations affiliated to it." This provision accentuated the malice of the chancellor and his worshippers. There never have been, and are not now, any orders or congre- gations in " affiliation " with the Jesuits ; the sole connection between the sons of Loyola and the members of any other society is that which must subsist among all the children of the Church. But Bismarck chose to affect the crass ignor- ance which is frequently found among Protestants, as they unwittingly compliment the celebrated Society by an appli- cation of the term " Jesuit " to every uncompromising Catli- THE li.iSJVlAilCKlAN SO-CALLED " WAK FOK CIVILIZATION. lo olic ; aud the eveut proved that when the chancellor pro- claimed tile same punishment for the Jesuits and their " affili- ated orders or congregations," he prepared the way for the banishment, at his convenience, of any religious who might incur his displeasure. The incidents which we have just narrated were mere pre- ludes to the " AVar for Civilizatiou," on which the German enemies of the Church had already resolved, and which was solemnly declared in May, 1873, by the promulgation of those enactments which have rendered the name of Falk infamous, but which are often designated as the " May Laws." Some time before Bismarck entered on his great- est enterprise, Friedeberg, a professor of law in the Univer- sity of Leipsic, who was afterward made a privy-councillor to Falk, had published a work entitled The German Empire and the Catholic Church, in which he had detailed, with an effrontery which was almost Satanic, a plan for the complete extirpation of Catholicism in Germany, for the greater glory of Prussia, and of free thought. Friedeberg disagreed with the doctrinarians who thought that thepower of Catholicism could be diminished by a separation of Church and State. On the contrary, said Friedeberg, such a separation would be of great profit to the Church ; since in our day Catholicism is in perfect accord with the people. Were the Church of Rome, he added, as free from governmental surveillance in Prussia as she is in the United States of America, her power in Prussia would be more than doubled. Again, observed the professor, Protestantism in Prussia would suffer greatly, if Church and State were separated ; indeed, without the aid of the State, Protestantism would perish in Prussia. Let the State continue, therefore, to aid its most valuable ally in its struggle with Catholicism. Finally, insisted Friedeberg, a separation of Church aud State in Germany would injure the " Old Catholics," the men whom Prussia had encouraged to revolt with her promises of pecuniary and other aid. Tlien Friedeberg thus resumed his plan : " AVe have indicated our reasons for not wishing, at the present, for a separation of Church and State ; and we have also pointed out the path, on which the State should enter. If, as we think, the Church 16 STUDIES IN CHUltCH HISTOKY. must one day be cut away from the social body, we should begin now to prepare for that operation, so that it will in- jure or weaken the State as little as possible. In the mean- time, let us put a ligature on the artery through which runs . the blood of the Church— that artery which communicates to the Church the strength and life of the State. AVe should isolate the ecclesiastical limb gradually, accustoming the State to do without it, so that when the amputation is finally made, the loss of the limb will not be perceived. There will not be much blood lost, and the wound ^^ ill cicatrize quick- ly." Such was the plan adopted by Bismarck ; the Church was to be cut away from the social body ; but the operation was to be performed so dexterously, that the patient should not screech too fearfully, and the State should not receive too serious a shock. Had the Catholic Church been an insti- tution of the State, like Prussian Evangelical Protestantism, with the sovereign for its supreme pontiff, then Friedeberg, Bismarck, and Falk would have been numbered among the " great men " of the world. Very little study of the " May Laws " is required for the conclusion that they were well designed for the accomplishment of the intention of Friede- berg — " to asj^hyxiate the Church, and to dry up her vital source." The first of these laws, enacted by the Diet of Berlin on May 11, 1873, concerned the education of the clergy, and the nomination to ecclesiastical offices. It or- dered that no person could exercise ecclesiastical functions in Prussia, unless he was a German ; unless he had been ed- ucated according to the terms of the law ; and unless he was perfectly acceptable to the government. The education of all prospective priests was to be conducted by the State. The aspirant was to take his bachelor's degree in a govern- ment gymnasium : during three years he was to study what the State designated as theology in a German University ; and an examiDation by officers of the Stnte was to finally pro- nounce on liis fitness for tlie priesthood. Every ecclesiastic- al educational establishment was to besuiiject, at all hours and in every matter, to governmental surveillance. No nom- ination to a parish or to any care of souls could be made by a bishop without the approbation of the civil authority THE BISMARCKUN SO-CALLED " WAll FOR CIVILIZA'HON." 17 The secoud law, enacted on May 12, concerned ecclesiastic- al discipline ; and its spirit was that of the preceding or- ilinance. The Roman Pontill" could have no voice in any matter concerning discii)liue in any diocese or parish of Prussia ; for all disciplinary ecclesiastical matters were de- clared to pertain exclusively to German ecclesiastical author- ity, exercised with the permission of the government. And the last appeal in all cases of ecclesiastical discipline was to be made to a royal tribunal, sitting in Berlin ; this court was to dismiss bishops and priests, as though they were so many sub-prefects of the State. The third law, enacted on May 13, prohibited any ecclesiastical censure of any act command- ed by the State. All public excommunication was absolute- ly forbidden. The fourth law, enacted on May 14, ordered that when any person wished to change his religion, he should signify that desire to the Minister of Public Worship, who would charge him one march for a permissive license. Our limited space forbids citations from the protests issued by the Prussian bishops against these laws, or from the many eloquent speeches condemning them which were pro- nounced in the Prussian parliament by Mallinckrodt, Wind- thorst (of Meppen), and other valiant members of the Centre. The efforts of these champions were of no avail ; the united forces of Protestantism, Freemasonry, " Borrussianism," Judaism, and " German intelligence," had decided "to crush the infamous one," even though their weapons constituted a serious danger for public liberty. In a cynical discourse which was worthy of his school, Wirchow, one of the most prominent representatives of materialistic " German science," admitted quite cheerfully that tlie May Laws were " ar- bitrary in the extreme, and dangerous to liberty " ; but, he added: "Since we need not fear that the Centre will soon attain power, and since these arbitrary laws injure tlie Catholic Church alone, we ought to adopt them." This ad- mission that the May Laws Avould injure " the Catholic Church alone " is very significant ; for the reader must know that those ordinances ostensibly affected the Protestants as well as the Catholics. Falk had announced, liowever, that the enactments had been made to a])ply to Protestants "for 18 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. the sake of symmetry " ; that is, that the government wished to present the appearance of impartiality, knowing full well that the Protestants of Prussia had been accustomed so long to State-slavery, that it was a matter of small conse- . quence to them when they were loaded with a few more chains. And two other facts must be considered. Nothing in the Falk Laws afiected the conscience of a Protestant, even of a sincere one ; and even though the sectarian con- science had been affected, it would have regarded as too Jjeavy no sacrifice which might purchase the degradation of tht Catholic Church. Some curious persons asked Falk why it WHS that the Jev/s were not included among those affected by his Laws ; the reply was that " the government did not perceive j,ny practical necessity " of including the children of Abrahanv. Had he dared, the Minister would have as- signed the true reason for the Jewish exemption — the pleth- oric purses of ihe Jewish magnates, without whose aid the power even of Bismarck would have vanished into thin air. We need not insult the intelligence of the reader by any lengthy disquisitum on the absurd lie uttered by Bismarck, when he termed his war on Catholicism a " War for Civili- zation." Even a tyro, in the study of history knows that m the combat against truth and virtue, error and sin never wage war under their own names ; that from the time of Lucifer's rebellion down to the exploits of the Commune of Paris, evil has always clothed itself in the mantle of enlightenment and progress. Even " German science," in which Bismarck was an adept, is forced to admit that to the Catholic Church alone is due the fact that the modern Germans are not now barbarians; and that to the Catholic Church alone did the original Prussians — a Slavic, not a Germanic tribe — owe their liberation from the degrading idolatry to which they had been victims for centuries after the other European bar- barians had become civilized under the shadow of the Cross. And truly phenomenal impudence was requisite for the asser- tion that a state of war existed between parties, only one of whom was armed, and with the weapons of confiscations, im- prisonment, and exile, while the resistance of the other con- sisted only of fidelity to God's law, and of invincible patience THE lUS.MAliCKI.VN S'J-CALLED " WAR FoR CIVILIZATION." 19 under persecution. Some iiublicists luive qualified the plirase " War for Civilization" as a convenient euphemism ; but that which it meant was a downright lie " In the entire course of this afVair," observes Mgr. Janiszewski, "the government and the pseudo-liberal i)artj cared nothing for law, truth, or justice ; thej thought of nothing but the attainment of their object. The means could be of any nature, since it was the Catholic Church that was to suffer. At different periods, dif- ferent passions and vices have dominated other passions and vices ; the inheritance of our time is falsehood. It was on falsehood that the plan of the war of Prussia against Austria (1806), and that of the Avar against France (1870), were based ; it was falsehood that characterized the entire conspiracy against the Church. Falsehood, systematically developed and abundantly rewarded, took possession of the press, and not a ray of truth was allowed to reach the people. The German language itself was travestied. Such words as 'culture,' 'instruction,' 'civilization,' 'liberty,' 'science,' ' LiberaJsm,' ' Ultramontanism,' ' progress,' and other ex- pressions which often seduce simple minds, received, in this chaos, meanings which sound reason and logic never dreamed of attributing to them." It was but natural that such should be the course of a party which brazenly avowed that it de- spised mere principles. Thus that most " intelligent " Pro- gressist, Wirchow, when told in the parliament that the May Laws violated the Prussian Constitution, brutally retorted: " I care not to bother my brains in an effort to save mere principles, since the government now abandons such things in order to act in accordance with the desires of its party." Mere trutli was a matter of no value to the "man of blood and iron" who affected to scorn everything that savored of the Middle Age ; to the Minister who dared, on June 16, 1873, to inform the Reichstag that he "wished to be excused from listening to any more talk about the pretended rights of the people— mere reminiscences of days long vanished, and which merit no other designation than that of declamatory phrases." On Jan. 19, 1874, Falk asked the 'Prussian Diet to pass tliree achlitional draconian enactments. It had become evi- dent that the imprisonment or exile of all the Catholic bish- 20 STUDIES IN CHUKCH HISTORY. ops would soon render the Catholic dioceses vacant in the eyes of the Prussian government ; and that only the apostate, Reinkens, would be recognized by His Imperial and Koy al Ma- jesty as a Catholic bishop. It was necessary, therefore, to • provide for the administration of the prospectivel}- vacant sees. The second law was a complement of that of May 11, 1873, which prescribed the method and nature of the education of the clergy, and also regulated all appointments to the care of souls. The third law concerned the banishment of the re- calcitrant clergy ; and this measure was to be voted not only by the Prussian Chambers, but also by the German parliament — a proceeding which would make it a law of the German Empire. The representative of Bismarck informed the Cham- bers that the object of this third law was to crush the opposi- tion of the Catholic clergy to the May Laws ; to " prevent auy illegal exercise of ecclesiastical functions " ; that is, to prevent any bishops from performing any duties pertaining peculiarly to their office, and to prevent all priests from saying Mass, hear- ing confessions, or preaching, without the express permis- sion of His Sacred Majesty's officers. This law was passed on May 4th. Every ecclesiastic who had already been " dis- missed " because of a violation of the May Laws, or who would thereafter be " dismissed," would be punished, by " internment," or by " externment," or by banishment, if he dared to officiate in any manner. The "interned" were transported to some place which the police designated ; frequently to some fortress, as in the case of the bishop of Paderborn, who was " interned" in the fortress of Wesel. " Externment " signified expulsion from certain provinces. Thus, the valiant Polander, Mgr. Ledochowski, archbishop of Posen and Gnesen, besides two years of imprisonment, suffered exclusion from Posen and Silesia. Banishment entailed the loss of all civic rights. Mgr. Melchers, arch- bishop of Cologne, was imprisoned with a horde of rob- bers and cut-throats for six months, and then he was exiled (1). Mgr. Eberhardt, bishop of Treves, died in (1) When M;rr. Melchers, on his eutranre into his prison, was askrd to give his name and ocenpation, he naturally replied : " Paul Melchers. archbishop of Cologne." The governor retorted : " You were an archbishop at one time ; but the governtnent has de- prived vou of that title." Then the prelate replied : " The government cannot take from THE BISMAItCKIAN SO-CALLED " WAR FOU CIVILIZATION." 21 jail. The Polish prelate, Mgr. Janiszewski, auxiliary-bishop of Poseii aud Gnesen, was successively fined, interued, imprisoned, and exiled. Another Pole, Mgr. C^'bichowski, auxiliary of Gnesen, merely for having presumed to conse- crate the Holy Oils without the permission of the govern- ment, was imprisoned for nine months, and then he was de- ported to Silesia. On May 20th, the parliament passed the law which Bismarck and his imperial master (or pupil) deemed capable of checking the audacity of those who re- garded the " dismissed " bishops and pastors as still endowed with spiritual jurisdiction. The Cathedral Chapters were ordered, in case " dismissal " had left their dioceses with- out bishops, to name administrators within ten days ; if the Chapters refused to name such administrators, tlie govern- ment would appoint commissioners who would take the place of the bishops. Where parishes were vacant, the parishioners were to elect their new pastors. It is interesting to note that while very many of the so-called " conservative " Protest- ants openly disapproved of the laws of Maj^ 4th aud May 20tli, 1874, they nevertheless voted for them. One of their leaders, Minnigerode, did not hesitate to avow : " In spite of grave doubts and grave scruples, I cannot allow the Prussian government to be defeated by the Ultramontanes. In spite of the perplexities of my conscience, I shall vote for the law, in order to help the government." Another prom- inent " conservative " Protestant, Miquel, said : " We can- not leave the Prussian government in an embarrassed condition ; we are obliged to aid it." These avowals of the least rampant of the German Protestant represen- tatives are certainly eloquent ; but if there was any need of demonstrating more forcibly that in the " AVar for Civilization," justice counted for nothing, and that ser- vility to the State was the dominant trait of such of the German Protestants as still retained some faith in Chris- tianity, the following words of Wellel Vehlingsdorf should me a power which it did not give to me ; but if my title of archbishan does not satisfy you, I have another profession."—" What is it ? " aisked the olHcer. '* I am good at plaiting straw," was the answer. The name of '* Paul Melchers. straw-plaiter." was then entered on the register ; and while he was incarcerated, the, plaiting of straw was the arch- bishop's task. Bazin ; Inc. ci(., p. 110. 22 STUDIES IN CHUKCH HISTORY. have sufficed : " Those who voted for the May Laws must now bear the humiliating consequences. They must recon- cile themselves to this double-edged sword, with which the government is armed ; they must even try to sharpen it, in order to save the honor of the State. It is now too late to discuss as to what will be the denouement of this combat ; but one thing remains — to uphold the government. ... I feel the sorrowful conviction that, as things are now, the most direct path toward domestic peace is a determination of all parties to rally around the State, and to support it, independently of their convictions.'" Then addressing the Centre, the champion of inconsistency said : " We assure you that we have firmly resolved never to go to Canossa (1) ; and that we shall continue the battle with more energy, in order to end it more quickly." In 1875 five new laws were enacted for the further en- slavement of the Church : one regulating the administra- tion of ecclesiastical revenues ; one suppressing all the allow- ances made by the State to bishops ; one assigning a part of the revenues of the Catholic Church to the " Old Cath- olics " ; one against convents and religious congregations ; and one suppressing .the paragraphs m the Prussian Con- stitution which guaranteed religious liberty to Catholics. Truly, the time seemed to have arrived for the performance of the operation foreseen by Friedeberg — the " amputation of the Church from the social body." By the first law it was enacted that the revenues of each parish were to be ad- ministered by a body of laymen who were to be chosen by the parishioners. The pastor Avas to have no voice, either in the election of the administrators, or in their debates. In the case of Catholic parishes, the bishop was to have a nom- inal direction ; but he was always to refer his decisions to the prefect of the province, and that officer could reverse those decisions without appeal. A radical difference was established between the Catholic method of election of ad- ministrators, and that of the Protestants. No Protestant could vote until he was twenty-four years old ; a Catholic could vote when he was twenty-one. Again, care was taken (1) For the raeanlnj? of this phrase, see our Vol. li., p. 150. THE BISMAItCKIAN SO-CALLED " WAU FOR CIVILIZATION." 23 that only the better elements iu a Protestant jKirish should control the i'unils ; no one c'f)nl(l be an elector who led an irregular life, who did not fulfil his religious duties, or who gave auy scandal to his fellows. The contrary provision was made for the Catholic parishes ; every aibdt male, even the most dissolute and irreligious, providing that he bore the name of Catholic, was to be an elector. This fact alone showed that the Prussian government had determined to ex- cite discord between the Catholic clergy and their flocks — " Ininiicus homo /toc/ecit.'' When the time arrived for the signing of the second Law, the one withdrawing the subven- tions hitherto accorded to the clergy and religious corpoi'- atious by the State, the emperor hesitated ; but the insist- ence of the chancellor prevailed. The iniquity of this en- actment will be comprehended only by him who reflects that the abolished subvention had never been a donation from the State to the Church ; it was simply a miserable apology for a partial restitution, by means of a petty interest (less than one per cent.), of the property which the Protestants had stolen from the Church — a method like that adopted for the same reason in France, Spain, and certain Latin- American countries where the Brethren of the Three Points have robbed the Church of all her immovable property, and of all the movable that was attainable (1). Let the reader, (1) When Archbishop Ledochowski was notified, four months after the adoption of the May Laws, that his usual revenue from the State would not be paid to hira until he had appointed to the parish of Vielen a pastor whom tlie government would tlnd acceptable, the prelate sent this protest to the president of the province : " I prottst against the aforesaid ordinance, for the reason that the endowment of the archbishopric of Gnesen-Posen is based on a treaty concluded with the State, and is merely a paititd coiniiensatinnfor the Churrh property which the .Shtd; has apprn)iriatc'l. In proof of this it may suffice lo refer you to the declaration made by Ladenherg, then Minister of Public Worship, in his explanations of the Prussian Constitution of Dec. 15, 1848. All the provinces acquired by the State in later times (during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) received solemn jfuarantees regarding the support of their ecclesiastical establishments; as you may see in the proclamation addressed, on May 13, 18.57, to the inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Posen (CdUcctiim nf Laws. p. 45). Hence it was that during the negotiations with the Apos- tolic See for a new arrangement of the relations between Church and State, these endow- ments were not regarded as favors, but us obligatory paymeiiti< of fully acknowlrdged debts. It was because of this indebtedness that no State took upon itself the duty of endow- ing the bishoprics ; and it declared that such was the Church's title, not only during the aforesaid negotiations, hut afterward, at the time of the publication of the Concordat of 1821 [Official Priisttian Gazette. Aug. 11,1831). The State is obliged to pay this debt, and promptly ; for such payment is (leman ohaneellor, His Little Excellency, as the Catholics allection- ately termed their chief champion, replied : " 1 sh.iU accede to your request most Avillingly ; but not before the May Laws have been formally withdrawn. They do indexed swear to us that these laws will no longer be applied; l)ut wliile that assurance may suffice for to-day, who will answer for the morrow? The freedom of us Catholics is a right. Can we abandon it to the caprice of a Minister ? " And here let it be noted that this refusal of the Centre to hearken to the recommendation of Mgr. Galimberti, who was known to have merely echoed the views of Pope Leo XIII., was an excellent refutation of that falsehood which the school of Bismarck had so assiduously circulated iu justitication of its persecution of the Catholics ; namely, that the Roman Pon- tiff held iu his hands the political opinions and tlie votes of the German Catholics. And the firnmess of AViudthorst was rewarded when, by siiggesting the pontifical arbitration in the affair of the Caroline Islands, the cluiucellor showed that lie was willing to advance a little further on the road to Canossa. The proceedings connected with this arbitration afforded to Bismarck an opportunity of treating directly with the Holy See ; and the first consequence of the rapprocJi€ii>€)if was the governmental consent to the filling of the then vacant sees of Cologne and Friboiirg. It was tlien that Cardinal Ledochowski, yielding to the wishes of the Pontiff, resigned a diocese to which he covdd scarcely hope to return ; and the provost of Koenigsberg, Dinder, was made archbishop of Posen. Then Mgr. Kopp, bishop of Fulda, was called to a seat in the LTpper House of Prussia ; and although the traditions of the German Church seemed to forbid such a coxirse, the prelate thought that circumstances dictated his acceptance of tlie position (1). Bismarck had confidence in (1) A seat in the Upper House tiad been offered, at various times fiuring this ecnturv. to several bistiops ; tnit it had always bi-en declined. Fioderick William IV., the brother of the emperor William I., and the most just of all the Hohenzollern, would t:ladly have seated several bishops among his legislatiiijf nobles ; and he approched Mgr. Geissel. then arch- bishop of Cologne, in the matter. The prelate rei)lied : " So long as the bishops can sit in 42 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTOKY. Mgr. Kopp ; but his object in ranging him among the peers was to obtain a means of treating with the Centre without any intervention of his own personality. On May 21; 1886, another modification to the May Laws was decreed. The State renounced its examination of clerical students, re- establishing the theological schools as they had been before 1873, but requiring their superiors to furnish to the Min- ister of Public Worship their statutes and the names of their professors. The Pope was recognized as the superior judge in ecclesiastical affairs ; and the royal court which had sat in Berlin since 1873, for the purpose of deciding those affairs, was suppressed, thus exhibiting no longer the anomaly of a Protestant tribunal fining or imprisoning Catholic priests who had refused absolution to persons who were unworthy, or who had celebrated Mass or attend- ed the dying without governmental permission. Finally, the elections of Feb., 1887, having convinced Bismarck that the power of the Centre was growing instead of diminishing, he determined to make such further modifications of the obnox- ious laws as he deemed apt to conciliate a party, whose aid he sadly needed. These modifications were presented in five Articles ; and when they were examined by Windthorst in the name of the Centre, the perspicacious leader decided as follows : The first Article ought to be rejected, he contend- ed, because although it allowed the existence of diocesan seminaries, it gave to the State a very badly defined right of surveillance over the teaching in those institutions — an indefi- niteness which bade fair to invite trouble of various kinds. The second Article, treating of the right of Veto, should be partly amended, said Windthorst, and partly rejected ; it was condemnable as an entirety. The third Article, acknowledg- ing tlie disciplinary authority of the Church, was welcomed by the great Centrist. The fourth Article, recognizing the right of the Church to infiict canonical punishment on her subjects when they violated her laws, was of course approved. The fifth Article, which permitted the return of certain re- ligious orders or congregations, and excluded others, was the Upper House only by royal favor, they will never wish to sit there." Bazin ; loc. cif., p. 217. THE BISMARCKLVN SO-C.\LLED " WAR FOR CIVIUZATION." 43 steruly criticized. The eminent juriscousult said : "Among the demands which Catholics wdl never cease to make, is that for the freedom of the religions orders and congrega- tions. We shall say nothing here concerning the Society of Jesus, and the orders which are alleged to be afHliated to it ; their return must be considered by the Keichstag, for it was a law of the empire that crushed them. But we must declare at once that there are two objections to the law which is now proposed. The first objection arises from the fact that per- mission to return is granted solely to the orders or congre- gations which are either devoted to the care of souls, or are given to offices of charity, or lead a contemplative life." Then the government is reminded of the moral, enconomical, and material losses which have been entailed upon the Cath- olic populations by the expulsion of the teaching orders. The second objection to Article Y. is derived from the state of utter dependency on the government in which the restored orders will be, if the law is passed. Windthorst concluded his report with this declaration : " It is indubitable that this project cannot be regarded as a final revision of the existing politico-ecclesiastical legislation ; and until sucli revision is effected, it will be futile to talk about a durable peace be- tween the Church and the State." The arguments of its lead- er convinced the entire Centre ; but it soon transpired that Pope Leo had written to the archbishop of Cologne, mani- festing a willingness to be content, /or ihe 'present, with the governmental concessions. Then the Centre yielded ; not deeming it good policy to be more exigent than the Eomau Pontiff in matters concerning which he was certainly the better judge. The new law was enacted ; and thenceforth the State exercised its " right " of Veto on the appointment of a pastor, only so far as the tifle of pastor was involved. The government merely insisted that the bishops should appoint to pastorships no priests who already labored under civil condemnation. The ordinaries were to be no longer obliged to fill vacancies within a stated period of time ; and if a pastor were condemned to prison, the pastorship was not to be regarded as ipso facto vacant, as the May Laws had prescribed. Disciplinary measures were no longer to be notified to the 44 STUDIES IN CHUKCH HISTOEY. governors of the provinces. The Law of May 20, 1874, con- cerning the administration of vacant dioceses, was cancelled. Toleration was to be extended to religious orders Avhich were devoted to the contemplative life, to exercises of Chris- tian charity, or to the education of young girls. With these final modifications, the " War for Civilization " practically terminated ; as its instigator and conductor avowed, nothing of his scheme remained, save "ruins and rubbish." Bis- marck had arrived at Canossa. CHAPTER II. FEEEMASONEY IN LATIN AMERICA. — GAECIA MOEENO, "THE MODEEN ST. LOUIS." * The first Masonic Lodge in Spain was established in 1726 ; the first Lodge in Madrid was opened in 1731. Not having been condemned by the Church until 1738, the Brethren of the Three Points enjoyed twelve years of perfect freedom for the diffusion of their poison, ere its deadly nature was per- ceived by the Spaniards. Lodges were soon founded in all the principal cities ; "and when, in 1756, the government of Ferdinand VI. awoke to a sense of its duty in reference to the sectaries, they had multiplied to such an extent, and their nefarious doctrines had been so widely spread, that very little good was produced by that celebrated prohibitory edict which Masonic apologists affect to stigmatize as " the greatest and most cruel persecution of their order." When Charles III. left Naples in order to mount the Spanish throne in 1759, many of his courtiers were adepts of the Square and Compass ; for the Neapolitan court had been a hot-bed of Masonry for many years. With the advent of these Italian brethren, the most prominent of whom was the Marquis of Squillace, the Lodge of Madrid found its power greatly increased ; and from that day the influence of the sectaries on the policy of the Spanish government has been almost permanent. Much of this success was originally due to the fact that in those days the Spanish Lodges, like those * This chapter appeared in the Anirr. Cath. QKartcrhi Review, Vol. xxiii. FREEMASONRY IN LATIN AMERICA. 46 of the Two Sicilies, dopemled from the Grand Lod<;e of Loudou, aud to the analogous fact that the English cabinet encouraged the propagation of Masonry in both Spain aud Portugal for its own political aud commercial interests. Keeue, tlie English ambassador at Madrid, denoted most of his energy and time to the Masonic propaganda ; and wiien Cliarles IV. ascended the throne, nearly all the commerce of Spain was in English hands. Under Charles IV., many of the highest functionaries of the kingdom and not a few ecclesi- astics were votaries of the Dark Lantern. Even the Inquisition was invaded by the sectaries. Llorente, the secretary of the dread tribunal, was one of the most active Masons of his day ; and to his perversion is due that shallow diatribe which the average Protestant regards as a " History " of the institution which is his most persistent nightmare (1). The power oi tlie sectaries had become so great in 1800, that Urquijo, the Prime Minister of Cliarles IV. and a Mason of high degree, tliought that the time had come when Spain might definitely cease to have any relations with Piome, and he issued a se- ries of edicts tending to that end. Fortunately the king hearkened to the representations of Pius VII., and revoked the schismatical decrees ; but the Masonic influence was not easily thwarted. Urquijo and his brethren devised a plan for the un-Christianizatiou of their country ; he proposed to import several hundred thousands of Russian and other Jews into Spain, and to give such pecuniary aid and political en- couragement that in time they might dominate the Christian element in the kingdom (2). The French invasion prevented the actuation of this design; and it was already forgotten when, in 1869, after the enforced abdication of Isabella II., the eminent Mason, Zorilla, endeavored to actuate a similar plan. Zorilla proposed to the government of the temporary Regency (Marshal Serrano) that an invitation to settle in Spain should be extended to many thousjuids of English Protestants. " These immigrants," he insisted, " must all I>e EiH/lifih Protent- rnj^s " ; and unpatriotically ignoring the fact that modern Spain had owed to Irish Catholic immigrants much of the a I For an acrount of Llorente sinri bis book, see our Vol. il., p. 402. (2) La Fientk ; Ecrlc^inxlical Hi.-tnnj ,,r .aiii. Mayence. 1881. 48 SlUDIES IN CHURCH HISTOKY. A natural consequence of the spread of Freemasonry in Spain was its introduction into the Spanish-American colon- ies. According to the Monde Ma^onnique (1), an organ of tiie Dark Lantern which has every facility for the acquisi- tion of information concerning this and similar matters, there were, at the outbreak of the revolution against the motlier- couutry, ninety-nine Lodges in Peru alone. That these and other Lodges were the instigators of the insurrections of 1815-1830, and that they simply obeyed the orders given by the heads of European Masonry, when they so acted, was deliberately stated by the Protestant diplomat. Count Haug- witz, in the memorial which he presented to the European sovereigns who formed the Congress of Verona in 1822 ; and as his assertion was not contradicted by the Masonic half of the assembly, it may be regarded as strictly true (2). Nearly (1) In the issue for March, 1875. (2) Some passages from this memorial by Haugwltz, who was the Prussian Prime Minis- ter of that day, ought to interest the reader. " Now that I am at the end of my career (he was then seventy years old, and had been in the Prussian cabinet nearly forty years), I think that it is my duty to draw your attention to the aims of those secret societies whose poison threatens humanity to-day more than ever. Their history is so intimately inter- twined with my own that I cannot refrain from giving some details 1 had scarcely attained my majority when I found myself occupying a distinguished place In tlie highest grades of Masonry. Before I could even know myself, before I could understand the situa- tion into which I had rashly plunged myself. I found myself entrusted with the chief direc- tion of a part of Prussian, Polish, and Russian Masonry. As far as its secret labors were con- cerned. Masonry was then divided into two sections. The first affected to aim at a discovery of the jihilosopher's stone ; its religion was Deism, or rather Atheism ; its directive centre, under Dr. Zinndorf, was in Berlin. The second section, the apparent head of which was Prince F. of Brunswick, was very different. In open antagonism with each other, these two parties united in order to obtain the domination of the world, to subjugate every throne- such was their object. It would be superfluous to tell you how, in the satisfaction of my ar- dent c'lriosity. I mastered the secret of each of these sects ; tlie triUh is that the secret is no mvsferv for me. And that secret disgusts me. It was in 1T77 that I assumed the direc- tion of some of the Prussian Lodges ; it was three or four years before the convent of Will- helmsbad, and the invasion of the Lodges by Illuminism. M> sphere of action em- braced the brethren scattered through Poland and Russia. Had I not seen the fact with mv own eves, I would not believe it possible that governments culd close their eyes to such a disorder as a state within a state. . . . Our object, like that of the olden Templars, was todominate overthrones and sovereigns. . . . There appeared a book entitled Errors and 'Truths. This work produced a sensation, and it impressed me deei.ly. ... At once I thought I would now learn what was hidden under the emblems of the Order : hut accord- ino- as I penetrated further into the dark civern. deeper grew my conviction that there was something very different in the last recesses. The light came when I found that Saint-Martin, the author of this work, was really one of the coryphees of the Chapter of Sion. ThenI acquired the firm conviction that the drama which began in 1789, the French Revolution, the regicide with all its horrors, had not onlv been lousr prepared, but tlKit it was the result of our association, of our oaths, etc. .. . Those who know me can judge of the effect which these discoveries produced on me. ... My first care was to communi- cate mv discoveries to King William III. Both of us were convinced that all of the Ma- FREEMASONRY IN LATIN AMERICA, 49 all of the Spanish commanders-in-chief in America during the years 1815-1830 were Freemasons ; hence the numerous under- standings with the rebel leaders, and hence, notably, the capit- ulation of the S])auish army at Ayacucho, in Peru, in 182-1 (1). When the Spanish-American colonies had become indepen- dent states, then the halcyon days of Spanish-American Masonry, if we are to judge from a Masonic point of view, entered on their course. " Then," says the Monde 3Ia^on- nique, " a love of enlightenment and of liberty arose at once, together with independence, as thougli from a propi- tious soil." The entire political history of most of the Span- ish-American republics, and much of that history in the others, shows that while the soil may have been '• propitious," its Masonic cultivators produced no other crops than chronic revolutions and all their attendant miseries. As for the " love of enlightenment " which the Lodges claim to have manifested in every land of Latin- America during the periods when the civil power has been in their hands, it cannot be denied that if Satanic hatred of Catholicism and of its works be a test of " enlightenment," then, indeed, the Dark Lantern is more luminous than the sun of justice and of truth. It may be observed, however, than in Spanish and Portuguese- Amer- ica, just as in other Christian lands, " love of enlightenment " has not been the impelling motive of Freemasonry in its war to the knife against the Church. In the eyes of Freemasonry, the crying sin of the Church is not that she is ignorant rather than enlightened, despotic rather tlian liberal ; her unpar- donable fault is that she is tlie Church of Jesus Christ. As scnlc grades, from the lowest to the highest, were destructive of all religious principles, conducive to the execution of the most criminal designs, and that the lowest grades were used as rr.eie mantles to cover the iniquities of the highest. This conviction, snared with me by the king, caused me to renounce Masonry absolutely ; but the king deemed it pru- dent to abstain from an open rupture with the Order." When Ilaugwitz's memorial had been well discussed by the sovereigns a.ssembled in Verona, the Prussian king al ne re- fused to take measures against Freemasonry ; and from that day the Lodges regardeci Prussia as the sole continental State willing to accomplish theirwork, fas tint nefas. Theemper ors of Austria anc" Russia determined to act as energetically as their Masonic surroundings would permit. Alexander I., the Russian cz^ir, had hitherto protected Masonry, but now he proscribed it; in 1816 he nad expelled the Jesuits from his empire, but in 1«:.M, as we have seen, he sent (ieneral Michaud to Rome to prepire the way for the return of Rus.sia Into the Catholic fold. He died mysteriously as soon as the errand of Michaud was made known. Was that death the work of Masonry V <1) See the cited work by Bruck for several Spanish authorities for this a.sse-tion. 50 STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. M. de Champagny well said : " There has ever been, from the beginning of the world, but one single war between the Church, whether patriarchal. Mosaic, or Christian, and that Proteus Avliich was styled Paganism in ancient times, which- appeared as Mohammedanism in the sixth century, which was disguised as Protestantism in the sixteenth century, which masqueraded as Incredulism in the eighteenth, and which now combats as the Revolution" (1) ; and Freemasonry is the personification of each one of these pests. The Satanic sympathies of Freemasonry, whatever may be the individual sentiments of some of its adepts, are especially evinced in La- tin-America ; for not one of the Masonic " Powers" in those regions interrupted its relations with the Grand Orient of France, when that great and shining exemplar of all the Masonic virtues erased from its Constitution the name of God and all mention of the immortality of the human soul (2). Elsewhere we have alluded to the peculiar tactics adopt- ed by Freemasonry in its war against Christianity in Portu- gal (3) ; to the deliberate attempt to corrupt the entire Portu- guese clergy — an enterprise the plan of which had been sketched originally by Weisshaupt as calculated to subju- gate the German priesthood, and which was recommended afterward by the 'Roman Alta Vendita, as promising to place a Carbonaro on the throne of Peter (4). This Satanic meth- od of warfare had attained a measure of success in Ger- many and in Tuscany in the last years of the eighteenth century ; and, as we have seen, it did not fail entirely when it was waged in Portugal in later days. With light hearts, therefore, the Brethren of the Three Points undertook in Brazil the most important campaign which they have ever conducted in Latin America. Their first victory entailed the capture of no less a personage than, Dom Pedro, the son and heir of John VL In 1814 John VI. returned to Portugal, whence the Napoleonic invasion had driven him ; but Dom Pedro remained in Brazil and became a Mason. It is not improbable that it was the advice of his fellow-sectaries that induced Pedro to prefer an independent sceptre of (1) The Power of VTordK. p. 31. Paris. 1880. (2) See our Vol. Iv., p. 436. {^) Ibid., Vol. t.. p. 267. (4) Ihid., p. 483 FllEEMASONUY IN L.S.T1N AMEKICa. 51 Brazil to a double crown of Brazil and Portu^^al (1). In a let- ter written to his father on July 15, 1822, he advised the old monarch to imitate him, since, as he ar