Church History Part 12

-- 185. The Papacy and the States of the Church.

The papacy, humiliated but not destroyed by Napoleon I., was in A.D. 1814 by the aid of princes of all creeds restored to the full possession of its temporal and spiritual authority, and amid many difficulties it rea.s.serted for the most part successfully its hierarchical claims in the Catholic states and in those whose Protestantism and Catholicism were alike tolerated. Many severe blows indeed were dealt to the papacy even in the Roman states by revolutionary movements, yet political reaction generally by-and-by put the church in a position as good if not better than it had before. But while on this side the Alps, especially since the outbreak of A.D. 1848, ultramontanism gained one victory after another in its own domain, in Italy, it suffered one humiliation after another; and while the Vatican Council, which put the crown upon its idolatrous a.s.sumptions (-- 189, 3), was still sitting, the whole pride of its temporal sovereignty was shattered: the States of the Church were struck out of the number of the European powers, and Rome became the capital and residence of the prince of Sardinia as king of United Italy. But reverence for the pope now reached a height among catholic nations which it had never anywhere attained before.

1. _The First Four Popes of the Century._-Napoleon as First Consul of the French Republic, in A.D. 1801 concluded a concordat with _Pius VII._, A.D.

1800-1823, who under Austrian protection was elected pope at Venice, whereby the pope was restored to his temporal and spiritual rights, but was obliged to abandon his hierarchical claims over the church of France (-- 203, 1). He crowned the consul emperor of the French at Paris in A.D.

1804, but when he persisted in the a.s.sertion of his hierarchical principles, Napoleon in A.D. 1808 entered the papal territories, and in May, A.D. 1809, formally repudiated the donation of "his predecessor"

Charlemagne. The pope treated the offered payment of two million francs as an insult, threatened the emperor with the ban, and in July, A.D. 1809, was imprisoned at Savona, and in A.D. 1812 was taken to Fontainebleau. He refused for a time to give canonical inst.i.tution to the bishops nominated by the emperor, and though at last he yielded and agreed to reside in France, he soon withdrew his concession, and the complications of A.D.

1813 constrained the emperor, on February 14th, to set free the pope and the Papal States. In May the pope again entered Rome. One of his first official acts was the restoration of the Jesuits by the bull _Sollicitudo omnium_, as by the unanimous request of all Christendom. The Congregation of the Index was again set up, and during the course of the year 737 charges of heresy were heard before the tribunal of the holy office. All sales of church property were p.r.o.nounced void, and 1,800 monasteries and 600 nunneries were reclaimed. In A.D. 1815 the pope formally protested against the decision of the Vienna Congress, especially against the overthrow of the spiritual princ.i.p.alities in the German empire (-- 192, 1).

Equally fruitless was his demand for the restoration of Avignon (-- 165, 15). In A.D. 1816 he condemned the Bible societies as a plague to Christendom, and renewed the prohibition of Bible translations. His diplomatic schemes were determined by his able secretary Cardinal Consalvi, who not only at the Vienna Congress, but also subsequently by several concordats secured the fullest possible expression to the interests and claims of the curia.-His successor was _Leo XII._, A.D.

1823-1829, who, more strict in his civil administration than his predecessor, condemned Bible societies, renewed the Inquisition prosecutions, for the sake of gain celebrated the jubilee in A.D. 1825, ordered prayers for uprooting of heresy, rebuilt the Ghetto wall of Rome, overturned during the French rule (-- 95, 3), which marked off the Jews'

quarter, till Pius IX. again threw it down in A.D. 1846. After the eight months' reign of _Pius VIII._, A.D. 1829-1830, _Gregory XVI._, A.D.

1831-1846, ascended the papal throne, and sought amid troubles at home and abroad to exalt to its utmost pitch the hierarchical idea. In A.D. 1832 he issued an encyclical, in which he declared irreconcilable war against modern science as well as against freedom of conscience and the press, and his whole pontificate was a consistent carrying out of this principle. He encountered incessant opposition from liberal and revolutionary movements in his own territory, restrained only by Austrian and French military interference, A.D. 1832-1838, and from the rejection of his hierarchical schemes by Spain, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia.(97)

2. _Pius IX., _A.D._ 1846-1878._-Count Mastai Feretti in his fifty-fourth year succeeded Gregory on 16th June, and took the name of Pius IX. While in ecclesiastical matters he seemed willing to hold by the old paths and distinctly declared against Bible societies, he favoured reform in civil administration and encouraged the hopes of the liberals who longed for the independence and unity of Italy. But this only awakened the thunder storm which soon burst upon his own head. The far resounding cry of the jubilee days, "_Evviva Pio Nono!_" ended in the pope's flight to Gaeta in November, 1848; and in February, 1849, the Roman Republic was proclaimed.

The French Republic, however, owing to the threatening att.i.tude of Austria, hastened to take Rome and restore the temporal power of the pope.

Amid the convulsions of Italy, Pius could not return to Rome till April, 1850, where he was maintained by French and Austrian bayonets. Abandoning his liberal views, the pope now put himself more and more under the influence of the Jesuits, and his absolutist and reactionary politics were directed by Card. Antonelli. From his exile at Gaeta he had asked the opinion of the bishops of the whole church regarding the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin, to whose protection he believed that he owed his safety. The opinions of 576 were favourable, resting on Bible proofs: Genesis iii. 15, Song of Sol. iv. 7, 12, and Luke i. 28; but some French and German bishops were strongly opposed. The question was now submitted for further consideration to various congregations, and finally the consenting bishops were invited to Rome to settle the terms of the doctrinal definition of the new dogma. After four secret sessions it was acknowledged by acclamation, and on 8th December, 1854 (-- 104, 7), the pope read in the Sixtine chapel the bull _Ineffabilis_ and placed a brilliant diadem on the head of the image of the queen of heaven. The disciples of St. Thomas listened in silence to this aspersion of their master's orthodoxy; no heed was paid to two isolated individual voices that protested; the bishops of all Catholic lands proclaimed the new dogma, the theologians vindicated it, and the spectacle-loving people rejoiced in the pompous Mary-festival. The pope's next great performance was the encyclical, _Quanta cura_, of December 8th, 1864, and the accompanying syllabus cataloguing in eighty-four propositions all the errors of the day, by which not only the antichristian and anti-ecclesiastical tendencies, but also claims for freedom of belief and wors.h.i.+p, liberty of the press and science, the state's independence of the church, the equality of the laity and clergy in civil matters, in short all the principles of modern political and social life, were condemned as heretical. Three years later the centenary of Peter (-- 16, 1) brought five hundred bishops to Rome, with other clergy and laymen from all lands. The enthusiasm for the papal chair was such that the pope was encouraged to convoke an c.u.menical council. The jubilee of his consecration as priest in A.D. 1869 brought him congratulatory addresses signed by one and a half millions, filled the papal coffers, attracted an immense number of visitors to Rome, and secured to all the votaries gathered there a complete indulgence. On the Vatican Council which met during that same year, see -- 189.(98)

3. _The Overthrow of the Papal States._-In the Peace of Villafranca of 1859, which put an end to the short Austro-French war in Italy, a confederation was arranged of all the Italian princes under the honorary presidency of the pope for drawing up the future const.i.tution of Italy.

During the war the Austrians had vacated Bologna, but the French remained in Rome to protect the pope. The revolution now broke out in Romagna.

Victor Emanuel, king of Sardinia, was proclaimed dictator for the time over that part of the Papal States and a provisional government was set up. In vain did the pope remind Christendom in an encyclical of the necessity of maintaining his temporal power, in vain did he thunder his _excommunicatio major_ against all who would contribute to its overthrow.

A pamphlet war against the temporal power now began, and About's letters in the _Moniteur_ described with bitter scorn the incapacity of the papal government. In his pamphlet, "_Le Pope et le Congres_," Lagueronniere proposed to restrict the pope's sovereignty to Rome and its neighbourhood, levy a tax for the support of the papal court on all Catholic nations, and leave Rome undisturbed by political troubles. On December 31st, 1859, Napoleon III. exhorted the pope to yield to the logic of facts and to surrender the provinces that refused any longer to be his. The pope then issued a rescript in which he declared that he could never give up what belonged not to him but to the church. The popular vote in Romagna went almost unanimously for annexation to Sardinia, and this, in spite of the papal ban, was done. A revolution broke out in Umbria and the March of Ancona, and Victor Emanuel without more ado attached these states also to his dominion in A.D. 1860, so that only Rome and the Campagna were retained by the pope, and even these only by means of French support. At the September convention of A.D. 1864 Italy undertook to maintain the papal domain intact, to permit the organization of an independent papal army, and to contribute to the papal treasury; while France was to quit Roman territory within at the latest two years. The pope submitted to what he could not prevent, but still insisted upon his most extreme claims, answered every attempt at conciliation with his stereotyped _non possumus_, and in A.D. 1866 proclaimed St. Catherine of Siena (-- 112, 4) patron of the "city." When the last of the French troops took s.h.i.+p in A.D.

1866 the radical party thought the time had come for freeing Italy from papal rule, and roused the whole land by public proclamation. Garibaldi again put himself at the head of the movement. The Papal State was soon encircled by bands of volunteers, and insurrections broke out even within Rome itself. Napoleon p.r.o.nounced this a breach of the September convention, and in A.D. 1867 the volunteers were utterly routed by the French at Mentana. The French guarded Civita Vecchia and fortified Rome.

But in August, 1870, their own national exigencies demanded the withdrawal of the French troops, and after the battle of Sedan the Italians to a man insisted on having Rome as their capital, and Victor Emanuel acquiesced.

The pope sought help far and near from Catholic and non-Catholic powers, but he received only the echo of his own words, _non possumus_. After a four hours' cannonade a breach was made in the walls of the eternal city, the white flag appeared on St. Angelo, and amid the shouts of the populace the Italian troops entered on September 20th, 1870. A plebiscite in the papal dominions gave 133,681 votes in favour of annexation and 1,507 against; in Rome alone there were 40,785 for and only 46 against. The king now issued the decree of incorporation; Rome became capital of united Italy and the Quirinal the royal residence.

4. _The Prisoner of the Vatican, _A.D._ 1870-1878._-The dethroned papal king could only protest and utter denunciations. No result followed from the adoption of St. Joseph as guardian and patron of the church, nor from the solemn consecration of the whole world to the most sacred heart of Jesus, at the jubilee of June 16th, A.D. 1875. The measures of A.D. 1871, by which Cavour sought to realize his ideal of a "free church in a free state," were p.r.o.nounced absurd, cunning, deceitful, and an outrage on the apostles Peter and Paul. By these measures the rights and privileges of a sovereign for all time had been conferred on the pope: the holiness and inviolability of his person, a body-guard, a post and telegraph bureau, free amba.s.sadorial communication with foreign powers, the _ex-territoriality_ of his palace of the Vatican, embracing fifteen large saloons, 11,500 rooms, 236 stairs, 218 corridors, two chapels, several museums, archives, libraries, large beautiful gardens, etc., as also of the Lateran and the summer palace of Castle Gandolpho, with all appurtenances, also an annual income, free from all burdens and taxes, of three and a quarter million francs, equal to the former amount of his revenue, together with unrestricted liberty in the exercise of all ecclesiastical rights of sovereignty and primacy, and the renunciation of all state interference in the disposal of bishoprics and benefices. The right of the inferior clergy to exercise the _appellatio ab abusu_ to a civil tribunal was set aside, and of all civil rights only that of the royal _exequatur_ in the election of bishops, _i.e._ the mere right of investing the nominee of the curia in the possession of the revenues of his office, was retained.-To the end of his life Pius every year returned the dotation as an insult and injury, and "the starving holy father in prison, who has not where to lay his head," received three or four times more in Peter's pence contributed by all Catholic Christendom. Playing the _role_ of a prisoner he never pa.s.sed beyond the precincts of the Vatican.

He reached the semi-jubilee of his papal coronation in A.D. 1871, being the first pope who falsified the old saying, _Annos Petri non videbit_. He rejected the offer of a golden throne and the t.i.tle of "the great," but he accepted a Parisian lady's gift of a golden crown of thorns. In support of the prison myth, straws from the papal cell were sold in Belgium for half a franc per stalk, and for the same price photographs of the pope behind an iron grating. As once on a time the legend arose about the disciple whom Jesus loved that he would not die, so was it once said about the pope; and on his eighty-third birthday, in A.D. 1874, a Roman Jesuit paper, eulogising the moral purity of his life, put the words in his mouth, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" But he himself by constantly renewed rescripts, encyclicals, briefs, allocutions to the cardinals and to numerous deputations from far and near, unweariedly fanned the flame of enthusiasm and fanaticism throughout papal Christendom, and thundered threatening prophecies not only against the Italian, but also against foreign states, for with most of them he lived in open war. A collection of his "Speeches delivered at the Vatican" was published in 1874, commented on by Gladstone in the _Contemporary Review_ for January, 1875, who gives abundant quotations showing papal a.s.sumptions, maledictions, abuse and misunderstanding of the Scriptures with which they abound. On the fiftieth anniversary of the pope's episcopal consecration, in June, 1877, crowds from all lands a.s.sembled to offer their congratulations, with costly presents and Peter's pence amounting to sixteen and a half million francs. He died February 8th, 1878, in the eighty-sixth year of his age and thirty-second of his pontificate. His heirs claimed the unpaid dotations of twenty million lire, but were refused by the courts of law.(99)-His secretary Antonelli, descended from an old brigand family, who from the time of his stay at Gaeta was his evil demon, predeceased him in A.D. 1876. Though the son of a poor herdsman and woodcutter, he left more than a hundred million lire. His natural daughter, to the great annoyance of the Vatican, sought, but without success, in the courts of justice to make good her claims against her father's greedy brothers.

5. _Leo XIII._-After only two days' conclave the Cardinal-archbishop of Perugia, Joachim Pecci, born in A.D. 1810, was proclaimed on February 20th, 1878, as Leo XIII. In autograph letters he intimated his accession to the German and Russian emperors, but not to the king of Italy, and expressed his wish for a good mutual understanding. To the government of the Swiss Cantons he declared his hope that their ancient friendly relations might be restored. At Easter, 1878, he issued an encyclical to all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, in which he required of them that they should earnestly entreat the mediation of the "immaculate queen of heaven" and the intercession of St. Joseph, "the heavenly s.h.i.+eld of the church," and also failed not to make prominent the infallibility of the apostolic chair, and to condemn all the errors condemned by his predecessors, emphasizing the necessity of restoring the temporal power of the pope, and confirming and renewing all the protests of his predecessor Pius IX., of sacred memory, against the overthrow of the Papal States. On the first anniversary of his elevation he proclaimed a universal jubilee, with the promise of a complete indulgence. He still persisted in the prison myth of his predecessor, and like him sent back the profferred contribution of his "jailor." In the conflicts with foreign powers inherited from Pius, as well as in his own, he has employed generally moderate and conciliatory language.-He has not hesitated to take the first step toward a good understanding with his opponents, for which, while persistently maintaining the ancient principles of the papal chair, he makes certain concessions in regard to subordinate matters, always with the design and expectation of seeing them outweighed on the other side by the conservation of all the other hierarchical pretensions of the curial system. It was, however, only in the middle of A.D. 1885 that it became evident that the pope had determined, without allowing any misunderstanding to arise between himself and his cardinals, to break through the trammels of the irreconcilable zealots in the college. And indeed after the conclusion of the German _Kulturkampf_ (-- 197, 13, 15), brought about by these means, in an allocution with reference thereto addressed to the cardinals in May, 1887, he gave an unexpected expression to his wish and longing in regard to an understanding with the government on the Italian question, which involved an utter renunciation of his predecessor's dogged _Non possumus_, the att.i.tude hitherto unfalteringly maintained. "Would that peaceful counsels," says he, "embracing all our peoples should prevail in Italy also, and that at last once that unhappy difference might be overcome without loss of privilege to the holy see!"

Such harmony, indeed, is only possible when the pope "is subjected to no authority and enjoys perfect freedom," which would cause no loss to Italy, "but would only secure its lasting peace and safety." That he counts upon the good offices of the German emperor for the effecting of this longed-for restoration of such a _modus vivendi_ with the Italian government, he has clearly indicated in his preliminary communications to the Prussian centre exhorting to peace (-- 197, 14). The _Moniteur de Rome_ (-- 188, 1), however, interpreted the words of the pope thus: "Italy would lose nothing materially or politically, if it gave a small corner of its territory to the pope, where he might enjoy actual sovereignty as a guarantee of his spiritual independence."-On Leo's contributions to theological science see -- 191, 12; on his att.i.tude to Protestantism and the Eastern Church, see -- 175, 2, 4. He expressed himself against the freemasons in an encyclical of A.D. 1884 with even greater severity than Pius. Consequently the Roman Inquisition issued an instruction to all bishops throughout the Catholic world requiring them to enjoin their clergy in the pulpit and the confessional to make it known that all freemasons are _eo ipso_ excommunicated, and by Catholic a.s.sociations of every sort, especially by the spread of the third order of St. Francis (-- 186, 2), the injunction was carried out. At the same time a year's reprieve was given to the freemasons, during which the Roman heresy laws, which required their children, wives, and relatives to denounce them to all clergy and laymen, were to be suspended. Should the guilty, however, allow this day of grace to pa.s.s, these laws were to be again fully enforced, and then it would be only for the pope to absolve them from their terrible sin.

-- 186. Various Orders and a.s.sociations.

The order of the Jesuits restored in A.D. 1814 by Pius VII. impregnated all other orders with its spirit, gained commanding influence over Pius IX., made the bishops its agents, and turned the whole Catholic church into a Jesuit inst.i.tution. An immense number of societies arose aiming at the accomplishment of home mission work, inspired by the Jesuit spirit and carrying out unquestioningly the ultramontane ideas of their leaders. Also zeal for foreign missions on old Jesuit lines revived, and the enthusiasm for martyrdom was due mainly to the same cause.

1. _The Society of Jesus and Related Orders._-After the suppression of their order by Clement XIV. the Jesuits found refuge mainly among the _Redemptorists_ (-- 165, 2), whose headquarters were at Vienna, from which they spread through Austria and Bavaria, finding entrance also into Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Holland, and after 1848 into Catholic Prussia, as well as into Hesse and Na.s.sau. The _Congregation of the Sacred Heart_ was founded by ex-Jesuits in Belgium in A.D. 1794, and soon spread in Austria and Bavaria.-The _restored Jesuit order_ was met with a storm of opposition from the liberals. The July revolution of A.D. 1830 drove the Jesuits from France, and when they sought to re-establish themselves, Gregory XVI., under pressure of the government, insisted that their general should abolish the French inst.i.tutions in A.D. 1845. An important branch of the order had settled in Catholic Switzerland, but the unfavourable issue of the Separated Cantons' War of 1847 drove its members out of that refuge. The revolution of 1848 threatened the order with extinction, but the papal restoration of A.D. 1850 re-introduced it into most Catholic countries. Since then the sons of Loyola have renewed their youth like the eagle. They have forced their way into all lands, even in those on both sides of the ocean that had by legislative enactments been closed against them, spreading ultramontane views among Catholics, converting Protestants, and disseminating their principles in schools and colleges. Even Pius IX., under whose auspices Aug. Theiner had been allowed, in A.D. 1853, in his "History of the Pontificate of Clement XIV."

to bring against them the heavy artillery drawn from "the secret archives of the Vatican," again handed over to them the management of public instruction, and surrendered himself even more and more to their influence, so that at last he saw only by their eyes, heard only with their ears, and resolved only according to their will.(100) The founding of the Italian kingdom under the Prince of Sardinia in A.D. 1860 led to their expulsion from all Italy, with the exception of Venice and the remnants of the Papal States. When, in A.D. 1866, Venice also became an Italian province, they migrated thence into the Tyrol and other Austrian provinces, where they enjoyed the blessings of the concordat (-- 198, 2).

Spain, too, on the expulsion of Queen Isabella in A.D. 1868, and even Mexico and several of the States of Central and Southern America, drove out the disciples of Loyola. On the other hand, they made brilliant progress in Germany, especially in Rhenish Hesse and the Catholic provinces of Prussia. But under the new German empire the Reichstag, in A.D. 1872, pa.s.sed a law suppressing the Jesuits and all similar orders throughout the empire (-- 197, 4). They were also formally expelled from France in A.D. 1880 (-- 203, 6). Still, however, in A.D. 1881 the order numbered 11,000 members in five provinces, and according to Bismarck's calculation in A.D. 1872 their property amounted to 280 million thalers.

In A.D. 1853 John Beckx of Belgium was made general. He retired in A.D.

1881 at the age of ninety, Anderlady, a Swiss, having been appointed in A.D. 1883 his colleague and successor.-The hope which was at first widely entertained that Leo XIII. would emanc.i.p.ate himself from the domination of the order seems more and more to be proved a vain delusion. In July, 1886, he issued, on the occasion of a new edition of the inst.i.tutions of the order, a letter to Anderlady, in which he, in the most extravagant manner, speaks of the order as having performed the most signal services "to the church and society," and confirms anew everything that his predecessors had said and done in its favour, while expressly and formally he recalls anew anything that any of them had said and done against it.

2. _Other Orders and Congregations._-After the storms of the revolution religious orders rapidly recovered lost ground. France decreed, on November 2nd, 1789, the abolition of all orders, and cloisters and in 1802, under Napoleon's auspices, they were also suppressed in the German empire and the friendly princes indemnified with their goods. Yet on grounds of utility Napoleon restored the Lazarists, as well as the Sisters of Mercy, whose scattered remnants he collected in A.D. 1807 in Paris into a general chapter, under the presidency of the empress-mother. But new cloisters in great numbers were erected specially in Belgium and France (in opposition to the law of 1789, which was unrepealed), in Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Rhenish Hesse, etc., as also in England and America. In 1849 there were in Prussia fifty monastic inst.i.tutes; in 1872 there were 967. In Cologne one in every 215, in Aachen one in every 110, in Munster one in every sixty-one, in Paderborn one in every thirty-three, was a Catholic priest or member of an order. In Bavaria, between 1831 and 1873 the number of cloisters rose from 43 to 628, all, with the exception of some old Benedictine monasteries, inspired and dominated by the Jesuits.

Even the Dominicans, originally such determined opponents, are now pervaded by the Jesuit spirit. The restoration of the _Trappist order_ (-- 156, 8) deserves special mention. On their expulsion from La Trappe in A.D. 1791 the brothers found an asylum in the Canton Freiburg, and when driven thence by the French invasion of A.D. 1798, Paul I. obtained from the czar permission for them to settle in White Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. But expelled from these regions again in A.D. 1800 they wandered through Europe and America, till after Napoleon's defeat they purchased back the monastery of La Trappe, and made it the centre of a group of new settlements throughout France and beyond it.-Besides regular orders there were also numerous _congregations_ or religious societies with communal life according to a definite but not perpetually binding rule, and without the obligation of seclusion, as well as _brotherhoods_ and _sisterhoods_ without any such rule, which after the restoration of A.D. 1814 in France and after A.D. 1848 in Germany, were formed for the purposes of prayer, charity, education, and such like. From France many of these spread into the Rhine Provinces and Westphalia.-In Spain and Portugal (-- 205, 1, 5) all orders were repeatedly abolished, subsequently also in Sardinia and even in all Italy (-- 204, 1, 2), and also in several Romish American states (-- 209, 1, 2), as also in Prussia and Hesse (-- 197, 8, 15). Finally the third French Republic has enforced existing laws against all orders and congregations not authorized by the State (-- 206, 6).-On the 700th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis, in September, 1882, Leo XIII. issued an encyclical declaring the inst.i.tute of the Franciscan Tertiaries (-- 98, 11) alone capable of saving human society from all the political and social dangers of the present and future, which had some success at least in Italy.

Of what inhuman barbarity the superiors of cloisters are still capable is shown _instar omnium_ in the horrible treatment of the nun _Barbara Ubryk_, who, avowedly on account of a breach of her vow of chast.i.ty, was confined since A.D. 1848 in the cloister of the Carmelite nuns at Cracow in a dark, narrow cell beside the sewer of the convent, without fire, bed, chair, or table. It was only in A.D. 1869, in consequence of an anonymous communication to the law officers, that she was freed from her prison in a semi-animal condition, quite naked, starved, and covered with filth, and consigned to an asylum. The populace of Cracow, infuriated at such conduct, could be restrained from demolis.h.i.+ng all the cloisters only by the aid of the military.

3. _The Pius Verein._-A society under the name of the Pius Verein was started at Mainz in October, 1848, to further Catholic interests, advocating the church's independence of the State, the right of the clergy to direct education, etc. At the annual meetings its leading members boasted in grossly exaggerated terms of what had been accomplished and recklessly prophesied of what would yet be achieved. At the twenty-eighth general a.s.sembly at Bonn in A.D. 1881, with an attendance of 1,100, the same confident tone was maintained. Windhorst reminded the Prussian government of the purchase of the Sibylline books, and declared that each case of breaking off negotiations raised the price of the peace. Not a t.i.ttle of the ultramontane claims would be surrendered. The watchword is the complete restoration of the _status quo ante_. Baron von Loe, president of the Canisius Verein, concluded his triumphant speech with the summons to raise the members.h.i.+p of the union from 80,000 to 800,000, yea to 8,000,000; then would the time be near when Germany should become again a Catholic land and the church again the leader of the people. At the a.s.sembly at Dusseldorf in A.D. 1883, Windhorst declared, amid the enthusiastic applause of all present, that after the absolute abrogation of the May laws the centre would not rest till education was again committed unreservedly to the church. In the a.s.sembly at Munster in A.D.

1885, he extolled the pope (notwithstanding all confiscation and imprisoning for the time being) as the governor and lord of the whole world. The thirty-third a.s.sembly at Breslau in A.D. 1886, with special emphasis, demanded the recall of all orders, including that of the Jesuits.

4. _The various German unions_ gradually fell under ultramontane influences. The Borromeo Society circulated Catholic books inculcating ultramontane views in politics and religion. The Boniface Union, founded by Martin, Bishop of Paderborn, aided needy Catholic congregations in Protestant districts. Other unions were devoted to foreign missions, to work among Germans in foreign lands, etc. In all the universities such societies were formed. In Bavaria patriot peasant a.s.sociations were set on foot, as a standing army in the conflict of the ultramontane hierarchy with the new German empire. For the same purpose Bishop Ketteler founded in A.D. 1871 the Mainz Catholic Union, which in A.D. 1814 had 90,000 members. The Gorres Society of 1876 (-- 188, 1) and the Canisius Society of 1879 (-- 151, 1) were meant to promote education on ultramontane lines.-In _Italy_ such societies have striven for the restoration of the temporal power and the supremacy of the church over the State. The unions of _France_ were confederated in A.D. 1870, and this general a.s.sociation holds an annual congress. The several unions were called "_uvres_." The _uvre du Vu National_, _e.g._, had the task of restoring penitent France to the "sacred heart of Jesus" (-- 188, 12); the _uvre Pontifical_ made collections of Peter's pence and for persecuted priests; the _uvre de Jesus-Ouvrier_ had to do with the working cla.s.ses, etc.

5. The knowledge of the omnipotence of _capital_ in these days led to various proposals for turning it to account in the interests of Catholicism. The Catholic Bank schemes of the Belgian Langrand-Dumonceau in 1872 and the Munich bank were pure swindles; and that of Adele Spitzeder 1869-1872, p.r.o.nounced "holy" by the clergy and ultramontane press, collapsed with a deficit of eight and a quarter million florins.-Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati invited church members to avoid risk to bank with him. He invested in land, advanced money for building churches, cloisters, schools, etc., and in A.D. 1878 found himself bankrupt with liabilities amounting to five million dollars. He then offered to resign his office, but the pope refused and gave him a coadjutor, whereupon the archbishop retired into a cloister where he died in his eighty-third year. In the _Union Generale_ of Paris, founded in 1876, which came to a crash in 1882, the French aristocracy, the higher clergy and members of orders lost hundreds of millions of francs.

6. _The Catholic Missions._-The impulse given to Catholic interests after 1848 was seen in the zeal with which missions in Catholic lands, like the Protestant Methodist revival and camp-meetings (-- 208, 1), began to be prosecuted. An attempt was thus made to gather in the ma.s.ses, who had been estranged from the church during the storms of the revolution. The Jesuits and Redemptorists were prominent in this work. In bands of six they visited stations, staying for three weeks, hearing confessions, addressing meetings three times a day, and concluding by a general communion.

7. Besides the Propaganda (-- 156, 9), fourteen societies in Rome, three in Paris, thirty in the whole of Catholic Christendom, are devoted to the dissemination of Catholicism among _Heretics_ and _Heathens_. The Lyons a.s.sociation for the spread of the faith, inst.i.tuted in 1822, has a revenue of from four to six million francs. Specially famous is the _Picpus Society_, so called from the street in Paris where it has its headquarters. Its founder was the deacon Coudrin, a pupil of the seminary for priests at Poictiers broken up in A.D. 1789. Amid the evils done to the church and the priests by the Revolution, in his hiding-place he heard a divine call to found a society for the purpose of training the youth in Catholic principles, educating priests, and bringing the gospel to the heathen "by atoning for excesses, crimes, and sins of all kinds by an unceasing day and night devotion of the most holy sacrament of the altar."

Such a society he actually founded in A.D. 1805, and Pius VII. confirmed it in A.D. 1817. The founder died in A.D. 1837, after his society had spread over all the five continents. Its chief aim henceforth was missions to the heathen. While the Picpus society, as well as the other seminaries and monkish orders, sent forth crowds of missionaries, other societies devoted themselves to collecting money and engaging in prayer. The most important of these is the _Lyonese Society_ for the spread of the faith of A.D. 1822. The member's weekly contribution is 5 cents, the daily prayer-demand a paternoster, an angel greeting, and a "St. Francis Xavier, pray for us." The fanatical journal of the society had a yearly circulation of almost 250,000 copies, in ten European languages. The popes had showered upon its members rich indulgences.-After Protestant missions had received such a powerful impulse in the nineteenth century, the Catholic societies were thereby impelled to force in wherever success had been won and seemed likely to be secured, and wrought with all conceivable jesuitical arts and devices, for the most part under the political protection of France. The Catholic missions have been most zealously and successfully prosecuted in North America, China, India, j.a.pan, and among the schismatic churches of the Levant. Since 1837 they have been advanced by aid of the French navy in the South Seas (-- 184, 7) and in North Africa by the French occupation of Algiers, and most recently in Madagascar. In South Africa they have made no progress.-In A.D. 1837-1839 a b.l.o.o.d.y persecution raged in Tonquin and Cochin China; in A.D. 1866 Christianity was rooted out of Corea, and over 2,000 Christians slain; two years later persecution was renewed in j.a.pan. In China, through the oppressions of the French, the people rose against the Catholics resident there. This movement reached a climax in the rebellion of 1870 at Tientsin, when all French officials, missionaries, and sisters of mercy were put to death, and the French consulate, Catholic churches and mission houses were levelled to the ground. Also in Further India since the French war of A.D.

1883 with Tonquin, over which China claimed rights of suzerainty, the Catholic missions have again suffered, and many missionaries have been martyred.

-- 187. Liberal Catholic Movements.

Alongside of the steady growth of ultramontanism from the time of the restoration of the papacy in A.D. 1814, there arose also a reactionary movement, partly of a mystical-irenical, evangelical-revival and liberal-scientific, and partly of a radical-liberalistic, character. But all the leaders in such movements sooner or later succ.u.mbed before the strictly administered discipline of the hierarchy. The Old Catholic reaction (-- 190), on the other hand, in spite of various disadvantages, still maintains a vigorous existence.

1. _Mystical-Irenical Tendencies._-_J. M. Sailer_, deprived in A.D. 1794 of his office at Dillingen (-- 165, 12), was appointed in A.D. 1799 professor of moral and pastoral theology at Ingolstadt, and was transferred to Landshut in A.D. 1800. There for twenty years his mild and conciliatory as well as profoundly pious mysticism powerfully influenced crowds of students from South Germany and Switzerland. Though the pope refused to confirm his nomination by Maximilian as Bishop of Augsburg in A.D. 1820, he so far cleared himself of the suspicion of mysticism, separatism, and crypto-calvinism, that in A.D. 1829 no opposition was made to his appointment as Bishop of Regensburg. Sailer continued faithful to the Catholic dogmatic, and none of his numerous writings have been put in the Index. Yet he lay under suspicion till his death in A.D. 1832, and this seemed to be justified by the intercourse which he and his disciples had with Protestant pietists. His likeminded scholar, friend, and vicar-general, the Suffragan-bishop _Wittmann_, was designated his successor in Regensburg, but he died before receiving papal confirmation.

Of all his pupils the most distinguished was the Westphalian Baron von _Diepenbrock_, over whose wild, intractable, youthful nature Sailer exercised a magic influence. In A.D. 1823 he was ordained priest, became Sailer's secretary, remaining his confidential companion till his death, was made vicar-general to Sailer's successor in A.D. 1842, and in A.D.

1845 was raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Breslau, where he joined the ultramontanes, and entered with all his heart into the ecclesiastico-political conflicts of the Wurzburg episcopal congress (-- 192, 4). His services were rewarded by a cardinal's hat from Pius IX. in A.D. 1850. His pastoral letters, however, as well as his sermons and private correspondence, show that he never altogether forgot the teaching of his spiritual father. He delighted in the study of the mediaeval mystics, and was specially drawn to the writings of Suso.

2. _Evangelical-Revival Tendencies._-A movement much more evangelical than that of Sailer, having the doctrine of justification by faith alone as its centre, was originated by a simple Bavarian priest, _Martin Boos_, and soon embraced sixty priests in the diocese of Augsburg. The spiritual experiences of Boos were similar to those of Luther. The words of a poor old sick woman brought peace to his soul in A.D. 1790, and led him to the study of Scripture. His preaching among the people and his conversations with the surrounding clergy produced a widespread revival. Amid manifold persecutions, removed from one parish to another, and flying from Bavaria to Austria and thence into Rhenish Prussia, where he died in A.D. 1825 as priest of Sayn, he lighted wherever he went the torch of truth. Even after his conversion Boos believed that he still maintained the Catholic position, but was at last to his own astonishment convinced of the contrary through intercourse with Protestant pietists and the study of Luther's works. But so long as the mother church would keep him he wished not to forsake her.(101) So too felt his like-minded companions _Gossner_ and _Lindl_, who were expelled from Bavaria in A.D. 1829 and settled in St. Petersburg. Lindl, as Provost of South Russia, went to reside in Odessa, where he exercised a powerful influence over Catholics and Protestants and among the higher cla.s.ses of the Russians. The machinations of the Roman Catholic and Greek churches caused both Gossner and Lindl to leave Russia in A.D. 1824. They then joined the evangelical church, Lindl in Barmen and Gossner in Berlin. Lindl drifted more and more into mystico-apocalyptic fanaticism; but Gossner, from A.D. 1829 till his death in A.D. 1858 as pastor of the Bohemian church in Berlin, proved a sincere evangelical and a most successful worker.-The Bavarian priest Lutz of Carlshuld, influenced by Boos, devoted himself to the temporal and spiritual well-being of his people, preached Christ as the saviour of sinners, and exhorted to diligent reading of the Bible. In A.D. 1831, with 600 of his congregation, he joined the Protestant church; but to avoid separation from his beloved people, he returned again after ten months, and most of his flock with him, still retaining his evangelical convictions. He was not, however, restored to office, and subsequently in A.D. 1857, with three Catholic priests of the diocese, he attached himself to the Irvingites, and was with them excommunicated.

3. _Liberal-Scientific Tendencies._-_Von Wessenberg_, as vicar-general of the diocese of Constance introduced such drastic administrative reforms as proved most distasteful to the nuncio of Lucerne and the Romish curia. He also endeavoured unsuccessfully to restore a German national Catholic church. In the retirement of his later years he wrote a history of the church synods of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which gave great offence to the ultramontanes.-_Fr. von Baader_ of Munich expressed himself so strongly against the absolutism of the papal system that the ultramontane minister, Von Abel, suspended his lectures on the philosophy of religion in A.D. 1838. He gave still greater offence by his work on Eastern and Western Catholicism, in which he preferred the former to the latter.(102) The talented _Hirscher_ of Freiburg more interested in what is Christian than what is Roman Catholic, could not be won over to yield party service to the ultramontanes. They persecuted unrelentingly _Leop.

Schmid_, whose theosophical speculation had done so much to restore the prestige of theology at Giessen, and had utterly discredited their pretensions. When his enemies successfully opposed his consecration as Bishop of Mainz in A.D. 1849, he resigned his professors.h.i.+p and joined the philosophical faculty. Goaded on by the venomous attacks of his opponents he advanced to a more extreme position, and finally declared "that he was compelled to renounce the specifically Roman Catholic church so long as she refused to acknowledge the true worth of the gospel."

4. _Radical-Liberalistic Tendencies._-The brothers _Theiner_ of Breslau wrote in A.D. 1828 against the celibacy of the clergy; but subsequently John attached himself to the German-Catholics, and in A.D. 1833 Augustine returned to his allegiance to Rome (-- 191, 7).-During the July Revolution in Paris, the priest Lamennais, formerly a zealous supporter of absolutism, became the enthusiastic apostle of liberalism. His journal _L'Avenir_, A.D. 1830-1832, was the organ of the party, and his _Paroles d'un Croyant_, A.D. 1834, denounced by the pope as unutterably wicked, made an unprecedented sensation. The endeavour, however, to unite elements thoroughly incongruous led to the gradual breaking up of the school, and Lamennais himself approximated more and more to the principles of modern socialism. He died in A.D. 1854. One of his most talented a.s.sociates on the staff of the _Avenir_ was the celebrated pulpit orator _Lacordaire_, A.D. 1802-1861. Upon Gregory's denunciation of the journal in A.D. 1832 Lacordaire submitted to Rome, entered the Dominican order in A.D. 1840, and wrote a life of Dominic in which he eulogised the Inquisition; but his eloquence still attracted crowds to _Notre Dame_. Ultimately he fell completely under the influence of the Jesuits.

5. _Attempts at Reform in Church Government._-In A.D. 1861 _Liverani_, pope's chaplain and apostolic notary, exposed the scandalous mismanagement of Antonelli, the corruption of the sacred college, the demoralization of the Roman clergy, and the ambitious schemes of the Jesuits, recommended the restoration of the holy Roman empire, not indeed to the Germans, but to the Italians: the pope should confer on the king of Italy by divine authority the t.i.tle and privileges of Roman emperor, who, on his part, should undertake as papal mandatory the political administration of the States of the Church. But in A.D. 1873 he sought and obtained papal forgiveness for his errors. The Jesuit _Pa.s.saglia_ expressed enthusiastic approval of the movements of Victor Emanuel and of Cavour's ideal of a "free church in a free state." He was expelled from his order, his book was put into the Index, but the Italian Government appointed him professor of moral philosophy in Turin. At last he retracted all that he had said and written. In the preface to his popular exposition of the gospels of 1874, the Jesuit father _Curci_ urged the advisability of a reconciliation between the Holy See and the Italian government, and expressed his conviction that the Church States would never be restored. That year he addressed the pope in similar terms, and refusing to retract, was expelled his order in A.D. 1877. Leo XIII. by friendly measures sought to move him to recant, but without success. The condemnation of his books led to their wider circulation. In A.D. 1883 he charged the Holy See with the guilt of the unholy schism between church and state; but in the following year he retracted whatever in his writings the pope regarded as opposed to the faith, morals, and discipline of the Catholic church.

6. _Attempts to Found National Catholic Churches._-After the July Revolution of A.D. 1830 the Abbe _Chatel_ of Paris had himself consecrated bishop of a new sect by a new-templar dignitary (-- 210, 1) and became primate of the _French Catholic Church_, whose creed recognised only the law of nature and viewed Christ as a mere man. After various congregations had been formed, it was suppressed by the police in A.D. 1842. The Abbe _Helsen_ of Brussels made a much more earnest endeavour to lead the church of his fatherland from the antichrist to the true Christ. His _Apostolic Catholic Church_ was dissolved in A.D. 1857 and its remnants joined the Protestants. The founding of the _German Catholic Church_ in A.D. 1844 promised to be more enduring. In August of that year, Arnoldi, Bishop of Treves, exhibited the holy coat preserved there, and attracted one and a half millions of pilgrims to Treves (-- 188, 2). A suspended priest, _Ronge_, in a letter to the bishop denounced the wors.h.i.+p of relics, seeking to pose as the Luther of the nineteenth century. _Czerski_ of Posen had in August, 1844, seceded from the Catholic church, and in October founded the "Christian Catholic Apostolic Church," whose creed embodied the negations without the positive beliefs of the Protestant confessions, maintaining in other respects the fundamental articles of the Christian faith. Ronge meanwhile formed congregations in all parts of Germany, excepting Bavaria and Austria. A General a.s.sembly held at Leipzig in March, 1845, brought to light the deplorable religious nihilism of the leaders of the party. Czerski, who refused to abandon the doctrine of Christ's divinity, withdrew from the conference, but Ronge held a triumphal procession through Germany. His hollowness, however, became so apparent that his adherents grew ashamed of their enthusiasm for the new reformer. His congregations began to break up; many withdrew, several of the leaders threw off the mask of religion and adopted the _role_ of political revolutionists. After the settlement that followed the disturbances of A.D. 1848 the remnants of this party disappeared.(103)

7. The inferior clergy of Italy, after the political emanc.i.p.ation of Naples from the Bourbon domination in A.D. 1860, longed for deliverance from clerical tyranny, and founded in A.D. 1862 a society with the object of establis.h.i.+ng a _national Italian church_ independent of the Romish curia. Four Neapolitan churches were put at the disposal of the society by the minister Ricasoli, but in 1865, an agreement having been come to between the curia and the government, the bishops were recalled and the churches restored. Thousands, to save themselves from starvation, gave in their submission, but a small party still remained faithful. Encouraged by the events of 1870 (---- 135, 3; 189, 3), they were able in 1875 to draw up a "dogmatic statement" for the "Church of Italy independent of the Roman hierarchy," which indeed besides the Holy Scriptures admitted the authority of the universal church as infallible custodian and interpreter of revealed truth, but accepted only the first seven c.u.menical councils as binding. In the same year Bishop Turano of Girgenti excommunicated five priests of the Silician town Grotta as opponents of the syllabus and the dogma of infallibility. The whole clergy of the town, numbering twenty-five, then renounced their obedience to the bishop, and with the approval of the inhabitants declared themselves in favour of the "statement." North of Rome this movement made little progress; but in 1875 three villages of the Mantuan diocese claimed the ancient privilege of choosing their own priest, and the bishop and other authorities were obliged to yield. The Neapolitan movement, however, as a whole seems to be losing itself in the sand.

8. _The Frenchman, Charles Loyson_, known by his Carmelite monkish name of _Pere Hyacinthe_, was protected from the Jesuits by Archbishop Darboy when he inveighed against the corruptions of the church, and even Pius IX. on his visit to Rome in 1868 treated him with favour. The general of his order having imposed silence on him, he publicly announced his secession from the order and appeared as a "preacher of the gospel," claiming from a future General Council a sweeping reform of the church, protesting against the falsifying of the gospel of the Son of G.o.d by the Jesuits and the papal syllabus. He was then excommunicated. In A.D. 1871 he joined the German Old Catholics (-- 190, 1); and though he gave offence to them by his marriage, this did not prevent the Old Catholics of Geneva from choosing him as their pastor. But after ten months, because "he sought not the overthrow but the reform of the Catholic church, and reprobated the despotism of the mob as well as that of the clergy, the infallibility of the state as well as that of the pope," he withdrew and returned to Paris, where he endeavoured to establish a French National Church free of Rome and the Pope. The clerical minister Broglie, however, compelled him to restrict himself to moral-religious lectures. In February, 1879, he built a chapel in which he preaches on Sundays and celebrates ma.s.s in the French language. He sought alliance with the Swiss Christian Catholics, whose bishop, Herzog, heartily reciprocated his wishes, and with the Anglican church, which gave a friendly response. But that this "seed corn" of a "Catholic Gallican Church" will ever grow into a fully developed plant was from the very outset rendered more than doubtful by the peculiar nature of the sower, as well as of the seed and the soil.

-- 188. Catholic Ultramontanism.

The restoration of the Jesuit order led, during the long pontificate of Pius IX., to the revival, and hitherto unapproached prosperity of ultramontanism, especially in France, whose bishops cast the Gallican Liberties overboard (---- 156, 3; 203, 1), and in Germany, where with strange infatuation even Protestant princes gave it all manner of encouragement. Even the lower clergy were trained from their youth in hierarchical ideas, and under the despotic rule of their bishops, and a reign of terror carried on by spies and secret courts, were constrained to continue the profession of the strictest absolutism.

1. _The Ultramontane Propaganda._-In _France_ ultramontanism revived with the restoration. Its first and ablest prophet was Count _de Maistre_, A.D.

1754-1821, long Sardinian amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg. He wrote against the modern views of the relations of church and state, supporting the infallibility, absolutism, and inviolability of the pope. He was supported by Bonald, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Lamennais, Lacordaire, and Montalembert. Only Bonald maintained this att.i.tude. Between him and Chateaubriand a dispute arose over the freedom of the press; Lamennais and Lacordaire began to blend political radicalism with their ultramontanism; Lamartine involved himself in the February revolution of 1848 as the apostle of humanity; and Montalembert took up a half-way position. In 1840 Louis _Veuillot_ started the _Univers Religieux_ in place of the _Avenir_, in which, till his death in 1883, he vindicated the extremest ultramontanism.-In _Germany_ ultramontane views were disseminated by romancing historians and poets mostly converts from Protestantism.