The Catholic Church in Politics
By L. A. S.
SPEAKING of the “End of the Anti-Catholic War in Germany,” which has resulted in a complete triumph of the papacy through the direct interference of the Catholic Church in German politics, the New York Sun says:— On March 9 the Bundesrath, or federal council of the German empire, receded from the position which it has hitherto maintained, and assented to the bill previously passed by the Reichstag, repealing the anti-Jesuit clause of the law of July 4, 1872, which prohibited Jesuits from settling in Germany. Thus vanishes the last vestige of the anti-Catholic legislation with which Bismarck, fresh from his triumph over France, expected to assure the supremacy of the civil power throughout the German empire, and to extinguish the spiritual influence of the captive of the Vatican. Bismarck’s anti-Catholic campaign began early in 1872 with the appointment of Dr. Falk to be Prussian minister of public worship and instruction. The Falk laws, which were presently passed by the Prussian Parliament, were framed for the purpose of shutting out Catholic ecclesiastics from educational functions, and thus stifling at its source the influence which they hitherto had exercised on the rising generation in the Catholic provinces and districts of Prussia. The Reichstag and Bundesrath of the German empire were persuaded to supplement this Prussian legislation by imposing similar restrictions on Catholic ecclesiastics in the Reichsland or imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine, and by forbidding members of the Society of Jesus, which of all teaching orders had been most active, to settle anywhere in Germany. For some time these laws, Prussian and imperial, were enforced with the utmost rigor, and the Iron Chancellor repeatedly proclaimed that they would never be relaxed. Recalling the humiliation to which a German emperor had once been subjected at the hands of the papacy, Bismarck declared that he, for his part, would never go to Canossa. All the world knows that Bismarck before his death was forced to go far on the road toward Canossa, and now the empire of which he was leader has gone the remaining distance. Catholic voters throughout Germany united in electing Catholics to the Reichstag, who stood solidly together in support of Catholic church interests. About one hundred such members were elected, constituting what was known in the Reichstag as the Center party. The Sun adds:— As time went on, and Bismarck, renouncing free trade, avowed himself a protectionist, demanded laws of exceptional rigor against the Socialists, and insisted upon septennial appropriations for an enlarged standing army, he found that the support of the Centrists was indispensable to the attainment of his ends. That support he managed to secure, but only by sacrificing piecemeal the anti-Catholic laws which had been enacted in block. One after another, the restrictions imposed upon Catholic ecclesiastics in Alsace-Lorraine and in Prussia itself were abrogated, until, when Dr. Windthorst died, very little of the obnoxious legislation remained upon the statute-books. Still binding, however, was that clause of the imperial law of July 4, 1872, that forbade Jesuits to settle in Germany. The Bundesrath, whose members were elected from districts largely Protestant, for a long time refused assent to the bill, several times passed by the Reichstag, recalling the Jesuits. Finally this last opposition has been overcome, and the triumph of the papacy is complete. And who can doubt that the same policy might under favoring circumstances be successfully carried out in the Congress of the United States, to bring this nation to the feet of Rome? It is the very essence of papal policy everywhere to shape political affairs so as to promote the supremacy of the Church of Rome. Rome knows how to win in the game of politics, but now, as in Luther’s day, she has no power to stand before the Word of God. L. A. S.