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.
Sundays to chant the music of the Mass and Vespers, though their
altar had no priest and no sacrifice.
Father Cheverus, after a few months, was succeeded by Father
Romagné, who for twenty years consecrated every moment and
every thought to the evangelization of the Penobscot and
Passamaquoddy tribes. In July, 1827, Bishop Fenwick visited this
portion of his diocese, and in 1831 sent them a resident missionary.
A beautiful church stood at last in the place of Romagné’s hut, and
two years later Bishop Fenwick, once a father in the Society of
Jesus, erected a monument to Father Râle on the spot where he was
slain a hundred and nine years before. From far and near gathered
the crowd, Protestant as well as Catholic, to witness the ceremony.
The monument stands in a green, secluded spot, a simple shaft of
granite surmounted by a cross, and an inscription in Latin tells the
traveller that there died a faithful priest and servant of the Lord.
Bishop Fenwick became extremely anxious to induce some French
priest to go to that ancient mission, and a year later the Society of
Picpus, in Switzerland, sent out Fathers Demilier and Petithomme to
restore the Franciscan missions in Maine. They conquered the
difficulties of the Abnaki dialect with the aid of a prayer-book which
the bishop had caused to be printed, and in this small and
insignificant mission Father Demilier toiled until his death, in 1843.
The successor of Bishop Fenwick resolved to restore the Abnaki
mission to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, by whom it had been
originally founded. Therefore, since 1848, the Penobscots and
Passamaquoddys have been under the care of the Jesuits, who in
that year sent out from Switzerland Father John Bapst to Old Town,
on the Penobscot—a short distance from Bangor—where he
ministered faithfully to the Abnakis until he nearly lost his life in a
disgraceful Know-Nothing riot in 1854.
As we find ourselves thus at the conclusion of our narration,
incidents crowd upon our memory of the wondrous sacrifices made
by the Catholic clergy in the old missions of Maine; but we are
admonished that our space is limited.
 Little attention, however, has been paid to the fact that to these
Catholic priests alone under God is due the evangelization of the
many Indian tribes which formerly haunted our grand old forests. Of
these tribes, only a few of the Penobscots are left, and these cling
still to the cross as the blessed symbol of the faith first brought to
them, “as a voice crying in the wilderness,” by Fathers Biard and Du
Thet at St. Sauveur in 1613.

PRUSSIA AND THE CHURCH.

The first attempts to introduce the Christian religion into Prussia
were unsuccessful. S. Adalbert, in 997, and S. Bruno, in 1009,
suffered martyrdom whilst preaching the Gospel there, and the
efforts of Poland to force the conquered Prussians to receive the
faith only increased the bitterness of their anti-Christian prejudices.
Early in the XIIth century Bishop Otto, of Bamberg, made many
conversions in Pomerania; and finally, in the beginning of the XIIIth,
the Cistercian monk Christian, with the approval and encouragement
of Pope Innocent III., set to work to convert the Prussians, and met
with such success that in 1215 he was made bishop of the country.
The greater part of the people, however, still remained heathens,
and the progress of Christianity aroused in them such indignation
that they determined to oppose its farther advance with the sword.
To protect his flock Bishop Christian called to his aid the knights of
the Teutonic Order; in furtherance of his designs, the Emperor
Frederic II. turned the whole country over to them, and Pope
Gregory IX. took measures to increase their number, so that they
might be able to hold possession of this field, now first opened to
the Gospel. Pope Innocent IV. also manifested special interest in the
welfare of the church in Prussia; he urged priests and monks to
devote themselves to this mission, supported and encouraged the
bishops in their trials and difficulties, and exhorted the convents
throughout Germany to contribute books for the education of the
people. But circumstances were not wanting which made the
position of the church in Prussia very unsatisfactory. The people had
for the most part been brought under the church’s influence by the
power of arms, and consequently to a great extent remained
strangers to her true spirit. The Teutonic Order, moreover, gave
ecclesiastical positions only to German priests, so as to hold out
inducements to the people to learn German; though, as a
consequence, the priests were unable to communicate with their
flocks, except by the aid of interpreters.
The grand master, too, had almost unlimited control over the
election of bishops, which was the cause of many evils, especially as
the Order gradually grew lax in the observance of the rule, and lost
much of its Christian character. Unworthy men were thrust into
ecclesiastical offices, the standard of morality among the clergy was
lowered, and the people lost respect for the priesthood. It is not
surprising, in view of all this, that the religious sectaries of the XIIIth
and XIVth centuries should have found favor in Prussia, and made
converts among her still half-pagan populations.
In 1466 the Teutonic Order became a dependency of the crown of
Poland. There was no hope of its freeing itself from this humiliating
subjection without foreign aid; and with a view to obtain this, the
knights resolved to choose their grand master from one or other of
the most powerful German families. First, in 1498, they elected
Frederic, Duke of Saxony; and upon his death, in 1510, Albrecht,
Margrave of Brandenburg, was chosen to succeed him.
Albrecht refused the oath of supremacy to Sigismund, King of
Poland, who thereupon, in 1519, declared war upon him.
To meet the expenses of the war, Albrecht had the sacred vessels
of the church melted down and minted; but he was unable to stand
against the arms of Poland, and therefore sought the mediation of
the Emperor of Germany, through whose good offices he was able to
conclude, in 1521, a four years’ truce. He now went into Germany,
where Luther was already preaching the Protestant rebellion, and
asked aid from the Imperial Parliament, which was holding its
sessions at Nuremberg; and as this was denied him, he turned with
favor to the teachers of the new doctrines. The Teutonic Order had
become thoroughly corrupt, and Leo X. urged Albrecht to begin a
reformation in capite et membris; but the grand master sought the
advice of Luther, from whom he received the not unwelcome counsel
to throw away the “stupid, unnatural rule of his Order, take a wife,
and turn Prussia into a temporal hereditary principality.” Albrecht
accordingly asked for preachers of the new doctrines, and in 1526
announced his abandonment of the Order and the Catholic Church
by his marriage with the daughter of the King of Denmark. Acting
upon the Protestant principle, cujus regio illius religio—the ruler of
the land makes its religion—he forced the Prussians to quit the
church from which they had received whatever culture and
civilization they had.
At his death, in 1568, Lutheranism had gained complete
possession of the country.
A few Catholics, however, remained, for whom, early in the XVIIth
century, King Sigismund of Poland succeeded in obtaining liberty of
conscience, which, however, was denied to those of Brandenburg
Frederic William, the second king of Prussia, and the first to form the
design of placing her among the great powers of Europe by the aid
of a strong military organization, in giving directions in 1718 for the
education of his son, afterwards Frederic the Great, insisted that the
boy should be inspired with a horror of the Catholic Church, “the
groundlessness and absurdity of whose teachings should be placed
before his eyes and well impressed upon his mind.”
Frederic William was a rigid Calvinist; and if he tolerated a few
Catholics in his dominions, it was only that he might vent his ill-
humor or exercise his proselytizing zeal upon them. He indeed
granted Father Raymundus Bruns permission to say Mass in the
garrisons at Berlin and Potsdam, but only after he had been assured
that it would tend to prevent desertions among his Catholic soldiers,
and that, as Raymundus was a monk, bound by a vow of poverty, he
would ask no pay from his majesty.
 In 1746 permission was granted the Catholics to hold public
worship in Berlin, and the S. Hedwig’s church was built; in
Pomerania, however, this privilege was denied them, except in the
Polish districts.
During the XVIIIth century congregations were formed at Stettin
and Stralsund. In the principality of Halberstadt the Catholics were
allowed to retain possession of a church and several monasteries, in
which public worship was permitted; and in what had been the
archbishopric of Magdeburg there were left to them one Benedictine
monastery and four convents of Cistercian Nuns. These latter,
however, were placed under the supervision of Protestant ministers.
Frederic the Great early in life fell under the influence of Voltaire
and his disciples, from whom he learned to despise all religion, and
especially the rigid Calvinism of his father. He became a religious
sceptic, and, satisfied with his contempt for all forms of faith, did not
take the trouble to persecute any. He asked of his subjects, whether
Protestant or Catholic, nothing but money and recruits; for the rest,
he allowed every one in his dominions “to save his soul after his own
fashion.” He provided chaplains for his Catholic soldiers, and forbade
the Calvinist and Lutheran ministers to interfere with their religious
freedom, for reasons similar to those which had induced his father to
permit Raymundus Bruns to say Mass in the garrison at Berlin. He
had certainly no thought of showing any favor to the church, except
so far as it might promote his own ambitious projects. His great
need of soldiers made him throw every obstacle in the way of those
who wished to enter the priesthood, and his fear of foreign influence
caused him to forbid priests to leave the country. His mistrust of
priests was so great that he gave instructions to Count Hoym, his
Minister of State, to place them under a system of espionage.
Catholics were carefully excluded from all influential and lucrative
positions. They were taxed more heavily than Protestants, and
professors in the universities were required to take an oath to
uphold the Reformation.
 Notwithstanding, it was in the reign of Frederic the Great that the
Catholic Church in Prussia may be said to have entered upon a new
life. For more than two hundred years it had had no recognized
status there; but through the conquest of Silesia and the division of
Poland, a large Catholic population was incorporated into the
kingdom of Prussia, and thus a new element, which was formally
recognized in the constitution promulgated by Frederic’s immediate
successor, was introduced into the Prussian state. Together with the
toleration of all who believed in God and were loyal to the king, the
law of the land placed the Catholic and Protestant churches on an
equal footing. To understand how far this was favorable to the
church we must go back and consider the relations of Prussia to
Protestantism.
What is known as the Territorial System, by which the faith of the
people is delivered into the hands of the temporal ruler, has existed
in Prussia from the time Albrecht of Brandenburg went over to the
Reformers. Protestantism and absolutism triumphed simultaneously
throughout Europe, and this must undoubtedly be in a great
measure attributed to the fact that the Protestants, whether willingly
or not, yielded up their faith into the keeping of kings and princes,
and thus practically abandoned the distinction of the spiritual and
temporal powers which lies at the foundation of Christian civilization,
and is also the strongest bulwark against the encroachments of
governments upon the rights of citizens. Duke Albrecht had hardly
become a Protestant when he felt that it was his duty (“coacti
sumus” are his words) to take upon himself the episcopal office. This
was in 1530; in 1550 he treated the urgent request of the Assembly
to have the bishopric of Samland restored as an attack upon his
princely prerogative.
His successor diverted to other uses the fund destined for the
maintenance of the bishops, and instituted two consistories, to
which he entrusted the ecclesiastical affairs of the duchy.
During the XVIIth century Calvinism gained a firm foothold in
Prussia. It became the religion of the ruling family, and Frederic
William, called the Great Elector, to whose policy his successors have
agreed to ascribe their greatness, sought in every way to promote
its interests, though he strenuously exercised his jus episcopale, his
spiritual supremacy over both the Lutherans and the Calvinists.
His son, Frederic, who first took the title of King of Prussia (1700),
continued the policy of his father with regard to ecclesiastical affairs.
“To us alone,” he declared to the Landstand, “belongs the jus
supremum episcopale, the highest and sovereign right in
ecclesiastical matters.”
The Lutherans wished to retain the exorcism as a part of the
ceremony of baptism; but Frederic published an edict by which he
forbade the appointment of any minister who would refuse to confer
the sacrament without making use of this ceremony. In the same
way he meddled with the Lutheran practice of auricular confession;
and by an order issued in 1703 prohibited the publication of
theological writings which had not received his imprimatur.
His successor, Frederic William, the father of Frederic the Great,
looked upon himself as the absolute and irresponsible master of the
subjects whom God had given him. “I am king and master,” he was
wont to say, “and can do what I please.” He was a rigid Calvinist,
and made his absolutism felt more especially in religious matters. It
seems that preachers then, as since, were sometimes in the habit of
preaching long sermons; so King Frederic William put a fine of two
thalers upon any one who should preach longer than one hour. He
required his preachers to insist in all their sermons upon the duty of
obedience and loyalty to the king, and the government officials were
charged to report any failure to make special mention of this duty.
Both Lutherans and Calvinists were forbidden to touch in their
sermons upon any points controverted between the two confessions.
No detail of religious worship was insignificant enough to escape his
meddlesome tyranny. The length of the service, the altar, the
vestments of the minister, the sign of the cross, the giving or singing
the blessing, all fell under his “high episcopal supervision.”
 This unlovely old king was followed by Frederic the Great, who,
though an infidel and a scoffer, held as firmly as his father to his
sovereign episcopal prerogatives, and who, if less meddlesome, was
not less arbitrary. And now we have got back to the constitution
which, after Silesia and a part of Poland had been united to the
crown of Prussia, was partially drawn up under Frederic the Great,
and completed and promulgated during the reign of his successor;
and which, as we have already said, placed the three principal
confessions of the Christian faith in the Prussian states—viz., the
Lutheran, the Reformed, and the Catholic—on a footing of equality
before the law. Now, it must be noticed, this constitution left intact
the absolute authority of the king over the Reformed and Lutheran
churches, and therefore what might seem to be a great gain for the
Catholic Church was really none at all, since it was simply placed
under the supreme jurisdiction of the king. There was no express
recognition of the organic union of the church in Prussia with the
pope, nor of the right of the bishops to govern their dioceses
according to the ecclesiastical canons, but rather the tacit
assumption that the king was head of the Catholic as of the
Protestant churches in Prussia. The constitution was drawn up by
Suarez, a bitter enemy of the church, and in many of its details was
characterized by an anti-Catholic spirit. It annulled, for instance, the
contract made by parents of different faith concerning the religious
education of their children, and manifested in many other ways that
petty and tyrannical spirit which has led Prussia to interfere
habitually with the internal discipline and working of the church.
As the Catholic population of Prussia increased through the
annexation of different German states, this constitution, which gave
the king supreme control of spiritual matters, was extended to the
newly-acquired territories. Thus all through the XVIIIth century the
church in Prussia, though not openly persecuted, was fettered. No
progress was made, abuses could not be reformed, the appointment
of bishops was not free, the training of the priesthood was very
imperfect; and it is not surprising that this slavery should have been
productive of many and serious evils.
 The French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, which caused
social and political upheavals throughout Europe, toppled down
thrones, overthrew empires, and broke up and reformed the
boundaries of nations, mark a new epoch in the history of Prussia,
and indeed of all Germany, whose people had been taught by these
disastrous wars that they had common interests which could not be
protected without national unity, the want of which had never before
been made so painfully manifest.
After the downfall of Napoleon, the ambassadors of the Allied
Powers met in Vienna to settle the affairs of all Europe. Nations,
provinces, and cities were given away in the most reckless manner,
without any thought of the interests or wishes of the people, to the
kings and rulers who could command the greatest influence in the
congress or whose displeasure was most feared. Germany
demanded the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine, but was thwarted
in her designs by Great Britain and Russia, who feared the
restoration of her ancient power.
Prussia received from the congress, as some compensation for its
sufferings and sacrifices during the Napoleonic wars, the duchies of
Jülich and Berg, the former possessions of the episcopal sees of
Cologne and Treves, and several other territories, which were
formed into the Rhine province. On the other hand, it lost a portion
of the Sclavonic population which it had held on the east; so that,
though it gained nothing in territory, it became more strictly a
German state, and was consequently better fitted gradually to take
the lead in the irrepressible movement toward the unification of
Germany.
In the Congress of Vienna it was stipulated that Catholics and
Protestants should have equal rights before the law. The
constitutional law of Prussia was extended to the newly-acquired
provinces and “all ecclesiastical matters, whether of Roman Catholics
or of Protestants, together with the supervision and administration
of all charitable funds, the confirming of all persons appointed to
spiritual offices, and the supervision over the administration of
ecclesiastics as far as it may have any relation to civil affairs, were
reserved to the government.”
In 1817, upon the occasion of the reorganization of the
government, we perceive to what practical purposes these principles
were to be applied. The church was debased to a function of the
state, her interests were placed in the hands of the ministry for
spiritual affairs, and the education of even clerical students was put
under the control of government.
It was in this same year, 1817, that the tercentennial anniversary
of the birth of Protestantism was celebrated. For two centuries
Protestant faith in Germany had been dying out. Eager and bitter
controversies, the religious wars and the plunder of church property
during the XVIth and early part of the XVIIth centuries, had given it
an unnatural and artificial vigor. It was a mighty and radical
revolution, social, political, and religious, and therefore gave birth to
fanaticism and intense partisan zeal, and was in turn helped on by
them.
There is a natural strength in a new faith, and when it is tried by
war and persecution it seems to rise to a divine power. Protestantism
burst upon Europe with irresistible force. Fifty years had not passed
since Luther had burned the bull of Pope Leo, and the Catholic
Church, beaten almost everywhere in the North of Europe, seemed
hardly able to hold her own on the shores of the Mediterranean; fifty
years later, and Protestantism was saved in Germany itself only by
the arms of Catholic France. The peace of Westphalia, in 1648, put
an end to the religious wars of Germany, and from that date the
decay of the Protestant faith was rapid. Many causes helped on the
work of ruin; the inherent weakness of the Protestant system from
its purely negative character, the growing and bitter dissensions
among Protestants, the hopeless slavery to which the sects had
been reduced by the civil power, all tended to undermine faith. In
the Palatinate, within a period of sixty years, the rulers had forced
the people to change their religion four times. In Prussia, whose
king, as we have seen, was supreme head of the church, the ruling
house till 1539 was Catholic; then, till 1613, Lutheran; from that
date to 1740, Calvinistic; from 1740 to 1786, infidel, the avowed ally
of Voltaire and D’Alembert; then, till 1817, Calvinistic; and finally
again evangelical.
During the long reign of Frederic the Great unbelief made steady
progress. Men no longer attacked this or that article of faith, but
Christianity itself. The quickest way, it was openly said by many, to
get rid of superstition and priest-craft, would be to abolish preaching
altogether, and thus remove the ghost of religion from the eyes of
the people. It seems strange that such license of thought and
expression should have been tolerated, and even encouraged, in a
country where religion itself has never been free; but it is a
peculiarity of the Prussian system of government that while it
hampers and fetters the church and all religious organizations, it
leaves the widest liberty of conscience to the individual. Its policy
appears to be to foster indifference and infidelity, in order to use
them against what it considers religious fanaticism. Another
circumstance which favored infidelity may be found in the political
thraldom in which Prussia held her people. As men were forbidden to
speak or write on subjects relating to the government or the public
welfare, they took refuge in theological and philosophical
discussions, which in Protestant lands have never failed to lead to
unbelief. This same state of things tended to promote the
introduction and increase of secret societies, which, in the latter half
of the XVIIIth century, sprang up in great numbers throughout
Germany, bearing a hundred different names, but always having
anti-Christian tendencies.
To stop the spread of infidelity, Frederic William II., the successor
of Frederic the Great, issued, in 1788, an “edict, embracing the
constitution of religion in the Prussian states.” The king declared that
he could no longer suffer in his dominions that men should openly
seek to undermine religion, to make the Bible ridiculous in the eyes
of the people, and to raise in public the banner of unbelief, deism,
and naturalism. He would in future permit no farther change in the
creed, whether of the Lutheran or the Reformed Church. This was
the more necessary as he had himself noticed with sorrow, years
before he ascended the throne, that the Protestant ministers allowed
themselves boundless license with regard to the articles of faith, and
indeed altogether rejected several essential parts and fundamental
verities of the Protestant Church and the Christian religion. They
blushed not to revive the long-since-refuted errors of the Socinians,
the deists, and the naturalists, and to scatter them among the
people under the false name of enlightenment (Aufklärung), whilst
they treated God’s Word with disdain, and strove to throw suspicion
upon the mysteries of revelation. Since this was intolerable, he,
therefore, as ruler of the land and only law-giver in his states,
commanded and ordered that in future no clergyman, preacher, or
school-teacher of the Protestant religion should presume, under pain
of perpetual loss of office and of even severer punishment, to
disseminate the errors already named; for, as it was his duty to
preserve intact the law of the land, so was it incumbent upon him to
see that religion should be kept free from taint; and he could not,
consequently, allow its ministers to substitute their whims and
fancies for the truths of Christianity. They must teach what had been
agreed upon in the symbols of faith of the denomination to which
they belonged; to this they were bound by their office and the
contract under which they had received their positions. Nevertheless,
out of his great love for freedom of conscience, the king was willing
that those who were known to disbelieve in the articles of faith
might retain their offices, provided they consented to teach their
flocks what they were themselves unable to believe.
In this royal edict we have at once the fullest confession of the
general unbelief that was destroying Protestantism in Prussia, and of
the hopelessness of any attempt to arrest its progress. What could
be more pitiable than the condition of a church powerless to control
its ministers, and publicly recognizing their right to be hypocrites?
How could men who had no faith teach others to believe? Moreover,
what could be more absurd, from a Protestant point of view, than to
seek to force the acceptance of symbols of faith when the whole
Reformation rested upon the assumed right of the individual to
decide for himself what should or should not be believed? Or was it
to be supposed that men could invest the conflicting creeds of the
sects with a sacredness which they had denied to that of the
universal church? It is not surprising, therefore, that the only effect
of the edict should have been to increase the energy and activity of
the infidels and free-thinkers.
Frederic William III., who ascended the throne in 1797,
recognizing the futility of his father’s attempt to keep alive faith in
Protestantism, stopped the enforcement of the edict, with the
express declaration that its effect had been to lessen religion and
increase hypocrisy. Abandoning all hope of controlling the faith of
the preachers, he turned his attention to their morals. A decree of
the Oberconsistorium of Berlin, in 1798, ordered that the conduct of
the ministers should be closely watched and every means employed
to stop the daily-increasing immorality of the servants of the church,
which was having the most injurious effects upon their
congregations. Parents had almost ceased having their children
baptized, or had them christened in the “name of Frederic the
Great,” or in the “name of the good and the fair,” sometimes with
rose-water.
But the calamities which befell Germany during the wars of the
French Revolution and the empire seemed to have turned the
thoughts of many to religion. The frightful humiliations of the
fatherland were looked upon as a visitation from heaven upon the
people for their sins and unbelief; and therefore, when the
tercentennial anniversary of Protestantism came around (in 1817),
they were prepared to enter upon its celebration with earnest
enthusiasm. The celebration took the form of an anti-Catholic
demonstration. For many years controversy between Protestants and
Catholics had ceased; but now a wholly unprovoked but bitter and
grossly insulting attack was made upon the church from all the
Protestant pulpits of Germany and in numberless writings. The result
of this wanton aggression was a reawakening of Catholic faith and
life; whilst the attempt to take advantage of the Protestant
enthusiasm to bring about a union between the Lutheran and
Reformed churches in Prussia ended in causing fresh dissensions
and divisions. The sect of the Old Lutherans was formed, which, in
spite of persecution, finally succeeded in obtaining toleration, though
not till many of its adherents had been driven across the ocean into
exile.
As the Congress of Vienna had decided that Catholics and
Protestants should be placed upon a footing of equality, and as
Prussia had received a large portion of the secularized lands of the
church, with the stipulation that she should provide for the
maintenance of Catholic worship, the government, in 1816, sent
Niebuhr, the historian, to Rome, to treat with the Pope concerning
the reorganization of the Catholic religion in the Prussian states.
Finally, in 1821, an agreement was signed, which received the
sanction of the king, and was published as a fundamental law of the
state.
In this Concordat with the Holy See there is at least a tacit
recognition of the true nature of the church, of her organic unity—a
beginning of respect for her freedom, and a seeming promise of a
better future. In point of fact, however, in spite of Niebuhr’s
assurance to the Holy Father that he might rely upon the honest
intentions of the government, Prussia began almost at once to
meddle with the rights of Catholics. A silent and slow persecution
was inaugurated, by which it was hoped their patience would be
exhausted and their strength wasted. And now we shall examine
more closely the artful and heartless policy by which, with but slight
variations, for more than two centuries Prussia has sought to
undermine the Catholic religion. In 1827 the Protestants of all
communions in Prussia amounted to 6,370,380, and the Catholics to
4,023,513. These populations are, to only a very limited extent,
intermingled; certain provinces being almost entirely Catholic, and
others nearly wholly Protestant. By law the same rights are granted
to both Catholics and Protestants; and both, therefore, should
receive like treatment at the hands of the government.
 This is the theory; what are the facts? We will take the religious
policy of Prussia from the reorganization of the church after the
Congress of Vienna down to the revolution of 1848, and we will
begin with the subject of education. For the six millions of
Protestants there were four exclusively Protestant universities, at
Berlin, Halle, Königsberg, and Greifswalde; for the four millions of
Catholics there were but two half universities, at Bonn and Breslau,
in each of which there was a double faculty, the one Protestant, the
other Catholic; though the professors in all the faculties, except that
of theology, were for the most part Protestants. Thus, out of six
universities, to the Catholics was left only a little corner in two,
though they were forced to bear nearly one-half of the public
burdens by which all six were supported. But this is not the worst.
The bishops had no voice in the nomination of the professors, not
even those of theology. They were simply asked whether they had
any objections to make, on proof. The candidate might be a
stranger, he might be wholly unfitted to teach theology, he might be
free from open immorality or heresy; and therefore, because the
bishops could prove nothing against him, he was appointed to
instruct the aspirants to the priesthood.
At Breslau a foreign professor was appointed, who began to teach
the most scandalous and heretical doctrines. Complaints were
useless. During many years his pupils drank in the poison, and at
length, after he had done his work of destruction, he was, as in
mockery, removed. Nor is this an isolated instance of the ruin to
Catholic faith wrought by this system. The bishops had hardly any
influence over the education of their clergy, who, young and ignorant
of the world, were thrown almost without restraint into the pagan
corruptions of a German university, in order to acquire a knowledge
of theology. At Cologne a Catholic college was made over to the
Protestants, at Erfurt and Düsseldorf Catholic gymnasia were turned
into mixed establishments with all the professors, save one,
Protestants.
Elementary education was under the control of provincial boards
consisting of a Protestant president and three councillors, one of
whom might be a Catholic in Catholic districts. In the Catholic
provinces of the Rhine and Westphalia, the place of Catholic
councillor was left vacant for several years till the schools were all
reorganized. Indeed, the real superintendent of Catholic elementary
education was generally a Protestant minister.
There was a government Censur for books of religious instruction,
the headquarters of which were in Berlin, but its agents were
scattered throughout all the provinces. All who were employed in
this department, to which even the pastorals of the bishops had to
be submitted before being read to their flocks, were Protestants. The
widest liberty was given to Protestants to attack the church; but
when the Catholics sought to defend themselves, their writings were
suppressed. Professor Freudenfeld was obliged to quit Bonn because
he had spoken of Luther without becoming respect.
Permission to start religious journals was denied to Catholics, but
granted to Protestants; and in the pulpit the priests were put under
strict restraint, while the preachers were given full liberty of speech.
Whenever a community of Protestants was found in a Catholic
district, a church, a clergyman, and a school were immediately
provided for them; indeed, richer provision for the Protestant
worship was made in the Catholic provinces than elsewhere; but
when a congregation of Catholics grew up amongst Protestants, the
government almost invariably rejected their application for
permission to have a place of worship. At various times and places
churches and schools were taken from the Catholics and turned over
to the Protestants; and though Prussia had received an enormous
amount of the confiscated property of the church, she did not
provide for the support of the priests as for that of the ministers.
At court there was not a single Catholic who held office; the heads
of all the departments of government were Protestants; the Post-
Office department, down to the local postmasters, was exclusively
Protestant; all ambassadors and other representatives of the
government, though sent to Catholic courts, were Protestants.
 In Prussia the state is divided into provinces, and at the head of
each province is a high-president (Ober-Präsident). This official, to
whom the religious interests of the Catholics were committed, was
always a Protestant. The provinces are divided into districts, and at
the head of each district was a Protestant president, and almost all
the inferior officers, even in Catholic provinces, were Protestants.
Again, in the courts of justice and in the army all the principal
positions were given to Protestants. In the two corps d’armées of
Prussia and Silesia, one-half was Catholic; in the army division of
Posen, two-thirds; in that of Westphalia and Cleves, three-fifths;
and, finally, in that of the Rhine, seven-eighths; yet there was not
one Catholic field-officer, not a general or major. In 1832 a royal
order was issued to provide for the religious wants of the army, and
every care was taken for the spiritual needs of the Protestant
soldiers; but not even one Catholic chaplain was appointed. All
persons in active service, from superior officers down to private
soldiers, were declared to be members of the military parish, and
were placed under the authority of the Protestant chaplains. If a
Catholic soldier wished to get married or to have his child baptized
by a priest, he had first to obtain the permission of his Protestant
curate. What was still more intolerable, the law regulating military
worship was so contrived as to force the Catholic soldiers to be
present at Protestant service.
Let us now turn to the relations of the church in Prussia with the
Holy See. All direct communications between the Catholics and the
Pope were expressly forbidden. Whenever the bishops wished to
consult the Holy Father concerning the administration of their
dioceses, their inquiries had to pass through the hands of the
Protestant ministry, to be forwarded or not at its discretion, and the
answer of the Pope had to pass through the same channel. It was
not safe to write; for the government had no respect for the mails,
and letters were habitually opened by order of Von Nagler, the
postmaster-general, who boasted that he had never had any idiotic
scruples about such matters; that Prince Constantine was his model,
who had once entertained him with narrating how he had managed
to get the choicest selection of intercepted letters in existence; he
had had them bound in morocco, and they formed thirty-three
volumes of the most interesting reading in his private library. Thus
the church was ruled by a system of espionage and bureaucracy
which hesitated not to violate all the sanctities of life to accomplish
its ends. The bishops were reduced to a state of abject dependence;
not being allowed to publish any new regulation or to make any
appointment without the permission and approval of the Protestant
high-president, from whom they constantly received the most
annoying and vexatious despatches.
The election of bishops was reduced to a mere form. When a see
became vacant, the royal commissary visited the chapter and
announced the person whom the king had selected to fill the office,
declaring at the same time that no other would receive his approval.
The minutest details of Catholic worship were placed under the
supervision and control of Protestant laymen, who had to decide
how much wine and how many hosts might be used during the year
in the different churches.
We come now to a matter, vexed and often discussed, in which
the trials of the church in Prussia, prior to the recent persecutions,
finally culminated; we allude to the subject of marriages between
Catholics and Protestants.
When, in 1803, Prussia got possession of the greater part of her
Catholic provinces, the following order was at once issued: “His
majesty enacts that children born in wedlock shall all be educated in
the religion of the father, and that, in opposition to this law, neither
party shall bind the other.” Apart from the odious meddling of the
state with the rights of individuals and the agreements of parties so
closely and sacredly related as man and wife, there was in this
enactment a special injustice to Catholics, from the fact that nearly
all the mixed marriages in Prussia were contracted by Protestant
government officials and Catholic women of the provinces to which
these agents had been sent. As these men held lucrative offices,
they found no difficulty in making matrimonial alliances; and as the
children had to be brought up in the religion of the father, the
government was by this means gradually establishing Protestant
congregations throughout its Catholic provinces. In 1825 this law
was extended to the Rhenish province, and in 1831 a document was
brought to light which explained the object of the extension—viz.,
that it might prove an effectual measure against the proselyting
system of Catholics.
The condition of the church was indeed deplorable. With the name
of being free, she was, in truth, enslaved; and while the state
professed to respect her rights, it was using all the power of the
most thoroughly organized and most heartless system of
bureaucracy and espionage to weaken and fetter her action, and
even to destroy her life. This was the state of affairs when, in the
end of 1835, Von Droste Vischering, one of the greatest and noblest
men of this century, worthy to be named with Athanasius and with
Ambrose, was made archbishop of Cologne.
The Catholic people of Prussia had long since lost all faith in the
good intentions of the government, of whose acts and aims they had
full knowledge; and it was in order to restore confidence that a man
so trusted and loved by them as Von Droste Vischering was
promoted to the see of Cologne. The doctrines of Hermes, professor
of theology in the University of Bonn, had just been condemned at
Rome, but the government ignored the papal brief, and continued to
give its support to the Hermesians; the archbishop, nevertheless,
condemned their writings, and especially their organ, the Bonner
Theologische Zeitschrift, forbade his students to attend their lectures
at the university, and finally withdrew his approbation altogether
from the Hermesian professors, refusing to ordain students unless
they formally renounced the proscribed doctrines.
By a ministerial order issued in 1825, priests were forbidden,
under pain of deposition from office, to exact in mixed marriages
any promise concerning the education of the offspring. A like penalty
was threatened for refusing to marry parties who were unwilling to
make such promises, or for withholding absolution from those who
were bringing up their children in the Protestant religion. To avert as
far as possible any conflict between the church and the government,
Pius VIII., in 1830, addressed a brief to the bishops of Cologne,
Treves, Münster, and Paderborn, in which he made every allowable
concession to the authority of the state in the matter of mixed
marriages. The court of Berlin withheld the papal brief, and, taking
advantage of the yielding disposition of Archbishop Spiegel of
Cologne, entered, without the knowledge of the Holy See, into a
secret agreement with him, in which still farther concessions were
made, and in violation of Catholic principle. Von Droste Vischering
took as his guide the papal brief, and paid no attention to such
provisions of the secret agreement as conflicted with the instructions
of the Holy Father.
The government took alarm, and offered to let fall the
Hermesians, if the archbishop would yield in the affair of mixed
marriages; and as this expedient failed, measures of violence were
threatened, which were soon carried into effect; for on the evening
of the 20th of November, 1837, the archbishop was secretly arrested
and carried off to the fortress of Minden, where he was placed in
close confinement, all communication with him being cut off. The
next morning the government issued a “Publicandum,” in which it
entered its accusations against the archbishop, in order to justify its
arbitrary act and to appease the anger of the people.
Notwithstanding, a cry of indignation and grief was heard in all the
Catholic provinces of Prussia, which was re-echoed throughout
Germany and extended to all Europe. Lukewarm Catholics grew
fervent, and the very Hermesians gathered with their sympathies to
uphold the cause of the archbishop.
The Archbishop of Posen and the Bishops of Paderborn and
Münster announced their withdrawal from the secret convention,
which the Bishop of Treves had already done upon his death-bed;
and henceforward the priests throughout the kingdom held firm to
the ecclesiastical law on mixed marriages, so that in 1838 Frederic
William III. was forced to make a declaration recognizing the rights
for which they contended. But the Archbishop of Cologne was still a