TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PRINCE BISMARCK'S NEW CAMPAIGN.
pRINCE BISMARCK has declared war on the Papacy, and is carrying on the campaign with all his accustomed vigour, and even more than his customary tact. The causes which have induced him to take this grave step in the teeth of so many and such obvious interests are still in part obscure, but we can venture on what will be found, we think, at least a
plausible explanation of his course. The Papacy has startled him, and the instinct of a man of his type when startled is to strike. The men who govern at Rome have, as we have so often contended, lost in losing their old training-schools, the sovereign bishoprics, much of their ancient statecraft, under- estimate the new forces in movement in the world,—as Bismarck in a recent letter warned Antonelli—and are irritated out of their judgments by the loss of the Temporal Power. They hoped that the Hohenzollerns, now at the head of the world, would in the interest of legitimacy undo the work of the Revolution, and if needful by armed intervention restore the Papal dominion, at least within the City of Rome. In return they would have accorded to the new Empire a support, or rather a sanction, which in Bavaria, Poland, Silesia, Rhenish Prussia, and above all Alsace and Lorraine, would have been of the highest value. When, however, the Hohen- zollerns, who are Protestants by instinct as well as conviction, looked coldly on these overtures, the Vatican fell back on more natural allies, directed the faithful to join the Particu- lariste, and organized in the Reichstag an opposition who directed their whole power to dissolve the newly knit bonds which make a Protestant House supreme in Germany. It was openly announced in Parliament that henceforward the Catholic Church in Germany was hostile to the Empire. Moreover, a threat was held out that if the Secular Arm began to oppress or refused to assist the Church, the Church would have nothing left binding her to the Sovereigns, and would be apt to believe that democracy in its extreme forms was more accept- able to Heaven, or rather allowed more scope for the free work- ing of His vicegerent. The Church which sent forth the Mon- astic Orders understands the idea of the Commune somewhat better than its promoters, nor can a theocracy ever be injured by the removal of all powers between itself and the people. This is clearly the meaning of the declaration made by Dr. Ketteler, Archbishop of Mayenco, that the Patrimony must be restored or the Thrones of Europe would perish, and this is the interpreta- tion placed by PrinceBismarck himself upon the spirit of violence recently displayed by the Polish workmen in Silesia. Instead, however, of temporizing and conciliating as, according to the Cologne Gazelle, he was at first expected to do, the Chancellor rebelled, and by a most daring stroke endeavoured to carry the war into the enemy's kingdom.
It is of exceedingly little use, as far as the influence of the Papacy is concerned, to fight it with material weapons. Rome resents deprivations of property or power with a bitterness which, though not opposed to her theory, is somewhat beneath her dignity as a Church certain always of supernatural support, but no such deprivation has ever affected her in- tellectual or spiritual influence. She is stronger in Ireland, where she has not a rood, than in Hungary, where her Primate still overtops Princes ; in Spain, where her estates have been sold by auction, than in Austria, where she is still mistress of magnificent revenues. If she could but win over the people, a very few years of management by a priesthood which never dies, never wastes, and never makes a pecuniary blunder, would very soon replenish her treasuries ; and, to do her more justice than most Protestants will, it is not for wealth, except as an instrument, that she fights. To wound her effectually it is necessary to wound her spiritually, and it is this, unless we mis- read his decrees, that Prince Bismarck, with characteristic bold- ness, is attempting to do. Of course, he cannot excommunicate her, or preach now dogmas, or set up a new Church ; but he can make schism easy, can try if there be not strength enough in the "Orthodox Catholics," as they call themselves, that is the opponents of Infallibility, to set up a separate and, so to speak—though the words involve an absurdity—a Teuton- Catholic Church. He has therefore, as a first blow, declared in Parliament and in his official gazettes that he regards the Ultramontano Church as hostile to the State, has broken off all relation with it "not purely political," and has dissolved the Catholic Department of the Ministry of Public Worship. The effect of this decree, which in another country might be
small, is in Prussia to deprive Catholicism of any place in the great bureaucracy, to leave it without official defenders, to- reduce it to the level of a dissident sect, and to place its affairs, so far as they are considered at all, under the control of a Protestant. This is the view taken of the order by the whole Ultraniontane press, and it has been followed up by a letter from the Minister of Public Worship, Herr Muller, to Dr. Kremenz, Bishop of Ermland, in which he is understood by Catholics to declare that the State will still treat as Catholics any persons in- hibited for rejecting the Infallibility dogma, will decline in the case of all whom it pays to enforce even disciplinary punish- ment, will even—as has since happened, in the case of Father Kraminski, excommunicated by the Bishop of Breslau—restore a. dissident to the possession of his cure. Moreover, ,Prince Bis- marck is actively supporting Dr. Diillinger in Munich, where the Doctor, though excommunicated and, indeed, at the headi of a schism, has just been elected Rector of the University by the votes of 54 Professors to 6, and where it is still doubtful whether Count Bray will not be upset by the Liberal Prince Hohenliffie. Clearly the idea at the bottom of all. these acts, the only one by which we can explain this other- wise needless readiness to arouse powerful foes, is that the mighty Chancellor hopes by withdrawing all State pressure in favour of the Ultramontane cause to see a separatist Catholic Church spring up in Germany into vigorous life.
It is very difficult, indeed impossible, for an outside observer to decide impartially as to the chances of Prince Bismarck's success in this immense attempt to act in a region which one would have supposed to be beyond the sphere of his genius,. but it is possible to describe the forces working for and against him. In the first place, unless the Church should resolve on the desperate step of an alliance with the democracy, which, though not impossible, is unlikely, physical force is
altogether on the Chancellor's side. The Hohenzollerns throughout their history have never yet lost a battle with Rome, and though recent changes diminish, they have not seriously impaired their strength. The Catholics in Germany are not more than a third in number of the Protestants, and even of the former probably not one per cent, could at present be seduced to disloyalty by any pressure whatever, whether it affected this life or that which is to come. Then there can be no doubt, again, that separation has received a certain impulse from the events of the war; that the German Catholic frets, as the English Catholic once fretted, under the sway of a power controlled, inspired, and guided mainly by the Italian brain. A desire for the unity and independence of Germany in all things may very well be prevalent among her people, even Catholics, who never entirely escape the influence of an atmosphere of free thought. That; the curious class of learned men, part professors, part divines, part functionaries of the State, which teaches Catholicism in the. Universities is prepared or half prepared for schism may be, taken to be proved by the Munich example, and is admitted by impartial authorities like Mr. Dalgairns, and their authority is necessarily very great. But on the other hand, the Episcopate is as yet unanimously with Rome, and the Episcopate in a Catholic Church of any sort is a necessity ; the secular clergy are with her, it is believed, in the proportion of eighteen to one, though this is not so certain ; and there is no proof in the hands of foreigners of the opinions of the masses of the laity. The educated cannot build a church by themselves which shall be more than a sect, and we see no reason why a Polish or Bavarian peasant should be greatly moved by the formal proclamation of a dogma which he has always im- plicitly acknowledged, which his priest approves, and which is only condemned by a government he does not accept with all his heart. Of course, if the Wittelsbachs also condemn it, that will make a difference to the Bavarian ; but there is a solid impenetrable mass of convinced Catholicism down there which it will be hard, we should say impossible, to move from the ancient ways. Prince Bismarck knows his people, and may be assured of support as yet unseen, and very fierce religious differences have not prevented German unity ; but if he fails ho will have run an immense risk, that of introducing into his new Empire the element of religious hostility, of creating in Parliament, in Poland, in Bavaria, in all the Latin Courts of Europe, a party which cannot help desiring ill to his great structure. The State of late years has won many battles with the Church, but if it forces the Church, as in Spain, Poland, Scotland, rural Belgium, Ireland, and Naples, to identify itself with the democracy, victory will have been purchased, from the Bismarck point of view, at a tremendous price.
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