ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



693 



cinthe) and two other foreign priests were 

 elected, and installed by Government in the 

 Catholic churches, the regular congregations 

 being compelled to seek other edifices for the 

 purpose of divine worship, so long as their 

 priests were left to them. Mgr. Agnozzi, Pa- 

 pal charge d'affaires, wrote to the Federal 

 Council, protesting against the transfer of St. 

 Germain's Church to the Old Catholics, but 

 this finally led only to the rupture of all rela- 

 tions between the Swiss Government and the 

 Pope. On his side, Bishop Mennillod, on the 

 13th of October, excommunicated M. Loyson 

 and the other elected priests, and warned the 

 Catholics against acknowledging them. 



Five of the cantons, forming the diocese of 

 Basle, Solenre, Berne, Aargen, and Zurich, 

 passed laws similar to those of Geneva. On 

 the 29th of January, the delegates of Basle 

 declared Bishop Lachat, who refused to sub- 

 mit to these laws, deposed from the episco- 

 pacy, and ordered the cathedral chapter to 

 proceed to the election of an administrator, 

 which they refused to do. The bishop was 

 then arrested and exiled, April 16th. The 

 laws were enforced rigorously, and sixty-nine 

 priests in Jura were arrested and taken from 

 tbeir congregations, which were thus left with- 

 out pastors. Besides letters of encouragement 

 to the bishops individually, Pius IX., on the 

 10th of March, addressed a brief to the Vicar- 

 General and priests of the Canton of Geneva, 

 and one on April 7th to the priests of Jura, 



The amendments to the Prussian constitu- 

 tional charter, which were intended to affect 

 the Catholic Church in that kingdom, were not 

 passed without a protest. The following is 

 inserted as giving the Catholic view of the 

 subject : 



Memorandum addrated by the whole Catholic Epitco- 

 pate, of the Kingdom of Pruttia, to hit Majesty't 

 MinMenfraented by the Archbiehope, in the 

 name and by the denre of all the remaining Bish- 

 opi of the Country, on the Wth of January, 1873 : 

 A tew days back, the King's ministers laid before 

 the Parliament the drafts of certain laws which trench 

 most deeply upon the whole internal mode of exist- 

 ence of the Catholic Church, and on her rights ; and 

 the Parliament has been requested to give its consent 

 as soon as possible to these projected laws. 



Apart from the fact that, according to all natural 

 laws and positive jurisprudence, and by immemorial 

 usage, the relations in German countries between 

 the State and the Church can only be ordered legally 

 and to any good purpose by mutual understanding 

 between Doth independent of this, the Prussian 

 bishops had at least a right to expect that some occa- 

 sion would be afforded them of expressing them- 

 selves on the subject of such important projects of 

 laws affecting the Catholic Church, and of making 

 known Catholic principles on the subject. They 

 would then have been in a position to accept certain 

 individual dispositions of the projected laws without 

 a breach of their duty. With regard to other parts 

 of the projected laws, an agreement might have been 

 entered into with the Holy See. But now that these 

 laws, although they affect the whole internal life of 

 the Church, have been introduced by the King's 

 Government, without any reference to the ecclesiasti- 

 cal authorities, and in virtue of the omnipotence 

 which in claimed hy the State ; without, too, any pre- 

 viom understanding and negotiation with the es- 



tablished ecclesiastical organs ; nothing is left to the 

 bishops save to enter their formal ana solemn pro- 

 test against all those dispositions of the said laws 

 which trench upon the natural and fairly-acquired 

 rights of the Catholic Church, and which attack the 

 rights of conscience and of religion belonging to all 

 Catholics. 



_ We permit ourselves to add the following observa- 

 tions touching certain points, but as, in the inevita- 

 ble dispatch which we are constrained to use, these 

 remarks by no means exhaust the subject, we reserve 

 to ourselves the right of giving further explanation 

 on points of law, and on the grounds of what we say. 



According to the Catholic doctrine, which we 

 Catholics hold and believe unconditionally as true, 

 because resting on Divine Revelation, and which we 

 are as certainly justified in believing, as we are in 

 holding that our freedom of conscience cannot be 

 touched : 



According to the nature of things, to natural law, 

 and the laws of reason, according to the historical 

 and justly- won rights of the Catholic Church in Ger- 

 many, and of the Catholic portions of the monarchy, 

 which are not unconditionally incorporated with the 

 kingdom of Prussia, but whose rights to the practice, 

 as in former days, of their religion, and the uphold- 

 ing by the State of their Church were guaranteed to 

 them by the solemn promise of the monarch, by 

 right of the agreements made between the Holy See 

 and the Prussian Crown, or the respective sovereigns 

 of Germany and of the Bulls founded on the same : 



Finally, in virtue and by right of the dispositions 

 of the Prussian Constitutional Charter, guaranteeing 

 this right to the Catholic Church as to the other 

 great Christian confessions, the Catholic Church in 

 Prussia professes the inalienable and unassailable 

 right to subsist in the complete entirety of her doc- 

 trine and code of morals, of her constitution and dis- 

 cipline, and to order and administer her affairs by 

 means of her lawful organs. 



But the very first and most essential right of every 

 Catholic bishop and of every individual Catholic is 

 this: to be a member of that same one Catholic 

 Church, whose supreme Head is the Pope ; and, 

 therefore, to be and to remain in the unity of the 

 faith, and in unhindered living union and communi- 

 cation with the Pope, who according to Catholic doc- 

 trine is, by Divine appointment, the foundation and 

 the supreme pastor of the whole Catholic Church, 

 and all parts of the same. 



The second and no less essential right of every 

 Catholic episcopal see, and of every individual Cath- 

 olic is, to be governed and guided in all religious and 

 ecclesiastical matters by none other than their law- 

 fully appointed ecclesiastical superiors, the bishops, 

 insubordination to the Pope; seeing that the same 

 are, according to our Catholic faith, established by 

 God for the purpose of governing their spiritual sub- 

 jects according to the precepts of Christ, and the 

 laws of the Catholic Church. In according with 

 these a bishop has principally a threefold duty tow- 

 ard his diocese, which duty has been laid upon 

 him by God, and which corresponds to the right 

 also given to him by God of fulfilling this duty 

 freely and without restraint or hinderance : 



1. The duty and the right to proclaim the doctrine 

 and moral code of the Catholic Church, to preserve 

 the same intact, and to administer the Church's 

 means of grace. 



2. The duty and the right to choose, to educate, 

 to send forth, and to induct into the ecclesiastical 

 officcSj in accordance with the laws of the Church, 

 the priests and inferior servants of the Church, who 

 support him in his apostolic office, and act as his 

 helpers and representatives. 



3. To the bishop belongs the right and the duty of 

 admonishing ecclesiastics to fulfill the obligations 

 of their respective offices, and of exhorting the faith- 

 ful to accomplish their duties as Christians, and, 

 should they obstinately refuse to obey the teaching 

 of the Church, her doctrine and her laws, it becomes 



