758 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHUKCH. 



tensity that you may be quickly restored to all the 

 more complete health. 



The gilts from your diocesans which you have 

 forwarded to us forced us to admire their fervent 

 love, but have at the same time occasioned a certain 

 regret because these alms are offered by those who 

 are themselves hemmed in on all sides by severe 

 tribulation. Beceive, therefore, the assurance of the 

 deep gratitude of our heart, you as well as your clergy 

 and your people, on behalf of whom we pray fer- 

 vently to God that He may give them the same, 

 spirit which He has given their pastor, and like per- 

 severance in the hour of peril in which they find 

 themselves. May God grant them and you that un- 

 failing unanimity which annihilates and exhausts all 

 the power of the adversaries, in order thus to pro- 

 vide a fresh victory for the just cause and fresh glory 

 for the Church. Meanwhile, as herald of the grace 

 of God, and in proof of our particular attachment, 

 we pronounce upon you and both your archdioceses 

 our apostolic blessing. 



Given at Eome, at St. Peter's, November 3, 1873, 

 the twenty-eighth of our reign. PIUS P. P. IX. 



On the 24th of November, President Gun- 

 ther cited the archbishop -to resign his epis- 

 copal dignity within a week, or in default 

 thereof to appear before the Eoyal Tribunal 

 of Ecclesiastical Affairs at Berlin. He replied 

 the next day in a spirited letter, denying the 

 competency of the civil power to depose him 

 from a purely ecclesiastical office, or the jus- 

 tice of making the conscientious discharge of 

 his duty a crime against the state. He as well 

 as several other bishops had been repeatedly 

 fined, each act of episcopal jurisdiction being 

 regarded a new offense, but, as the seizure of 

 property had failed to intimidate them, he was 

 now prosecuted for appointing a priest named 

 Anton Arndt to the parish of Felehne without 

 leave of the Government officials. Declining 

 to appear before the Koyal District Court, 

 criminal division, he was condemned to im- 

 prisonment, and on February 3d sent to Os- 

 trowo, a town on the Olabock. The remaining 

 archbishops and bishops then issued a circular 

 letter, in which, looking forward to the possible 

 removal of all the Catholic bishops and priests, 

 they exhort all to fidelity and courage. The 

 Bishop of Treves and the Archbishop of Co- 

 logne were arrested in March, and priests in 

 all parts of the country were imprisoned. On 

 the 15th of April, Archbishop Ledochowski, 

 though actually in prison, was tried before the 

 Ecclesiastical Tribunal in Berlin, condemned 

 for not appearing, and deprived of his see. The 

 Bishop of Paderborn was also imprisoned, re- 

 fusing a subscription made up to pay his fines. 

 A new law, supplemental to the Falk la\v, 

 provided that all church officials who at the di- 

 rection of any bishop, unrecognized by the state, 

 or deposed by the state, or at the direction 

 of any person acting for such bishop, in oppo- 

 sition to the law, shall carry out any ecclesias- 

 tical functions, will be fined one hundred 

 thalers, or undergo a year's imprisonment. 

 And, if, in the fulfillment of such a commission, 

 they shall perform any episcopal duties, they 

 shall be imprisoned from six months to two 

 years. Provision was also made, requiring 

 Catholics to elect new bishops and priests to 



replace any who should be deposed by the 

 state and in default the church property was 

 to be seized. The Catholic chapter of Posen 

 having, on the 19th of June, refused to elect a 

 capitular vicar or recognize the see as vacant, 

 an administration of the diocese was appointed 

 hy government. A Catholic congress met at 

 Mayence in June, but its protests and those of 

 the bishops were disregarded. The Govern- 

 ment even prosecuted and on July 20th pun- 

 ished thirty-six noble ladies who had sent an 

 address of sympathy to the Bishop of Minister. 

 The attempt to assassinate Bismarck tended to 

 make the Government more rigorous, and the 

 police on the 1st of November attempted to 

 arrest a priest while saying mass at Treves. 

 This led to a conflict in the church between the 

 police and the people, in which blood was shed. 

 The movements led, as usually happens, to ac- 

 cessions to the Church assailed, the chief con- 

 vert to the Catholic Church in Germany being 

 the Queen-dowager of Bavaria, in September. 

 Early in the year Austria showed a dispo- 

 sition to adopt an ecclesiastical policy similar 

 to that of Prussia, reviving the theories of 

 Joseph II. This drew from Pius IX. the fol- 

 lowing Encyclical : 



DEAR SONS AND VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH 

 AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION: Scarcely had we, in 

 our letter of November 24th last, announced to the 

 'Catholic world the serious persecution which has 

 been inaugurated against the Church in Prussia and 

 in Switzerland, than a fresh source of anxiety was 

 prepared for us by the news of other acts of injustice) 

 menacing this Church, which may well, like its Di- 

 vine Spouse, utter this complaint, " You have added 

 to the pains of my wounds." These instances give 

 us all the more anxiety as they are committed by 

 the Government of the Austrian peopje, which, in 

 the most glorious period of Christian history, fought 

 so valiantly for the Catholic faith, in the closest al- 

 liance with this Apostolic See. 



It is true that a few years back certain decrees 

 were published in that monarchy which arc diamet- 

 rically opposed to the most sacred rights of the 

 Church and of the treaties solemnly concluded, and 

 which we, conformably with our duty, condemned 

 and declared invalid in our allocution of June 22, 

 1868, addressed to our venerable brothers, the car- 

 dinals of the Holy Eoman Church. But now new laws 

 have been presented for the deliberation and ap- 

 proval of the Eeichsrath, which tend openly to lead 

 the Church into the most pernicious condition of 

 servility, and to place her entirely at the mercy of 

 the secular power, which is contrary to the divine 

 arrangement of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the Cre- 

 ator and Eedeemer of the human race has founded 

 the Church most assuredly, as His visible kingdom 

 upon earth ; He has riot only endowed it with the 

 supernatural gifts of an infallible teaching for the 

 propagation of holy doctrines, with a holy priest- 

 hood for the performance of divine services and the 

 sanctification of souls by the sacrifice and the sacra- 

 ments, but He has also given it full power to create 

 laws and to judge and exercise a salutary constraint 

 in all things relating to the true end of the kingdom 

 of God upon earth. But this supernatural power of 

 ecclesiastical government, based on the teachings of 

 Jesus Christ, is entirely distinct and independent 

 of the secular authority. This kingdom of God on 

 earth is a kingdom of a perfect society which rules 

 and governs itself, according to its own laws and its 

 right, by its own chiefs, who watch over it so as to 

 give an account of souls, not to secular sovereigns, 



