EOMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



689 



To our Venerable ^Brethren the Archbishops and bish- 

 ops in Prussia. Pius IX., Pope. 

 VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC 

 BENEDICTION: That which we could never have sup- 

 posed to be possible, when we recall to mind the stipu- 

 lations entered into between this Apostolic See and 

 the Prussian Government, in the twenty-first year of 

 the present century, for the welfare and security of the 

 Catholic cause, has actually oome to pass in the most 

 lamentable manner in your country, my venerable 

 brethren.- To the calm and peace which the Church 

 of God enjoyed among you, has succeeded a severe 

 and unexpected storm. To the laws recently enact- 

 ed against the rights of the Church laws which have 

 already struck so many of her faithful and consci- 

 entious servants, not only among the clergy, but 

 among the people also have been added other laws, 

 which completely overthrow the divine constitution 

 of the Church, and annihilate the sacred rights of 

 her bishops. 



For these laws ascribe to lay judges the power of 

 depriving the bishops and other ecclesiastical dig- 

 nitaries of their dignity, and of their episcopal juris- 

 diction. 



These same laws have raised up numerous and 

 great obstacles in the way of those who have been 

 called to exercise legitimate jurisdiction during the 

 absence of the chief pastors of the flocks. These 

 laws allow the chapters of metropolitan churches to 

 choose, contrary to the canons, the capitulary vicars, 

 even when the episcopal see is not yet vacant. Not 

 to allude to other points, do not these laws authorize 

 the prefects themselves to name, for the office of 

 bishops, men who are not Catholics, while conferring 

 upon them the administration of ecclesiastical prop- 

 erty destined for the maintenance of the clergy and of 

 the churches? You know, unhappily but too well,ven- 

 erable brethren, the prejudice to established rights, 

 the vexations, and the evil treatment which these 

 laws and their execution have occasioned. We will 

 say no more on this subject, in order that we may 

 not increase the general grief in recalling these sad 

 events. 



But -we are unable to keep silence on the afflictions 

 which have befallen the dioceses of Fosen-Gnesen 

 and Paderborn. Our venerable brethren Micislas, 

 Archbishop of Posen and Gnesen, and Conrad, 

 Bishop of Paderborn, after having been thrown into 

 prison and arraigned before the lay courts of law, 

 nave, moreover, with the utmost injustice, been de- 

 posed from their episcopal sees, and deprived of 

 their jurisdiction. Moreover, their dioceses have 

 been robbed of the holy direction of their excellent 

 pastors, and are plunged into an abyss of misery and 

 calamities. Truly, we who recall the words of our 

 Lord, instead of pitying, must rather praise those 

 venerable brethren whom we have just named: 

 " Happy, indeed, shall you be when men shall hate 

 you, when they shall cast you out, speak injuriously 

 of you, and cast out your name as evil, for the sake 

 of the Son of Man." St. Luke vi. 22 : " Blessed shall 

 you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall 

 separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out 

 your name as evil for the Son of Man's sake." 



Those venerable brethren have feared neither the 

 imminent danger, nor the penalties with which these 

 laws threaten them. Not only have they defended 

 the rights of the Church and caused her prescrip- 

 tions to be respected, but they have also esteemed 

 it an honor, like the other pastors of your country, 

 to be the victims of an unjust judgment, and to suf- 

 fer themselves to be visited with penalties reserved 

 only for the guilty. They have thus afforded a most 

 brilliant example of virtue, and are a subject of edi- 

 fication for the whole Church. 



Although brilliant panegyrics are their due rather 

 than tears of compassion, nevertheless the degrada- 

 tion of the episcopal dignity, the blow aimed at the 

 liberty and rights of the Church, the persecutions 

 of which the bishops we have named, as well as all 

 VOL. XT. 44 A 



their brethren, arc the victims, require that we, by 

 virtue of our Apostolic power given by God, raise 

 our accusing voice against these laws, and against 

 the evil deeds they have committed, and are still 

 bent on committing, and that we defend against im- 

 pious force, with our utmost energy and divine au- 

 thority, the liberty of the Church thus trampled 

 under toot. 



In fulfillment of the duties of this Apostolic See. 

 we declare publicly by this present encyclical, to all 

 those whom it may concern, as well as to the whole 

 Catholic world, that these laws are null and void, 

 because they are entirely contrary to the divine con- 

 stitution of the Church. For it is not to the great 

 ones of the earth that the Lord has subjected the 

 bishops of his Church in what relates to his holy 

 service, but to Peter, to whom he has intrusted his 

 lambs and his sheep (St. John xxi. 16, 17). It is for 

 this reason that no temporal power, however exalted 

 it may be, has the right to deprive of their episcopal 

 dignity those who have been nominated by the Holy 

 Spirit to rule in the Church (Acts of the Apostles, 

 xx. 23). s 



To this melancholy posture of aifairs must yet be 

 added the following fact, unworthy of a noble nation, 

 and which, we may believe, will be criticised severe- 

 ly, even by men who are not Catholics, but merely 

 impartial. These laws are excessively severe, and 

 threaten with the heaviest penalties those who do 

 not obey them ; they are violent, and place peaceable 

 and inoffensive citizens in the unfortunate position 

 of men oppressed by force against which they are 

 not able to struggle, solely because their consciences 

 require them to oppose these laws. One would say 

 they were made, not for free citizens, of whom only 

 a reasonable obedience has the right to be exacted, 

 but for slaves who are made to obey by terror. 



After what we have just said, believe not that they 

 are to be excused who through fear obey men rather 

 than God ; but above all will those sacrilegious men 

 be criminal who dare to take possession of the 

 churches and exercise the ministry, depending whol- 

 ly on the protection of the secular arm. These will 

 not escape the justice of God. On the contrary, we 

 pronounce that all these sacrilegious men, and all 

 those who in future shall commit a like crime by 

 usurping an ecclesiastical mission, will be, by virtue 

 of the sacred canons, visited, in fact and of right, 

 with the greater excommunication. We exhort all 

 the pious faithful not to assist at the Holy Sacrifice 

 celebrated by these men, nor to receive the Sacra- 

 ments at their hands, also to avoid their society and 

 conversation, in order that the bad leaven may not 

 spoil the good dough. 



In the midst of these tribulations your intrepidity 

 and your perseverance have brought great consola- 

 tion to our grief. The rest of the clergy and the 

 faithful have imitated you, venerable brethren, in 

 the terrible struggle to which they are committed. 

 Their firmness in maintaining Catholic rights and 

 duties is so noble, the conduct of each is so worthy 

 of all praise, that they have attracted the attention 

 of all, even of those the most remote, and have 

 provoked their admiration. Could it be otherwise ? 

 Great, as is the misfortune of soldiers who have lost 

 their chief, is the glory of the bishop who sets an 

 example of faith to his brethren. 

 . Why cannot we procure you some alleviation in 

 your sufferings! But in renewing and affirming 

 anew your protest against whatever is contrary to 

 the constitution of the Divine Church and her rights, 

 and against the force which has been so unjustly 

 used toward you, we assure you that our counsels 

 and our instructions, adapted to circumstances, shall 

 never fail you. 



Would that those who are your enemies knew that 

 you do no wrong to the royal' authority, and that you 

 prejudice it in no degree when you refuse to give to 

 Caesar that which belongs to God 1 God is to be obeyed 

 rather than men. 



