704 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



not exempted from conscription, but were 

 forced into the army. This called out a letter 

 from Bishop Dupanloup to Signer Minghetti, 

 for which the Pope thanked him in a brief 

 dated March 27th. The Government also con- 

 tinued the sequestration of church property, 

 and in July seized that of the foreign colleges 

 in Rome. The Catholic party organized as far 

 as possible to check the influence of all these 

 movements, and a Catholic Congress met at 

 Bologna, to which the Pope addressed a brief 

 on the 25th of September. 



In the German Empire, especially in Prussia, 

 the penal laws against the Catholics were rigor- 

 ously enforced, and the state claims to juris- 

 diction in spiritual matters were pushed to 

 strange limits. Three priests, at different 



places, were punished by fine and imprison- 

 ment for withholding absolution from penitents 

 in the confessional, and newly-ordained priests 

 were similarly punished for saying their first 

 mass. On one occasion a policeman inter- 

 rupted the mass, seized the consecrated ele- 

 ments from the altar, and carried them to a 

 Government inspector. The Government re- 

 fused to censure this outrage on the religious 

 feelings of its Catholic subjects. The prose- 

 cutions of bishops and clergy continued. Car- 

 dinal Ledochowski was released from prison 

 February 3d, but was forbidden to enter Sile- 

 sia or Posen under penalty of being interned 

 at Torgau. He accordingly proceeded to Rome, 

 whence, September 23d, he issued a formal 

 protest against the law of June 7, 1876. On 



ST. PETER'S CHURCH AND THE VATICAN PALACE, ROME. 



March 8th John Bernard Brinckmann, Bishop 

 of Munster, was deposed by the " Royal Tri- 

 bunal of Ecclesiastical Affairs," on the charge 

 of " having grossly violated his duties as a ser- 

 vant of the Church." The religious communi- 

 ties were steadily broken up, and the personal 

 interposition of the Empress Augusta failed to 

 save an orphan-house of the Sisters of the In- 

 fant Jesus. In some cases of vacancy, Old 

 Catholic priests, by the nomination of patrons, 

 or by an election where Catholics refrained 

 from voting, were appointed and installed by 

 the civil authorities in the Catholic churches. 

 A Prussian law, promulgated June 7, 1876, 

 subjected the church property absolutely to 

 the administration of the civil authorities. 



The closing of all Catholic schools, and the 

 attempts of the Government to adapt the reli- 

 gious instruction of Catholic pupils to suit its 

 own views, raised new opposition from the 

 Catholic bishops and clergy, who were in many 

 parts forbidden by name from giving any ele- 

 mentary religious instruction to the young 

 members of their congregations. Pius IX., in 

 a brief to the Bishop of Paderborn, July 31, 

 1876, says: "We prefer to congratulate you 

 on your fate, rather than condole with you, 

 and that all the more because you not only 

 maintained your dignity and that of your holy 

 office, but that you continue to look after the 

 flock confided to your care. We rejoice that 

 you have gathered manifold fruits from it in 



