ULTRAMONTANISM FROM AN HISTORICAL POINT OF VIEW. 175 
saints and events was struck out. The service was cleared, as 
ours was in the sixteenth century, of what was regarded as 
superstitious, un historical, heterodox, or doubtful, and in 
Germany and Switzerland, as also in Austria, it was translated 
into the vernacular, and communion in both kinds was, for the 
present at least, permitted, though not enjoined. These changes, 
necessary as they were to the future growth of the Old Catholic 
body, were vehemently resisted by a section of it, and as an 
instance of the difficulties involved in such forward steps, it 
may be mentioned that the Abbe Deramey, who presided over an 
enthusiastic congregation of 1,500 souls at Porrentruy (or 
Pruntrut) in the Bernese Jura, positively refused to accept the 
changes, left his cure, and Porrentruy has been lost to the 
movement ever since. The movement received a still more 
serious check in 1878. The laity, in view of the frequent 
scandals resulting from the rule requiring all clergy to be 
celibates,* insisted that this rule should be abolished. The 
Bishops, afraid of the consequences, resisted the proposal. 
Dollinger energetically pronounced against it. But in Germany 
the proposition was carried by 19 clergy to 6, by 56 lay 
delegates to 16. The immediate effect was disastrous. 
Dollinger protested, and his protest was supported by the 
learned and excellent Professors Friedrich and Beusch. The 
former declared that the infant church had at one stroke 
alienated the vast majority of the devout women throughout all 
Europe. The Dutch community threatened excommunication, 
though the threat was never carried into effect. What was 
worse, the number of congregations in Baden sunk at once from 
44 to 36. The number of souls in Prussia sank from 21,650 to 
18,351, and this decline was progressive in Baden as well as 
Prussia until it was arrested in 1883. In Bavaria, where 
Dollinger’s influence was all powerful, no numbers were reported 
between 1878 and 1883, when they were found to have been 
diminished by one half. 
Yet the brave little band still struggled on. But its history 
since 1878 has been a hidden one. Switzerland and Austria 
ranged themselves by the side of Germany on the celibacy 
question, but apparently without the sinister influence upon 
numbers which was experienced in Germany. The little 
Dutch Church, which had been crystallized and unprogressive 
* The inquirer may be referred, on this delicate subject, to the reports 
of convictions given in La France Noire , by Paul Desachy, pp. 294, 295, 
296, note. 
