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    December 17, 1853] THE LEADER. 1217

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    Ultramontanism In Germany. (Second Artic...

    all treaties , obligations , and other inconvenient usages , abolish the Placet , and re-establish the absolute Hegemony of the Holy See . The legal validity of the right of patronage which the Government of jCarlsruhe has asserted over the whole extent of its territory is , besides , recognised by important authorities within the Church itself . Thus , the ecclesiastic who became afterwards Bishop of Mayence ( although reserving , in theory , to the Holy See the right of waiving ail treaties at the

    fitting opportunity ) , nevertheless , declared formally , m a report which is before us , that , speaking within the terms of the recognised legality , the treaty must be interpreted in favour of the Government of Baden . That ecclesiastic said , in so many words : "It was tacitly reserved by the treaty of 1804 that the Government of Baden should appropriate to itself the rights of patronage in the other provinces , also , from the moment when it had extended its rights of sovereignty over those provinces . "

    Against the Curialists who claim an unconditional autonomy , the State in Baden stands , therefore , according to formal legality , on a perfectly legitimate ground . The State has certain rights arM titles , and the Church is legally subordinate to the State . Indeed , the administration of the Catholic Church was always directed in Baden , in the name of the Grand Duke , by a Council subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior , and called , at first , " Section of the Catholic Church , " and later , " Superior Council of the Catholic Church . "

    Since the proclamation of the Constitution ( 1818 ) the Chambers have also legally exercised their share of control by regulating the budget , and by expressing their opinions up m the internal tendencies of the Church . We have given the salient points of the course by which the State in Baden acquired its prerogatives against the Roman Church . We now proceed to add a succinct and summary history of the conflicts between the two . " We are too far removed from the feelings and opinions of either to incur the charge of partiality to the one or to the other .

    After the restoration of the Bourbons m France , and after the re-establishment of the Order of Jesuits by Pius VIL ( 1814 ) , the Papal Church gathered up again the broken threads of its organisation . It sought , in a word , to reintegrate itself in the possession of all the influence it owned before the revolution . To attain that end , the admirers of Ravaillac and of Mariana recommended themselves to the thrones , as allies against the spirit of doubt , of liberty , and of progress . While with one hand they were offering

    this alliance to the thrones , with the other these Escobars held a poniard to destroy the existence of certain states , for the advantage of Catholicismin majorem Jgnatii gloriam . One of those . states which they doomed to dismemberment was the Duchy of Baden , where , by the suppression of important ecclesiastical powers , by a Protestant dynasty , by the influence of France , by the Code Napoleon , by the sub-division of the soil , & c , the Medievalism was seriously endangered .

    At that epoch (" 1814 ) there existed still in Germany very remarkable tracca of certain endeavours alter emancipation , which , in the eighteenth century , had been initiated within the aristocratic spheres of the Catholic Hierarchy . Many bishops still adhered to episcopal tendencies , to Conservative-Liberal principles , to a species of reformed Toryism , expressed ia the ' Punctation of Kins" in 1785 . It was a liberalism almost imperceptible , but which did seern something-, compared with the cadaverous doctrines of the disciples of Laynez and Bobadillu . Two representatives of that cream

    of the mitred liberal aristocracy in Germany woro the Baron de Dalbcrg ( under Napoleon Prince-Primaa of the Ithcinbund ) and the Baron do WiflsSEMiKua , chief of tho Josephinist school , both administering , successively , the dioceses of Baden . Wcssenbcrg , placed on the list of prohibited priests because of his opinions , was not even recognised by the Pope in his episcopal functions , which he occupied in , the teeth of the anathema of the Holy Father . Tho Grand Duke protected him against the thunders of lioiuo , and against the rage of tho 1 ' npal Nuncio at Lucerne .

    It might have baen imagined that the Stnto would find an ally in a priest who had drawn upon himself finch a weight of ecclesiastical wruth , and who was nothing , Have through the grace of a secular power . Not at nil . The Catholic priest , tho most liberal to all sippeanmce , is still Romish enough to be the zealous defender of hierarehinl pretensions . IL may well'be that he has Hinall relish lor the honour of kissing the slipper of an infallible Pope . Hut it by no moans follows that he has nny repugnance to see tlic pro"ine kissing hid own .

    Have we not won the Archbishop of Paris attacked »> y the VcuiHots and the Gauines m fiercely as if he w « pQ tho Director f Jloll incarnate ? Was it not s upposed that this grout Galliean , thin modern

    Bossuet , this admirer of Pagan classicism , would be for ever the irreconcileable enemy of the men of obscurity . Ah ! if it be- a question of opposing the secular power , the most touching accord is reestablished . -The Classicists , who read Homer , Virgil , and Cicero , without thinking themselves condemned to the claws of the f f f , the poor fools who are wretched because " the earth revolves , "—all unite again in concord and harmony . We find the Archbishop of Paris sending succour to his " dear brother of Freiburg , " as readily as the Jesuit Bishop of Posen and Gount Waldburg-Zeil the knight-errant , pf German Loyolism . Ah ! if the thing to bejlone is to subject the State to the Altar , then at once is reared a Latin cross which stretches its arms from the Seine to the Danube and the Vistula , witli the City of the Seven Hills for its base .

    A similar phenomenon was displayed in 1814 . Wessenberg , anathematised by the Chief of Christendom , VVessenberg the Josepliinist , the protege of the Grand Duke , sustained against the Government of Baden a struggle for more than ten j'cars to wrest from the State the rights of patronage which he claimed to belong to the Church . In turning over the documents referring to this contest of 1815 , 1817 , 1821 , 1827 , 1828 , we are struck with the haughty language of a priest who had no other , resources

    than his pride . Certainly , the language of Wessenberg fell short of the insolence of the now living Archbishep of Freiburg . The contest raised by VVessenberg was a petty display of rebellious impudence : he confined himself to a reclamation of specific rights , and alleged some reasons for his demands , while the Archbishop of 1853 plaints himself broadly on the pontificial and canonical ground , declaring f'his surprise that he should be called upon to obey the laws of the State . " ( These are the very words of the Archbishop of Fribourg . )

    But to understand thoroughly the bearing of these relatively unimportant conflicts , which were kept up between the Archiepiscopate and the Government from 1814 till about 1830 , we must for a moment recur to the political events of that epoch . The Grand Duchy was originally formed , under Napoleon , by the agglomeration of the ancient Margraviar , with the provinces formerly belonging to Bavaria and to Austria , and with the territories of some petty , secular , and ecclesiastical governments which were dissolved and mediatised . By this means the Master of the Knights of St . John , the Prince-Abbe de St . Blasien and others lost their rights of

    the middle ages . After the resurrection of the legitimate thrones in 1814 , all those ancient petty sovereigns , all that ci-devant immediate Nbbilitw of the German Empire , all that secularised Clericalism fiierged in a common League with Austro-Bavarian tendencies . Their object was to regain their ancient independence , or at least to give the preponderance to the Catholic Powers , by dissolving the small states *' infected witli Liberalism . " The cement of that League were sonic men affiliated to the vows of that politicoreligious Corporation whoso handle is at Rome , and whose point is everywhere . Austria and Bavaria were to be the saviours of the future . In Austria

    flourished , at that time , the liedetnptorists , a militant order of Jesuitism . In Bavaria the black-robed P . I * , looked forwarJ to a speedy return to the good old times of Charles Theodore , the grand persecutor of the Illuminati , whose Court swarmed with abbes and confessors , with tonsured and frocked crusaders of every hue and cut . The nristoeratico-clerical conspiracy , powerful in the possession of vast Reigneurial lands , influential by its relations with the high circles of Governments , and with the Catholic and legitimate Courts in particular , sought to dismember and divide the Duchy of linden among the Catholic Powers . *

    It was this perilous moment that Wessenberg , the proUUjc of the Government of Baden , chose to create difficulties for the Stnte , by demanding rights which , according to the ecclesiastical authority above cited , belonged exclusively to the State . To reaist the designs of the Papists and the Aristocrats , the Grand Ducal Government did not appeal to public opinion . At that date the country had no constitution ; the people could not make their voice heard . The proclamation of a charter

    would then have sufficed to hold the conspirators in cheek . But the miserable dwarfish dynasty of Baden stuck to its own absolute sovereignty with the desperation of the biggest thoroughbred despot living . It ami Hod the spirit of revolt everywhere ; its terrors were ridiculouH . The reports of its secret police kept strict account of the colour of the houses and of tho shape of handkerchiefs of its subjects , because under the disguises of colour and of form might lurk symbols of Freemasonry ! This is aii-* Hy a Hccrct ; treaty concluded between Austria HJi'l Havana in 1 HM , the 1 ' nlutinato of Uadcn and tho M » i > iaud Taubcrkrvis , belonging to tho Duchy of Jiaricii , w « 'n > to lujwu to tho Crown of ISavaiin . ISmgulurly enough , it . in precisely in tho Timber-ground that the recent troubles v / oro instigated by tho Papists .

    thentic . Kather than trust for support to those classes of the people which professed anti-clerical opinions , the Court of Carlsruhe sought to win over a party from the League- ^ the territorial Seigneurs ( Standes-uud Grundherren ) . There were political and religious measures which conduced to that end . In religion , the Government conferred on the territorial aristocracy the right of presentation to the parishes . It thought by such concessions to detach some members from the League , forgetting , it seems , that these Seigneurs , for the most part Catholics , were but the tools of the higher Roman clergy , and that , consequently , to give them the right of presentation to the parishes , it was holding out the hand to Ultramontanism .

    That furnace of intrigues was not to be extinguished by timid concessions and wavering measures . The Duchy continued to be menaced by the plots of the friends of Austria and Bavaria , in more than one year it was even constantly apprehended that the" Bavarian forces would enter into Baden , and proceed to the dismemberment of the Duchy . It was not the Papists who hail least contributed to provoke Bavaria to these attacks . In the thick of these anxieties about the fate of

    his country and of his throne , bat only upon his bed of death , the Grand Duke Charles resolved at last to proclaim a Constitution ( 1818 ) , one of the first paragraphs of which , directed against the " Austrians " and the " Romanists , " confirms solemn l y the indivisibility and inalienability of the Grand Duchy in all its parts . By this charter the projects of the conspiracy were outwitted . The Constitution strengthened and united ail the provinces of the State , by interesting the whole people in its

    existence . _____ After the people had received through the Constitution the gift of political life , the intriguers of Sacerdotalism in Baden , although still from time to time menacing the very existence of the State , necessarily addressed their attacks rather to the spiritual domain . The Ultramontane leaders , by making themselves the interpreters of the doctrines of Holier and of Gorres sought to gain for " lay coadjutors" some personages in exalted positions . Among the Protestants at the head of the social scale , Crypto-Catholicism , as among the Catholics ,

    Crypto-Jesuitism , made proselytes . In the families of the haute noblesse of the south of Germany , the tutor of the children and the clergyman of the castle were usually in the confidence of the " Blacks . " The political activity of the order is , it is well known , singularly facilitated by the rules of the Society , which permit the members to take no paVt in religious exercises , and not even to observe the most sacred usages of the Church , if they deem it better to abstain . So the Jesuit threw off his scholastic cassock , put his casuistry in his pocket , dressed like a man of the world , affected a taste for Art and Belles Lettres , was conspicuous for savoir

    vivre . By these manoeuvres the Society glided to the steps of the throne , insinuated itself everywhere , made unheard-of efforts to place in the chaira of the colleges and universities professors initiated in the depths of the " Ratio et Institutio studiorum Socie * tatis Jesu . " The peasant was plied by the Propaganda of fly ing-sheets and popular almanacks . The Society eluded the laws of the state by indirect purchase of estates , which it administered by secretly affiliated agents , and enlarged by legacies torn from tho agonies of deathbeds . The young Theologians were attracted to tho Collegium Romanutn of Rome ; a new generation of Papists was reared up .

    All this was done , if not with the connivance ,, at least with the indifference of tho Grand Ducal Gpvernment , and against the openly expressed opinions of the enlightened part of the population . The Government winked at it ; for , after all , it would rather cherish Ultrarilontiinisni than govern according to tho wishes of its subjects . Jts chief endeavour was to get rid of those troublesome paragraphs of a Constitution which it hud granted in tho hour of danger . It even entered—documents from the secret archives of Carlsruhe , opened by the Provisional Government of 1849 attest the fact—it entered into relation with the Absolutist Courts ; it even sent members of the Grand Ducal family to Ht . Petersburg to consult tho highest authority on the best method of getting rid of a Constitution .

    In ' these eHurts it had no other allies than tho brothers of St . Francis Xaviwr , who in 1825 actually tried to . provoke an agitation among the peasants for the abolition of the Constitution .

    These friends of the throne , however , were not too disinterested , ais we shall bo able to prove in a retrospective review of events since 1 B . ' 3 O . IKn-iita in tlio lh-rft arUclo .- -In tho hocoikI ( wlnmii , Hue . "M" in opposition , " road" in support ; " lino HH , " Teutonic . " road ' ( iothio "—In the third column , line 21 , " territory /' rtutd " luUierlutul . " - Une tH , " eleventh eoulury , " read - eighteenth century . " -Line , «•* . " incnpablo of luiposiug renlrlotioiw , " r < md '' incapable of rotustiiiK the rontriolionH which wore imposed . " --I'ino ( SO , " retaining , " read ••** : Htri « tliiK . "j

    December 17, 1853] The Leader. 1217

    December 17 , 1853 ] THE LEADER . 1217

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 17, 1853, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17121853/page/17/