Chapter V: Part 5

(M24) Some serious-minded Catholics of Germany, dreading lest a national or schismatical church should come to be established in that country, conceived the happy idea of organizing, under the auspices of Pius IX., associations of laymen, who made it their duty to assist the clergy in everything that could tend to improve morals and education, relieve suffering, and restore the liberty and rights of the church, whilst they studied, at the same time, to impart a spirit of faith to the pursuits of science, the arts, and even the more humble occupations of trade. The chief founder of these associations, Mr. Francis Joseph Busz, has written a book, in which he shows what progress they had already made in 1851, and what it still remained for them to accomplish. They continued to prosper, and gave birth to associations of a like nature. Thus, at Cologne, Abbe Kolping, Vicar of the Cathedral, founded a society of _Catholic Companions_, the object of whose institute was, that they should spend their leisure hours together in a Christian manner, and increase the knowledge suited to their state of life, instead of losing their time, their money and their morals in taverns. By the year 1852, such associations of workmen had taken root in no fewer than twenty-five cities in Germany.

Ever since the Thirty Years’ War, Germany had been distracted by religious divisions. And yet the sectarian spirit does not appear to have been so bitter as in some other countries. There was at least a desire for religious peace and union. This is sufficiently expressed in the articles of the treaty of Westphalia, which seems to have been intended as a temporary arrangement for the pacification of the country, until peace should be permanently established “by the agreement of all parties on points of religion;” “until all controversies should be terminated by an amicable and universal understanding.” “But if, which God forbid! people cannot come to such amicable agreement on the controverted points of religion, that this convention shall, nevertheless, be perpetual, and this peace always continue.” Thus was the great treaty only a preliminary of that lasting peace which can only be finally concluded when all minds and hearts are united in the bonds of a common faith.

Whilst many good men labored to bring about this most desirable end, others, such as Frederic of Prussia, and Joseph II. of Austria, by ill-advised measures, and the countenance which they gave to unsound and even irreligious doctrines, sowed the seeds of anarchy and unbelief, which failed not, in due time, to produce fruit according to their kind, and well-nigh accomplished the overthrow of society as well as that of the Christian Church. The Austrian Emperor appears to have understood the situation, and has generally maintained friendly relations with the Chief Pastor. Germany, besides, has not been without able and pious men, who have nobly sustained the cause of Truth and Union. Among these are particularly deserving of honorable mention the Counts Stolberg, father and son, whose writings have exercised a salutary influence. Whilst many other noble laymen contributed, like them, to the regeneration of their country, others, who were noble only in the ranks of literature and science, vied in their efforts with the learned of noble birth. The elder Gœrres headed the Catholic movement when Prussia so cruelly persecuted the Archbishop of Cologne. So good an example was not lost on the son. The younger Gœrres ceased not to emulate his worthy parent until the day of his death, in 1852. Another distinguished author, who, by his writings, greatly contributed to inform and encourage the Catholics of Germany, was Mr. Francis Joseph Busz, already mentioned in connection with the associations of Pius IX. He was a native of Baden, and an Aulic Counsellor of the Grand Duke. He had also been a member of the great National Parliament, which assembled at Frankfort for the purpose of restoring German unity. The best-known of his works are: _Catholic Association of Germany, and the necessity of reform in the instruction and education of the Catholic secular clergy of Germany_. Some of his remarks may be appropriately quoted, as they throw light on the present (1877-78) state of Germany, and explain in great measure the extraordinary relations between Church and State in the New German Empire: “The year 1848 proved to us Germans that we could not rely on our governments. Both diplomacy and bureaucracy are, and will remain, incorrigible. Our misery is, indeed, great. Dissension prevails among our good citizens; the ill-meaning are united. The Revolutionary War of 1848 and 1849 was a war of principles, but without results. It was repressed, but not exhausted. It keeps alive under the appearances by which it is concealed. The inexhaustible volcano is at work amongst us, not only since 1848, but for three hundred years. The abjuration of law, and even of all principle of right, is only the form or expression; the essence of our malady is the denial of God and His Church. The revolution is apostacy, the disunion of the nation is schism, its anarchy Atheism. Whoever, like myself, has witnessed the public negotiations of Germany, knows full well that the political struggle was, for a long time, and particularly for the last three years, a contest between the religious confessions. Such evolutions of evil possess a certain life, although it be only that which leads to dissolution. They spring one from another, and the new growth is always an improvement on that by which it was preceded. I say it with sorrow. The strife of political parties comes at last to be civil war, which, in its turn, becomes a religious war, and such war soon grows to a war of unbelief against Faith, of antichrist against Christ. The end is not uncertain. Christ will be victorious; for it is appointed that the power of hell shall not prevail.” In such a state of things the first duty of German Catholics is that they be united. It is necessary that the German church should remain in intimate union with the Holy Apostolic See, relinquishing all pretension to be a separate National Church.

The aspiration of our author, so warmly expressed in 1850, that the German Episcopate should, in mind and action, be one body in the nation, acting and suffering together, appears, in these later days, to have been realized. It was also his firm conviction that it behooved them to labor to obtain complete liberty of action for the church, particularly in forming an exemplary clergy, both in the lesser and greater seminaries, as well as in those higher institutions, the German universities. Neither should the laity fail in the fulfilment of all Christian and charitable duties.

(M25) It is well known that, in ancient times, no countries in the world were more Catholic than Spain and and Portugal. The great wealth and power and glory to which they attained was, one would say, a mark of Heaven’s approbation. Wealth, however, is a dangerous possession. In the countries referred to it induced corruption and degeneracy. Principles of anarchy came to be disseminated, devolution on revolution followed. The authority of the Chief Pastor was resisted. The ministers of religion and the religious orders were treated with contempt—were persecuted in lands where they had been so long cherished and revered. The children of a corrupt nobility were sent to govern the provinces and churches of the falling Empire. The result was, it is superfluous to say, the decline of religion—the overthrow of the once flourishing churches of Spain and Portugal. And yet were they not destined to perish wholly. A remnant was left; and it was appointed that this remnant should take root and fructify in a soil which trials and persecution had prepared for a new growth. It was reserved for the age of Pius IX. to behold Spain and Portugal renew their early fervor. They have returned to the centre of Catholic unity; and in both countries arrangements have been entered into for staying the spoliation of ecclesiastical property, appointing learned and edifying bishops to the vacant Sees, restoring seminaries and clerical education. The clergy, who had been infected more or less by the Jansenist heresy, now purified in the crucible of persecution, have resumed the sound doctrines and the heroic virtues of the apostolic men who will ever be the brightest glory of their land—Thomas of Villa-Nova, Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola, Peter of Alcantara, Francis Borgia, St. John of the Cross, and Saint Theresa. The Holy See, with the concurrence of the Spanish Government, has organized anew the churches of Spain. In the consistory of 3rd July, 1848, Pope Pius IX. instituted bishops for the following Sees: Segovia and Calahorra, in Old Castile; Tortosa and Vich, in Catalonia; Porto Rico, in North America; Cuenca and St. Charles de Aucud de Chilœ, in South America. This last-named diocese, at the time of the appointment, was newly erected.

(M26) From the epoch of the “Reformation,” when the ancient Catholic hierarchy of England, which had been so successfully founded by St. Augustine and the disciples of St. Columba, was swept away, until the year 1850, the church was missionary, and governed, as missions usually are, by prefects, who may be arch-priests, or vicars-apostolic, with episcopal titles. Until the year 1625, the English mission was under the guidance of an arch-priest. In that year Pope Gregory II. appointed a vicar-apostolic for all England. Circumstances appearing favorable to the church after the accession of King James II., Pope Innocent XI. placed the English mission under the spiritual charge of four vicars-apostolic, who were bishops, with titles taken from churches, _in partibus infidelium_. The country was, at the same time, divided into four missionary districts—the London, the Eastern, the Midland and the Western. The numbers of Catholics having greatly increased during the early portion of the present century, the Holy Father, Gregory XVI., took into consideration the new requirements that had arisen, by letters apostolical, of date 3rd July, 1840, made a new ecclesiastical division of the English counties, and doubled the number of vicars-apostolic. There were now eight districts under the spiritual jurisdiction of these vicars-apostolic, who governed and were governed by the wise constitutions given to their predecessors by Pope Benedict XIV. Meanwhile, the state of the Catholics of England was rapidly improving. Relieved of so many of their disabilities by the gracious Act of 1829, there were no longer any serious legal impediments to the legitimate development of their church. It grew accordingly, and by the year 1840 had become comparatively flourishing. It possessed many stately churches, eight or ten important colleges, the buildings of which were of a high order of architecture; numerous charitable institutions, each of considerable extent; over six hundred public churches or chapels, and eight hundred clergy. Many of the most ancient families of the land were among its devoted adherents, and it also claimed a not unequal share of the intellect and learning, the literary and scientific distinction of the country. Many of the British colonies had already been favored, and not without the full concurrence of the Imperial government, with that more suitable and normal state of church government, which depends on the institution of bishops in ordinary. Was the Mother Country, the seat of empire, whose church was so much more developed than that of any of the colonies, alone to be deprived of so great an advantage? Were the Catholics of England, who were certainly in no respect behind the rest of their fellow-countrymen, even in an age of light and improvement, to rest satisfied with a primitive state of things, when a broader, a more free, and in every way a more beneficial system of spiritual rule was within their reach? The Chief Pastor was willing to inaugurate such rule, provided that he found, on examination, that it was suited to the spiritual state and religious wants of the Catholic people. There was nothing, besides, in the legislation of the country that could be called an impediment to a new and better condition of ecclesiastical government.

(M27) For some time the Catholics of England had desired that their church should enjoy the advantage of being governed by bishops in ordinary. So early as the year 1834, they petitioned the Holy See to this effect. At that time, however, nothing was concluded. In 1847 the vicars-apostolic assembled in London, and deputed two of their number to bear a petition to the Holy Father, earnestly praying for the long-desired boon. It was craved, not as a mark of triumphant progress, far less as an act of aggression on the law-established church, but simply in order to afford greater facility for the administration of the affairs of the church, and more effectually to promote the edification of the Catholic people. The existing code of government had been adopted about a hundred years before, when heavy penal laws, together with endless disabilities, were in force, and religious liberty was unknown. Part of this code had been repealed by Pope Gregory XVI. But it still tended to embarrass rather than to aid and guide. Since Emancipation, in 1829, the Catholic church had greatly expanded, and the bishops, vicars-apostolic, were in a situation of great difficulty, as they were most anxious to be guarded against arbitrary decisions by fixed rules, whilst as yet none were provided for them. No doubt the system of church government by vicars-apostolic could have been amended and made more suitable to the altered circumstances of the church. But it would have been necessarily complicated, and at best could only have been a temporary arrangement. It was thought expedient, therefore, that the ordinary mode of church government should be extended to the Catholic church in England, in as far as was compatible with its social position. It was, accordingly, necessary that there should be a hierarchy. The canon law could not be applied under vicars-apostolic, nor could provincial synods be held, however necessary their action might be, without a metropolitan and suffragan bishops. The vicars-apostolic petitioned only with a view to improve the internal organization of the church. They had no idea of attacking any other body, and surely never dreamt of rivalry with the established Anglican church. What they did, besides, was perfectly within the law, and according to the rights of liberty of conscience. The Holy Father kindly listened to the petition, and referred it for further consideration to the congregation of Propaganda. When every point was carefully examined, and objections satisfactorily replied to, the favor petitioned for was granted. Difficulties having been started in regard to some matter of detail, the publication of the new code of church administration was delayed. These difficulties were removed the following year by Bishop Ullathorne. But the measure was again retarded by the revolution which broke out at Rome in 1848. The delay was not without its uses. It gave time to the statesmen of England to become acquainted with and consider the measure of reform which was proposed for adoption in the internal organization of the Catholic church in England. It was officially communicated to them when printed, in 1848. They made no objection. And yet, when it was promulgated in 1850, their chief spoke of it, in his ill-timed letter to the Bishop of Durham, as “insolent and insidious.” For many an age to come, Catholics will read with astonishment that so inoffensive an act of the Holy See, done at the request of the Catholic bishops of England, and in the interest of the Catholic people, at the time some seven millions in number, should have excited the anger of so great a portion of the English nation. The isle was literally frighted from its propriety. From the Queen on her throne to the humblest villager, all were seized with sudden and unaccountable fear, as if the monarchy had been threatened with immediate overthrow. The Queen, in terror, called her Council of State around her. But her chief adviser, a weak-minded old man, had very little comfort to bestow. He could only help her Majesty’s bishops to inflame the public mind. In all conscience, they had done quite enough in this direction without his assistance. The spirit of bigotry was enkindled, and the clergy, with their chiefs, gave proof of their bitter hostility through every newspaper of the land. This acrimonious opposition was, however, chiefly confined to the ministers of the church by law established. They believed, or pretended to believe, that the titles and legal rights of their bishops were aimed at, whilst, in reality, care had been taken to avoid offending them, or violating the law, by conferring on the new bishops the titles of the ancient Sees which were held by the established church. It is impossible to mention anything connected with the establishment of the hierarchy which can at all explain the violence of the bishops and clergy generally of the establishment. The popular commotion arose from misconception and the absurd falsehoods that were industriously disseminated. The masses were still raging, when Dr. Wiseman, who had just been raised to the dignity of Cardinal, published an appeal to the people of England, in which he showed that the measure which had occasioned so much disturbance concerned only the internal organization of the Catholic church, that the Pope had not sought such a measure, but had only acceded to it at the earnest request of the bishops, vicars-apostolic of England: that there was nothing connected with it contrary to the laws of the country, or that could not be reconciled with liberty of conscience, which was now so completely and generally recognized. It was as ridiculous as it was illiberal to heap torrents of abuse on the Pope, as if he had sought to usurp the rights of the Crown, or seize on the territory and revenues of the established Anglican church. As for himself, he was reviled because he had received the title of Archbishop of Westminster, whilst, in reality, as regarded the church of that name, and any territory or property connected with it, it was only an empty title. He was to be metropolitan. The title of London was inhibited by law. Southwark was to be itself a diocese. To have taken the title of a subordinate portion of the great metropolis, such as Finsbury or Islington, would only have excited ridicule, and caused the new episcopate to be jeered at. Westminster was naturally selected, although not by himself, as giving an honorable and well-known title. He was glad that it was chosen, not because it was the seat of the courts of law, or of parliament, but because it brought the real point of the controversy more clearly and strikingly before the opponents of the hierarchy. “Have we, in anything, acted contrary to law? And if not, why are we to be blamed?” But he rejoiced, also, for another reason. The chapter of Westminster had been the first to protest against the new archiepiscopal title, as though some practical attempt at jurisdiction within the Abbey had been intended. To this more than absurd charge, the Cardinal eloquently replied: “The diocese, indeed, of Westminster, embraces a large district, but Westminster proper consists of two very different parts. One comprises the stately Abbey, with its adjacent palaces and its royal parks. To this portion the duties and occupations of the dean and chapter are mainly confined, and they shall range there undisturbed. To the venerable old church I may repair, as I have been wont to do. But perhaps the dean and chapter are not aware, that were I disposed to claim more than the right to tread the Catholic pavement of that noble building, and breathe its air of ancient consecration, another might step in with a prior claim. For successive generations there has existed ever, in the Benedictine order, an Abbot of Westminster, the representative in religious dignity of those who erected and beautified and governed that church and cloister. Have they ever been disturbed by this titular? Have they heard of any claim or protest on his part touching their temporalities? Then let them fear no greater aggression now. Like him, I may visit, as I have said, the old Abbey, and say my prayer by the shrine of good St. Edward, and meditate on the olden times, when the church filled without a coronation and multitudes hourly worshipped without a service. But in their temporal rights, or their quiet possession of any dignity and title, they will not suffer. Whenever I go in I will pay my entrance fee, like other liege subjects, and resign myself meekly to the guidance of the beadle, and listen without rebuke when he points out to my admiration detestable monuments, or shows me a hole in the wall for a confessional. Yet this splendid monument, its treasures of art and its fitting endowments, form not the parts of Westminster which will concern me; for there is another part which stands in frightful contrast, though in immediate contact with this magnificence. In ancient times the existence of an abbey in any spot, with a large staff of clergy and ample revenues, would have sufficed to create around it a little paradise of comfort, cheerfulness and ease. This, however, is not now the case. Close under the Abbey of Westminster there lie concealed labyrinths of lanes and courts, and alleys and slums, nests of ignorance, vice, depravity and crime, as well as of squalor, wretchedness and disease; whose atmosphere is typhus, whose ventilation is cholera; in which swarms a huge and almost countless population, in great measure, nominally, at least, Catholic; haunts of filth which no sewerage committee can reach; dark corners which no lighting board can brighten. This is the part of Westminster which alone I covet, and which I shall be glad to claim and to visit, as a blessed pasture in which sheep of Holy Church are to be tended, in which a bishop’s godly work has to be done, of consoling, converting and preserving. And if, as I humbly trust in God, it shall be seen that this special culture, arising from the establishment of our hierarchy, bears fruits of order, peacefulness, decency, religion and virtue, it may be that the Holy See shall not be thought to have acted unwisely, when it bound up the very soul and salvation of a Chief Pastor with those of a city, whereof the name, indeed, is glorious, but the purlieus infamous—in which the very grandeur of its public edifices is as a shadow to screen from the public eye sin and misery the most appalling. If the wealth of the Abbey be stagnant, and not diffusive; if it in no way rescue the neighboring population from the depths in which it is sunk, let there be no jealousy of any one who, by whatever name, is ready to make the latter his care, without interfering with the former.”

In the passage which follows, the established clergy are rather unceremoniously handled; and not undeservedly, for there can be no doubt that their reckless diatribes in the pulpit, on the platform, and in the press, were the chief cause of the unhallowed uproar which attended the publication of the new and much-needed organization of the Catholic church in England. It certainly was not their fault if the country was not disgraced by deeds of violence. In one or two places, indeed, such things were attempted. At a town in the north of England, where there is a Catholic mission, a mob of excited people threatened the chapel and priest’s house. The presence of a counter-mob from a neighboring colliery speedily restored tranquillity. In another town a crowd of the unwashed were proceeding to burn the Pope and Cardinal in effigy, when these august persons were wisely seized by order of the magistrates, and, with some of their unruly escort, secured within the prison walls. Although a few _hired_ ruffians could attempt such things (it is known that those last named were hired), the English people were far from contemplating anything like violence. So it is with no small pleasure that is here recorded the high compliment paid to them in the following eloquent passage of Cardinal Wiseman’s appeal: “I cannot conclude,” he says towards the end, “without one word on the part which the clergy of the Anglican church have acted in the late excitement. Catholics have been their principal theological opponents, and we have carried on our controversies with them temperately, and with every personal consideration. We have had no recourse to popular arts to debase them; we have never attempted, even when the current of public opinion has set against them, to turn it to advantage, by joining in any outcry. They are not our members who yearly call for returns of sinecures or episcopal incomes; they are not our people who form antichurch-and-state associations; it is not our press which sends forth caricatures of ecclesiastical dignitaries, or throws ridicule on clerical avocations. With us the cause of truth and of faith has been held too sacred to be advocated in any but honorable and religious modes. We have avoided the tumult of public assemblies and farthing appeals to the ignorance of the multitude. But no sooner has an opportunity been given for awakening every lurking passion against us than it has been eagerly seized by the ministers of the Establishment. The pulpit and the platform, the church and the town hall, have been equally their field of labor; and speeches have been made and untruths uttered, and calumnies repeated, and flashing words of disdain and anger and hate and contempt, and of every unpriestly and unchristian and unholy sentiment, have been spoken, that could be said against those who almost alone have treated them with respect. And little care was taken at what time or in what circumstances these things were done. If the spark had fallen upon the inflammable materials of a gunpowder-treason mob, and made it explode, or, what was worse, had ignited it, what cared they? If blood had been inflamed and arms uplifted, and the torch in their grasp, and flames had been enkindled, what heeded they? If the persons of those whom consecration makes holy, even according to their own belief, had been seized, like the Austrian general, and ill-treated, and perhaps maimed, or worse, what recked they? These very things were, one and all, pointed at as glorious signs, should they take place, of high and noble Protestant feeling in the land, as proofs of the prevalence of an unpersecuting, a free, inquiring, a tolerant gospel creed!

“Thanks to you, brave and generous and noble-hearted people of England! who would not be stirred up by those whose duty it is to teach you, gentlemen, meekness and forbearance, to support what they call a religious cause, by irreligious means; and would not hunt down, when bidden, your unoffending fellow-citizens, to the hollow cry of ‘No Popery,’ and on the pretence of a fabled aggression.”

The London _Times_ might well say, referring to this magnificent appeal, that the Cardinal had at length spoken English. It was easy to mystify the people in regard to theological utterances. They could be no longer deceived now that the Chief of the new hierarchy had addressed them in round Saxon terms, about the meaning of which there could be no mistake. The _appeal_ first published in the London _Times_ was reproduced in all the newspapers of the country. The public mind was tranquillized, and very little was heard, afterwards, of the “Papal aggression.” The Prime Minister, however, was bound, for the sake of consistency, to do something. What he did was highly in favor of the hierarchy. It proved that everything had been done according to law, simply by the fact that parliament was urged to make a new law by which everything that had been done would be illegal. This was the famous Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. It was designed to accomplish a great deal—to extinguish for ever the Cardinal Archbishop, and all the other newly-instituted bishops. It proved utterly futile—_telum imbelle sine ictu_. The people could not be made to put down the Catholic institution; and religious liberty was so thoroughly recognized that even an act of parliament was powerless against it.

(M28) The new Sees constituted by the Letters Apostolical of 29th September, 1850, were thirteen in number—Westminster, the Metropolitan See; Southwark, Hexham, Beverly, Liverpool, Salford, Shrewsbury, Newport, Clifton, Plymouth, Nottingham, Birmingham and Northampton.

(M29) At the time of the restoration of the English hierarchy, Dr. Wiseman was created a Cardinal, not so much in honor of the important act to which it was his charge to give effect, as because the Holy Father having resolved on a creation of Cardinals so eminent a man could not be overlooked. At the accession of Pius IX. there were sixty-one living Cardinals. Of these only nine were not Italians. When, on his return to Rome, after his sojourn in the kingdom of Naples, he determined to add fourteen Cardinals to the Sacred College, only four of the prelates selected were natives of Italy. The rest were, at the time, the most distinguished men of the Catholic world. Of this number Archbishop Geissel of Cologne was one, and the King of Prussia, more liberal than certain magnates of England, thanked the Holy Father, in an autograph letter, for the honor thus done to the Catholic church of his country. Since that time the Prussian monarch appears to have changed his sentiments as well as his ministry.

(M30) Notwithstanding the noisy demonstrations in opposition to the Cardinal Archbishop and his brother bishops, they were allowed to pursue in peace their labors of Christian zeal. The English grumbled, as is their wont. But discovering in time that they were neither attacked nor hurt, the rights of liberty of conscience were respected, and no persecution followed what it was at first the fashion to call the “Papal aggression.”

(M31) The Emancipation Bill of 1829, by which liberty of conscience, which was so proudly called the birthright of every Englishman, was extended to Catholics, tended powerfully, no doubt, to promote the development of the Catholic church. It grew also by emigration from Catholic Ireland, and there were some conversions occasionally from the Protestant ranks. It was not, however, till the decade immediately preceding the restoration of the hierarchy, that there was a very marked and decided movement of the educated and learned men of England towards the Catholic church. It is not recorded anywhere that Catholic missionaries or envoys of the Pope had penetrated into those sanctuaries of Protestant learning—the celebrated universities of Oxford and Cambridge. There, at least, there was no “Papal aggression,” and tract upon tract was issued from the press of those seats of learning, in which it was argued that the doctrines taught by the Fathers of the first five centuries were the real Christian teaching which all men were bound to accept. It appeared to have escaped the learned men of Cambridge and Oxford that these were the very doctrines so perseveringly adhered to by the long-ignored and down-trodden Catholics of England.

This fact, however, flashed upon their minds at last, and they who were lights in the Anglican establishment, which had been so long surrounded by a halo of worldly glory, and to be connected with which was a sure title to respectability, hesitated not to place themselves in communion with those whose position as a church had been for so many generations like to that of the early Christians who lurked in the catacombs of Rome. The clergy of the Catholic church in England, although they did not and could not have inaugurated the Cambridge and Oxford movement, recognized its importance, and freely seconded what it was beyond their power to initiate. Foremost amongst those who were ever ready to afford comfort and encouragement to the able and inquiring men who sought the one true fold, was the learned ecclesiastic of world-wide renown who, a little later, bore so conspicuous a part in the re-establishment of the sacred hierarchy in England. This highly-gifted divine was a willing worker in the great Master’s field. His labors were beyond even his great powers; and so his career, though brilliant, was comparatively short. The cause which he so well sustained is one which cannot suffer an irreparable loss; and great would be the joy of the pious and devoted Cardinal, so early snatched away, if it were given him to behold the rapid developments of the church which, in his day, he so ably and successfully upheld.

(M32) If the increase of Catholics in England was rapid during the decade which preceded, it was much more so immediately alter the restoration of the hierarchy. This event appears to have given a new impetus to the growth of the church and her salutary institutions. Religious communities multiplied under the fostering care of the Cardinal Archbishop, and the encouragement which the Holy Father never ceased to afford. From 80, at the accession of Pius IX., they rose to 367; and schools and colleges increased from 500 to 1,300. The number of priests in Great Britain was more than trebled. It grew from 820 to 1,968, whilst churches and chapels rose in proportion—from 626 to 1,268. The number of dignitaries and other ministers of the Church of England, by law established, who, within the same period, embraced the Catholic faith, is estimated at over one thousand. There were, at the same time, numerous conversions among the laity. All this, together with the natural growth of population and immigration from Ireland, accounts for the increase of Catholics throughout the British isles in the days of Pius IX., as well as for the great additions to the number of their clergy, churches, religious and educational institutions. Monsignore Capel ascribes these extraordinary developments in great measure to the action of that section of the Church of England which is known as the High Church or Ritualist division of the Establishment. This is true, no doubt, as regards any augmentation of the church through conversions from Protestantism, and the impetus given by the movement towards Catholic union. “It is scarcely possible,” says the Rev. Monsignore Capel, “to find a family in England that will not own that one of its members, or, at least, some acquaintance, has relations with the Catholic church, or observes some of the practices of that church, whether it be adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, auricular confession, devotion to the Blessed Virgin, or veneration of the saints. This movement is of such powerful proportions, and possesses such vitality of action, that no power on earth, no persecution on the part of Protestantism, the government or the press, is able to suppress it. Catholics would never have been able, themselves alone, to realize what is now accomplished by a section of the established Anglican church. The members of this party, by their discourses in the pulpit, have familiarized the public mind with expressions which Catholics never could have spread among the English people to the same extent, such as altar and sacrifice, priest and priesthood, high mass, sacrament, penance, confession, &c. The movement has produced this result. Many persons have become seriously religious, who had been in the habit of considering that the service of God was only a fitting employment for Sunday. In fine, the spirit of God which breathed on the waters at the commencement is now passing over the British nation and impelling it towards Catholic truth.”

Not a few of those who were once distinguished ministers of the Anglican church are now officiating, with great acceptance, as Catholic priests. Of the 264 priests of the diocese of Westminster, there are 40 who were members of the official or law church. There passed not a week, M. Capel assures us, that he did not receive four or five Ritualists into the communion of the Catholic church. This was no fruit of his labor and ability, he modestly as well as truly declares. They were persons with whom he had no relations whatsoever, until they came to him, their minds made up, and expressed that serious determination which is so characteristic of them.

The publications of the celebrated statesman, Mr. Gladstone, although they have not won for him reputation as a theologian, have, nevertheless, promoted the cause of Catholic theology. The opinions of so eminent a man were naturally subjects of general discussion; and thus, whilst he opposed Pius IX. and his decisions, he caused many, who would never probably have thought seriously of anything a Pope could say, to give their attention to matters spiritual of the highest import. As regards his own theology, it is partly sound, partly the reverse. Whilst entirely misapprehending the doctrine of infallibility, and denying what he conceives it to be, he vigorously maintains the indefectibility of the Catholic church, and acknowledges the claim of her pastors to “descent in an unbroken line from Christ and His apostles.” Such is one of the powerful agents in the great movement of the age. The most influential of all, however, was Pope Pius IX. himself. English people and Americans often sought his presence. And who shall tell how many, after having conversed with him or his representatives, have been disabused of their erroneous notions, or have even embraced the Catholic faith?

One chief cause of the remarkable development of the Catholic church in the British isles, is the complete religious liberty which Catholics enjoy. This important fact was thoroughly recognized on occasion of the celebration of the anniversary of O’Connell in August, 1875, when a solemn _Te Deum_ was ordered in all the churches by the Cardinal Archbishop, in thanksgiving for the liberty of conscience which was so gloriously won for the United Kingdom as well as Ireland and all the colonies. Pius IX. and the whole Catholic world joined on the same occasion in acts of thanksgiving with the spiritual heirs of Sts. Patrick, Augustine, Columba and St. Thomas of Canterbury. It is a noteworthy fact that the number of archiepiscopal and episcopal sees, together with vicariates-apostolic, &c., created by Pius IX. throughout the British Empire, is not less than one hundred and twenty-five.

(M33) For three hundred years the Catholics of Holland were sorely tried by persecution. Until the time of the Concordat of 1827, they were governed by archpriests, whose superior or prefect resided at the Hague. When Holland was separated from Belgium, the king of the former country wisely resolved to act as a constitutional monarch. He was considerate as regarded his Catholic subjects. His successor, William II., to whom in 1840 he resigned the crown, treated them with still greater benevolence. He sought an understanding with the Holy See, and gave effect to the Concordat of 1827. Vicars-apostolic, invested with the episcopal character, were now the chief pastors of the church of Holland. The king also sanctioned the establishment of several religious communities, among the rest the Society of Jesuits and the Liguorians. These arrangements were joyfully accepted by the Catholics of Holland, and paved the way for greater developments. These worthy people were, for a long time, believed to be few in number, and scarcely more than nominally Catholics. Relieved, at length, from the pressure of persecution, they astonished the world, not only by their numbers, but also, and even more, by their zeal in the cause of religion. According to the census of 1840, they were nearly one-half of the entire population of Holland. Total population, 2,860,450; Protestants, 1,700,275; Catholics, 1,100,616. The remainder was made up of Jews and other dissenters. Thus were the Catholics of Holland as eleven to seventeen. Since that time they have not ceased to increase. Nor have they lost the high character which induced Pius IX., in 1853, to restore, the king concurring, their long-lost hierarchy. An archbishopric, Utrecht, and four episcopal sees were established—Harlem, Herzogenbosch, or Bois le Due, Breda and Roermonde. This wise and necessary measure was followed by an outburst of wrath on the side of the anti-Catholic party. But in Holland, as in England, it soon subsided, and left only the impression that Protestants and other non-Catholic people claim an exclusive right to religious liberty. Pius IX. never ceased to entertain a high opinion of the good Catholics of Holland. “Ah!” said he to visitors from that country, “could we ever forget that these single-minded, loyal, patient Hollanders formed the majority of our soldiers, who were not native Italians, at Castelfidardo and Mentana.”

(M34) Whilst in the old world, wherever really free political institutions existed, the spirit of persecution quailed before the recognized principle of religious liberty, in certain portions of the new it appeared to gain strength, and to increase in the violence of its opposition to the liberty of the church. This was particularly the case in New Granada, where politicians, without statesmanship or experience, imagined that they had made their people free, when they succeeded in separating them from Spain and establishing a republic, in which the first principles of liberty were ignored. It is not recorded that the clergy of New Granada sought to do violence to any man’s conscience, or ever thought of forcing any one to accept the Catholic creed. To say the least, they were too wise to attempt, thus to fill the church with hypocrites and secret enemies. Of such there were already too many in those societies which shun the light, and in the new world as actively as in the old intrigue and manœuvre in order to overthrow every regular and legitimately established government. Even the republic of New Granada, which had been fashioned so much according to their will, was far from perfect in their estimation, so long as the church was not completely subject to the state. So early as 1847, Pius IX. addressed a fatherly remonstrance to the President of the New Republic. It was of no avail. The evil continued. Anti-Catholic legislation was coolly proceeded with. In 1850 the seminary of Bogota was confiscated. The following year bishops were forbidden the visitation of convents. Laws were enacted requiring that lay parishioners should elect their parish priests, and that canons should be appointed by the provincial councils. The clergy were robbed of their proper incomes, and the congress or parliament of the republic arrogated the right to determine what salaries they should enjoy as well as what duties they should fulfil. This surely was nothing less than to reduce the church to be nothing more than a department of the civil government. The church could not so exist. Its principle and organization were from a higher source. The Socialists and secret plotters fully understood that they were so, and that in this lay the secret of the church’s power to promote virtue and check the course of evil. It consisted, it appears, with their ideas of justice and liberty, that the church should, if possible, be deprived of this great and salutary moral power. So, whilst neither its members, generally, nor its clergy desired radical and subversive changes in the essential constitution of the church, the republican leaders determined that it should be completely revolutionized. The bishops and priests protested, with one voice, against such fundamental innovations. The republicans, no less resolute, and, bent on their wicked purpose, imprisoned and banished the clergy. One dignitary alone showed weakness. He was no other than the Vicar-Caputular of Antioquia. Pius IX. charitably rebuked him, and exhorted him to suffer courageously, like his brethren. The persecution, meanwhile, was very sweeping. The Archbishop of Bogota, Senor Mosquera, and almost all the suffragan bishops, were driven from the country, so that there was scarcely a bishop left in the republic. It was now speedily seen that the godless radicals had overdone their ungracious work. The country was roused. The tide of popular indignation set in against the short-sighted politicians who persecuted the church, and they, dreading an insurrection, withdrew, with the best grace they could command, from the false position which they had so unwisely assumed.

(M35) Whilst the spirit of persecution brooded gloomily over many countries of the new world, its influence began to decline in those lands where for centuries the idea of liberty of conscience was unknown, where even the slightest toleration existed not. Those northern lights, those champions in their day of Protestantism and “_religious liberty_” Gustavus Wasa and Gustavus Adolphus, were not mistaken when they bequeathed to their country laws which were intended to be as unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians, and which forbade all Scandinavians, whether Swedes, Danes or Norwegians, under pain of death, to embrace the Catholic faith. Those princes were wise in their generation. They understood the power of Truth; they knew that half measures were of no avail against it; and that in order to stifle it, even for a time, all the terrors of worldly tyranny must be brought into play. Their laws, more terrible than the code of Draco, remained in force and without mitigation until a great revolution had swept over Europe, and sent a military adventurer to fill the regal seat of the formidable Wasas. In the time of Bernadotte (the Doct Baron), the infamous penal laws were relaxed. To become a Catholic now only led to imprisonment or exile. Six ladies of Sweden, in defiance of this _milder_ law, came to profess the Catholic faith. They were tried, condemned and sentenced to be banished from the country. The execution of this barbarous sentence roused all Europe, and caused the abrogation of the Swedish penal laws against religion. (M36) Thus was a new field laid open to missionary zeal, and Pius IX., availing himself of so favorable a change of circumstances, appointed a Catholic pastor missionary apostolic at Stockholm. This devoted priest labors assiduously and in the midst of difficulties, but not without fruit. He contends, with all the success that can be as yet expected, against prejudices hostile to the religion which brought civilization to the Scandinavian nations, and which have been accumulating for three centuries and a half.

(M37) Denmark followed in the wake of Sweden. Within the first two years after the abrogation of the cruel Danish penal code, there were six hundred conversions to the Catholic faith.

(M38) The Catholic church in the recently-erected kingdom of Greece was governed by vicars-apostolic. It grieved King Otho, who, as is well known, was of the Catholic royal family of Bavaria, to see his country treated as if it were a heathen land. It was not, however, till the time of his successor, who is a son of the King of Denmark, that Pius the Ninth was able to establish a hierarchy in Greece. There is now an archbishop of Athens as well as an archbishop of Corfu.

(M39) At a time when crime abounded, the governments of certain petty States of Germany, instead of directing their energies towards its repression, and so fulfilling one of the chief duties incumbent on the State, employed all the authority with which they were invested to disorganize the church and destroy its salutary influence. As is usual, when States, forgetting the great objects for which they are entrusted with the sword of justice, follow such a course, they attacked the ministers of the church, banishing, imprisoning, thwarting and molesting them in every possible way. In the Grand Duchy of Baden the civil authorities arrogated the right to appoint parish priests and other members of the sacred ministry. They went so far as to endeavor to poison religious instruction at its source, and declared that the students in Catholic seminaries must undergo, before ordination, an examination by civil officials. This tyrannical law was courageously opposed by the venerable archbishop, Vicary, of Friburg. (M40) Although eighty years of age, he was dragged before the courts, and placed like a criminal under charge of the police. The faithful clergy were banished, imprisoned and fined. The Holy Father, with his usual zeal, remonstrated. It was to no purpose. At length the Catholics of Germany were roused. They could no longer be indifferent. The day was come when the church, in her utmost need, could not dispense with their assistance. All must now be for her or against her. The great majority flocked around her standard. Meanwhile, the public offices in the churches were suspended. The bells and organs were heard no more. Silence and death-like gloom overspread the land. Baden gave way. Wurtemberg, Hesse Cassel and Nassau, which had done their best to follow in the wake of Baden, paused in their mad career. Thus, throughout those lesser States peace reigned once more, and continued to reign in Germany until a greater State, Prussia, unwisely disturbed the religious harmony which so happily prevailed. The chiefs of States, alarmed by the revolutionary spirit which spread, like contagion, throughout Germany as well as the rest of Europe, adopted a more rational policy. They encouraged the clergy to hold missions everywhere. They invited the Liguorians and Jesuits, as well as the secular clergy, to assemble the people in the towns and throughout the country, knowing full well that they would preach peace and concord no less than respect for property and life. These pastoral labors were attended with extraordinary success. Faith, piety, and every virtue flourished among the Catholic people. All honest Protestants were filled with admiration. Among the latter there was also a remarkable movement. Some striking conversions took place, especially in the higher and better educated classes of society. The Countess de Hahn, so renowned in the literary world for her wit, abilities, and fine writings, joined the Catholic church, and published her reasons for so doing. Not satisfied with this step, she came to the town of Angers, in France, and placed herself as a novice under the direction of the devout sisters of the Good Shepherd. It is on record also, that a Protestant journalist of Mecklenburgh, in view of the commotions which prevailed, and the anti-social doctrines which pervaded society, went so far as to declare that there was no other remedy for Protestant Germany than a return to the Catholic church. His remarks conclude with the following words, extraordinary words, indeed, when it is considered whence they proceed: “Forward, then, to Rome!”

(M41) In countries nearer the Holy City, and professing to be Catholic, the venerable Pontiff found not such a source of consolation. Sardinia had banished the archbishop of Turin. It not only refused to recall him, but added to its list of exiles the archbishop of Cagliari. Many more bishops were, at the same time, threatened with banishment. A professor in the Royal University of Turin, encouraged by the government, attacked the doctrine of the church, and was so bold as to deny, in public, that matrimony is a sacrament. Pius IX. issued a condemnation of his anti-Catholic writings. The sentence did not move him. Nor did it stay the hand of the Sardinian government which was raised against the church and her institutions. It continued the preparation of its anti-marriage law. In addition, accusations were laid against the clergy. The king himself, evading the real question at issue, accused them of disloyalty, and declared that they were warring against the monarchy. The Holy Father, in the following letter to the king, distinctly set forth the real state of the case:

“If by words provoking insubordination are meant the writings of
the clergy against the proposed marriage law, we declare, without
endorsing the language which some may have adopted, that in
opposing it the clergy simply did their duty. We write to your
Majesty that the law is not Catholic. Now, if the law is not
Catholic, the clergy are bound to warn the faithful, even though
by doing so they incur the greatest dangers. It is in the name of
Jesus Christ, whose Vicar, though unworthy, we are, that we speak,
and we tell your Majesty, in His sacred name, not to sanction this
law, which will be the source of a thousand disorders. We also beg
your Majesty to put a check to the press which is constantly
vomiting forth blasphemy and immorality. Your Majesty complains of
the clergy. But these last years the clergy have been persistently
outraged, mocked, calumniated, reviled and derided by almost all
the papers published in Piedmont.”

That country, unfortunately, appears to have been entirely at the mercy of the party of unbelief. It was ever ready to inflict new wrongs on the church, and occasion anxiety and sorrow to the Holy Father.

(M42) There are few readers of ecclesiastical history who are not deeply interested in that portion of India which was the first field of the extraordinary apostolic labors of Saint Francis Xavier. The blessing of the Saint appears to have rested on the land of Goa; for after many years of trial and difficulty and schism, this Portuguese settlement, once so great and important, still remains a province of the church. The Portuguese government, by unjustly claiming right of patronage, originated the schism which, unfortunately, was of such long continuance. It was reserved for Pius IX. to restore harmony to the Colonial church of Goa. Happily, in 1851, the schism was brought to an end.