Part 31

§ 190.2. The first synod of the German Old Catholics, consisting of thirty clerical and fifty-nine lay members, met at Bonn in May, 1874. It was agreed to continue the practice of auricular confession, but without any pressure being put upon the conscience or its observance being insisted upon at set times. Similarly the moral value of fasting was recognised, but all compulsory abstinence, and all distinctions of food as allowable and unallowable, were abolished. The second synod, with reference to the marriage law, took the position that civil regular marriages ought also to have the blessing of the church; only in the case of marriages with non-Christians and divorced parties should this be refused. The third synod introduced a German ritual in which the exorcism was omitted, while the Latin mass was provisionally retained. The fourth synod allowed to such congregations as might wish it the use of the vernacular in several parts of the service of the mass. At all these synods the lay members had persistently repeated the proposal to abolish the obligatory celibacy of the clergy. But now the agitation, especially on the part of the Baden representatives, had become so keen, that at the fifth synod of 1878, in spite of the warning read by Bishop Reinkens from the Dutch Old Catholics, who threatened to withdraw from the communion, the proposal was carried by seventy-five votes against twenty-two. The Bonn professors, Langen and Menzel, foreseeing this result, had absented themselves from the synod, Reusch immediately withdrew and resigned his office as episcopal vicar-general, Friedrich protested in the name of the Bavarian Old Catholics. Reinkens, too, had vigorously opposed the movement; whereas Knoodt, Michelis, and Von Schulte had favoured it. The synod of 1883 resolved to dispense the supper in both kinds to members of the Anglican church residing in Germany, but among their own members to follow meanwhile the usual practice of _communio sub una_. The number of Old Catholic congregations in the German empire is now 107, with 38,507 adherents and 56 priests.--Even at their first congress the German Old Catholics, in opposition to the unpatriotic and law-defying attitude of German ultramontanism, had insisted upon love of country and obedience to the laws of the state as an absolute Christian duty. Their newly chosen bishop Reinkens, too, gave expression to this sentiment in his first pastoral letter, and had the oath of allegiance administered him by the Prussian, Baden, and Hessian governments. But Bavaria felt obliged, on account of the terms of its concordat, to refuse. At first the Old Catholics had advanced the claim to be the only true representatives of the Catholic church as it had existed before July 18th, 1870. At the Cologne congress they let this assumption drop, and restricted their claims upon the state to equal recognition with “the New Catholics,” equal endowments for their bishop, and a fair proportion of the churches and their revenues. Prussia responded with a yearly episcopal grant of 16,000 thalers; Baden added about 6,000. It proved more difficult to enforce their claim to church property. A law was passed in Baden in 1874, which not only guaranteed to the Old Catholic clergy their present benefices and incomes, freed them from the jurisdiction of the Romish hierarchy, and gave them permission to found independent congregations, but also granted them a mutual right of possessing and using churches and church furniture as well as sharing in church property according to the numerical proportion of the two parties in the district. A similar measure was introduced into the Prussian parliament, and obtained the royal assent in July, 1875. Since then, however, the interest of the government in the Old Catholic movement has visibly cooled. In Baden, in 1886 the endowment had risen to 24,000 marks.

§ 190.3. =The Old Catholics in other Lands.=--=In Switzerland= the Old, or rather, as it has there been called, the Christian, Catholic movement, had its origin in 1871 in the diocese of Basel-Solothurn, whence it soon spread through the whole country. The national synod held at Olten in 1876 introduced the vernacular into the church services, abolished the compulsory celibacy of the clergy and obligatory confession of communicants, and elected Professor Herzog bishop, Reinkens giving him episcopal consecration. In 1879 the number of Christian Catholics in German Switzerland amounted to about 70,000, with seventy-two pastors. But since then, in consequence of the submission of the Roman Catholics to the church laws condemned by Pius IX. they have lost the majority in no fewer than thirty-nine out of the forty-three congregations of Canton Bern, and therewith the privileges attached. A proposal made in the grand council of the canton in 1883 for the suppression of the Christian Catholic theological faculty in the University of Bern, which has existed since 1874, was rejected by one hundred and fifty votes against thirteen.--=In Austria=, too, strong opposition was shown to the infallibility dogma. At Vienna the first Old Catholic congregation was formed in February, 1872, under the priest Anton; and soon after others were established in Bohemia and Upper Austria. But it was not till October, 1877, that they obtained civil recognition on the ground that their doctrine is that which the Catholic church professed before 1870. In June, 1880, they held their first legally sanctioned synod. The provisional synodical and congregational order was now definitely adopted, and the use of the vernacular in the church services, the abolition of compulsory fasting, confession, and celibacy, as well as of surplice fees, and the abandoning of all but the high festivals, were announced on the following Sunday. The bitter hatred shown by the Czechs and the ultramontane clergy to everything German has given to the Old Catholic movement for some years past a new impulse and decided advantage.--=In France= the Abbé Michaud of Paris lashed the characterlessness of the episcopate and was excommunicated, and the Abbés Mouls and Junqua of Bordeaux were ordered by the police to give up wearing the clerical dress. Junqua, refusing to obey this order, was accused by Cardinal Donnet, Bishop of Bordeaux, before the civil court, and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Not till 1879 did the ex-Carmelite Loyson of Paris lay the foundation of a Catholic Gallican church, affiliated with the Swiss Old Catholics (§ 187, 8).--=In Italy= since 1862, independently of the German movement, yet on essentially the same grounds, a national Italian church was started with very promising beginnings, which were not, however, realized (§ 187, 7). Rare excitement was caused throughout Italy by the procedure of Count Campello, canon of St. Peter’s in Rome, who in 1881 publicly proclaimed his creed in the Methodist Episcopal chapel, there renouncing the papacy, and in a published manifesto addressed to the cathedral chapter justified this step and made severe charges against the papal curia; but soon after, in a letter to Loyson, he declared that he, remaining faithful to the true Catholic church, did not contemplate joining any Protestant sect severed from Catholic unity, and in a communication to the Old Catholic Rieks of Heidelberg professed to be in all points at one with the German Old Catholics. Accordingly he sought to form in Rome a Catholic reform party, whose interests he advocated in the journal _Il Labaro_. The pope’s domestic chaplain, Monsignor Savarese, has adopted a similar attitude. In December, 1883, he was received by the pastor of the American Episcopal church at Rome into the Old Catholic church on subscribing the Nicene Creed. In 1886 they were joined by another domestic chaplain of the pope, Monsignor Renier, formerly an intimate friend of Pius IX., who publicly separated himself from the papal church, and with them took his place at the head of a Catholic “_Congregation of St. Paul_” in Rome.--Also the Episcopal _Iglesia Española_ in Spain (§ 205, 4), and the Mexican _Iglesia de Jesus_ (§ 209, 1), must be regarded as essentially of similar tendencies to the Old Catholics.

§ 191. CATHOLIC THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY IN GERMANY.

Catholic theology in Germany, influenced by the scientific spirit prevailing in Protestantism, received a considerable impulse. From latitudinarian Josephinism it gradually rose toward a strictly ecclesiastical attitude. Most important were its contributions in the department of dogmatic and speculative theology. Besides and after the schools of Hermes, Baader, and Günther, condemned by the papal chair, appeared a whole series of speculative dogmatists who kept their speculations within the limits of the church confession. Also in the domain of church history, Catholic theology, after the epoch-making productions of Möhler and Döllinger, has aided in reaching important results, which, however, owing to the “tendency” character of their researches, demand careful sifting. Least important are their contributions to biblical criticism and exegesis. In general, however, the theological _docents_ at the German universities give a scientific character to their researches and lectures in respect of form and also of matter, so far as the Tridentine limits will allow. But the more the Jesuits obtained influence in Germany, the more was that scholasticism, which repudiated the German university theology and opposed it with perfidious suspicions and denunciations, naturalized, especially in the episcopal seminaries, while it was recommended by Rome as the official theology. The attempt, however, at the Munich Congress of Scholars in 1863 to come to an understanding between the two tendencies failed, owing to the contrariety of their principles and the opposition of the Jesuits.--Outside of Germany, French theology, especially in the department of history, manifested a praiseworthy activity. In Spain theology has never outgrown the period of the Middle Ages. In Italy, on the other hand, the study of Christian antiquities flourished, stimulated by recent discoveries of treasures in catacombs, museums, archives, and libraries.

§ 191.1. =Hermes and his School.=--The Bonn professor, =George Hermes=, influenced in youth by the critical philosophy, passed the Catholic dogma of Trent, assured it would stand the test, through the fire of doubt and the scrutiny of reason, because only what survives such examination could be scientifically vindicated. He died in A.D. 1831, and left a school named after him, mainly in Treves, Bonn, and Breslau. Gregory XVI. in 1835 condemned his writings, and the new Archbishop of Cologne, Droste-Vischering, forbad students at Bonn attending the lectures of Hermesians. These made every effort to secure the recall of the papal censure. Braun and Elvenich went to Rome, but their declaration that Hermes had not taught what the pope condemned profited them as little as a similar statement had the Jansenists. There now arose on both sides a bitter controversy, which received new fuel from the Prusso-Cologne ecclesiastical strife (§ 193, 1). Finally in 1844 professors Braun and Achterfeld of Bonn were deprived of office by the coadjutor-Archbishop Geissel, and the Prussian government acquiesced. The professors of the Treves seminary and Baltzer of Breslau, the latter influenced by Günther’s theology, retracted.--A year before Hermes’ condemnation the same pope had condemned the opposite theory of Abbé =Bautain= of Strassburg, that the Christian dogmas cannot be proved but only believed, and that therefore all use of reason in the appropriation of the truths of salvation is excluded. Bautain, as an obedient son of the church, immediately retracted, “_laudabiliter se subjecit_.”

§ 191.2. =Baader and his School.=--Catholic theology for a long time paid no regard to the development of German philosophy. Only after Schelling, whose philosophy had many points of contact with the Catholic doctrine, a general interest in such studies was awakened as forming a speculative basis for Catholicism. To the theosophy of Schelling based on that of the Görlitz shoemaker (§ 160, 2), =Francis von Baader=, professor of speculative dogmatics at Munich, though not a professional theologian, but a physician and a mineralogist, attached himself. In his later years he went over completely to ultramontanism. His scholar =Franz Hoffmann= of Würzburg has given an exposition of Baader’s speculative system. At Giessen this system was represented by Leop. Schmid (§ 187, 3). All the Catholic adherents of this school are distinguished by their friendly attitude toward Protestantism.

§ 191.3. =Günther and his School.=--A theology of at least equal speculative power and of more decidedly Catholic contents than that of Baader, was set forth by the secular priest =Anton Günther= of Vienna, a profound and original thinker of combative humour, sprightly wit, and a roughness of expression sometimes verging upon the burlesque. He recognised the necessity of going up in philosophical and theological speculation to Descartes, who held by the scholastic dualism of God and the creature, the Absolute and the finite, spirit and nature, while all philosophy, according to him, had been ever plunging deeper into pantheistic monism. Thence he sought to solve the two problems of Christian speculation, creation and incarnation, and undertook a war of extermination against “all monism and semimonism, idealistic and realistic pantheism, disguised and avowed semipantheism,” among Catholics and Protestants. His first great work, “_Vorschule zur Spekul. Theologie_,” published in 1828, treating of the theory of creation and the theory of incarnation, was followed by a long series of similar works. His most eminent scholars were =Pabst=, doctor of medicine in Vienna, who gave clear expositions of his master’s dark and aphoristic sayings, and =Veith=, who popularized his teachings in sermons and practical treatises. Some of the Hermesians, such as Baltzer of Breslau, entered the rank of his scholars. The historico-political papers, however, charged him with denying the mysteries of Christianity, rejecting the traditional theology, etc., and Clemens, a _privatdocent_ of philosophy in Bonn, became the mouthpiece of this party. Thus arose a passionate controversy, which called forth the attention of Rome. We might have expected Günther to meet the fate of Hermes twenty years before; but the matter was kept long under consideration, for strong influence from Vienna was brought to bear on his behalf. At last in January, 1857, the formal reprobation of the Güntherian philosophy was announced, and all his works put in the Index. Günther humbly submitted to the sentence of the church. So too did =Baltzer=. But being suspected at Rome, he was asked voluntarily to resign. This Baltzer refused to do. Then Prince-Bishop Förster called upon the government to deprive him; and when this failed, he withdrew from him the _missio canonica_ and a third of his canonical revenues, and in 1870, on his opposing the infallibility dogma, he withheld the other two-thirds. His salary from the State continued to be paid in full till his death in A.D. 1871.

§ 191.4. =John Adam Möhler.=--None of all the Catholic theologians of recent times attained the importance and influence of Möhler in his short life of forty-two years. Stimulated to seek higher scientific culture by the study mainly of Schleiermacher’s works and those of other Protestants, and putting all his rich endowments at the service of the church, he won for himself among Catholics a position like that of Schleiermacher among Protestants. His first treatise of 1825, on the unity of the church, was followed by his “Athanasius the Great,” and the work of his life, the “Symbolics” of 1832, in its ninth edition in 1884, which with the apparatus of Protestant science combats the Protestant church doctrine and presented the Catholic doctrine in such an ennobled and sublimated form, that Rome at first seriously thought of placing it in the Index. Hitherto Protestants had utterly ignored the productions of Catholic theology, but to overlook a scientific masterpiece like this would be a confession of their own weakness. And in fact, during the whole course of the controversy between the two churches, no writing from the Catholic camp ever caused such commotion among the Protestants as this. The ablest Protestant replies are those of Nitsch [Nitzsch] and Baur. In 1835 Möhler left Tübingen for Munich; but sickness hindered his scientific labours, and, in 1838, in the full bloom of manhood, the Catholic church and Catholic science had to mourn his death. He can scarcely be said to have formed a school; but by writings, addresses, and conversation he produced a scientific ferment in the Catholic theology of Germany, which continued to work until at last completely displaced by the scholasticism reintroduced into favour by the Jesuits.

§ 191.5. =John Jos. Ignat. von Döllinger.=--Of all Catholic theologians in Germany, alongside of and after Möhler, by far the most famous on either side of the Alps was the church historian Döllinger, professor at Munich since 1826. His first important work issued in that same year was on the “Doctrine of the Eucharist in the First Three Centuries.” His comprehensive work, “The History of the Christian Church,” of 1833 (4 vols., London, 1840), was not carried beyond the second volume; and his “Text-book of Church History” of 1836, was only carried down to the Reformation. The tone of his writings was strictly ecclesiastical, yet without condoning the moral faults of the popes and hierarchy. Great excitement was produced by his treatise on “The Reformation,” in which he gathered everything that could be found unfavourable to the Reformers and their work, and thus gained the summit of renown as a miracle of erudition and a master of Catholic orthodoxy. Meanwhile in 1838 he had taken part in controversies about mixed marriages (§ 193, 1), and in 1843 over the genuflection question (§ 195, 2), with severely hierarchical pamphlets. As delegate of the university since 1845 he defended with brilliant eloquence in the Bavarian chamber the measures of the ultramontane government and the hierarchy, became in 1847 Provost of St. Cajetan, but was also in the same year involved in the overthrow of the Abel ministry, and was deprived of his professorship. In the following year he was one of the most distinguished of the Catholic section in the Frankfort parliament, where he fought successfully in the hierarchical interest for the unconditional freedom and independence of the church. King Maximilian II. restored him to his professorship in 1849. From this time his views of confessional matters became milder and more moderate. He first caused great offence to his ultramontane admirers at Easter, 1861, when he in a series of public lectures delivered one on the Papal States then threatened, in which he declared that the temporal power of the pope, the abuses of which he had witnessed during a journey to Rome in 1857, was by no means necessary for the Catholic church, but was rather hurtful. The papal nuncio, who was present, ostentatiously left the meeting, and the ultramontanes were beside themselves with astonishment, horror, and wrath. Döllinger gave some modifying explanations at the autumn assembly of the Catholic Union at Munich in 1861. But soon thereafter appeared his work, “The Church and the Churches” (London, 1862), which gave the lecture slightly modified as an appendix. The “Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages” (London, 1871), was as little to the taste of the ultramontanes. Indeed in these writings, especially in the first named, the polemic against the Protestant Church had all its old bitterness; but he is at least more just toward Luther, whom he characterizes as “the most powerful man of the people, the most popular character, which Germany ever possessed.” And while he delivers a glowing panegyric on the person of the pope, he lashes unrelentingly the misgovernment of the Papal States. At the Congress of Scholars at Munich he contended for the freedom of science. Döllinger as president of the congress sent the pope a telegram which satisfied his holiness. But the Jesuits looked deeper, and immediately “_il povero Döllinger_” was loaded by the _Civiltà Cattolica_ with every conceivable reproach. In A.D. 1868 nominated to the life office of imperial councillor, he voted with the bishops against the liberal education scheme of the government. But his battle against the council and infallibility made the rent incurable, and his angry archbishop hurled against him the great excommunication. Then Vienna made him doctor of philosophy, Marburg, Oxford, and Edinburgh gave him LL.D., and the senate of his university unanimously elected him rector in 1871. But his tabooed lecture room became more and more deserted. He took no prominent part in the organizing of the Old Catholic church (§ 190, 1), but all the more eagerly did he seek to promote its union negotiations (§ 175, 6).

§ 191.6. =The Chief Representatives of Systematic Theology.=--=Klee=, A.D. 1800-1840, of Bonn and Munich, was a positivist of the old school, and during the Hermesian controversy a supporter of the theology of the curia. =Hirscher=, 1788-1865, of Freiburg, numbered by the liberals as one of their ornaments and by the fanatical ultramontanes as a heretic, did much to promote a conciliatory and moderate Catholicism, equally free from ultramontane and rationalistic tendencies, abandoning nothing essential in the Catholic doctrine. =Hilgers=, the Hermesian, afterwards joined the Old Catholics of Bonn. =Staudenmaier= and =Sengler= of Freiburg and =Berlage= of Münster held a distinguished rank as speculative theologians. In the same department, =Kuhn= and =Drey= of Tübingen, =Ehrlich= of Prague, =Deutinger= of Dillingen, a disciple of Schelling and Baader, and as such persecuted, though a pious believing Catholic, =Oischinger= of Munich, who in despair at the proclamation of the Vatican decree suddenly stopped his fruitful literary activity, =Dieringer= of Bonn, who for the same reason not only ceased to write but also in 1871 resigned his professorship and retired to a small country pastorate, and finally, =Hettinger= of Würzburg, best known by his “_Apologie d. Christenthums_.”--While the above-named, though suspected and opposed by the scholastic party, strove to preserve intact their ecclesiastical Catholic character, other representatives of this tendency by their struggles against scholasticism and then against the Vatican Council, were driven away from their orthodox position. Thus =Frohschammer= of Munich, when his treatise on “The Origin of the Soul,” in which he supported the theory of Generationism in opposition to the Catholic doctrine of creationism, and other works were placed in the Index, asked for a revision on the ground that he taught nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine. He was stripped of all his clerical functions, and students were prohibited attending his lectures. He protested, and his rooms were more crowded than ever. Subsequently, however, repudiated even by the Old Catholics, he drifted more and more, not only from the church, but even from belief in revelation. Against Strauss’ last work he wrote a tract in which he sought to prove that “the old faith is indeed untenable,” but that also “the new science” cannot take its place, that a “new faith” must be introduced by going back to the Christianity of Christ. =Michelis=, a man of wide culture in the department of natural science and philology, as well as theology and philosophy, had in his earlier position as professor in Paderborn, Münster, and Braunsberg, supported by word and pen a strictly ecclesiastical tendency; but the Vatican Council made him one of the first and most zealous leaders of the Old Catholic movement. His most important work is his “Catholic Dogmatics,” of 1881, in which the Old Catholic conception of Christianity is represented as the purified higher unity of the Protestant and Vatican systems of doctrine.