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secularism , adapted to the wants of princes , made dome progress even in Spain and Naples . The Catholic priests could not but acknowledge that times had singularly changed . As for Baden , more especially ,, the Papal Church was there placed under severe restrictions by the Crown in the two great branches of its authority . The placet regium ; the right of preferment exercised by the State ; the
equality of priests and laymen before the law ; the administration of the Church by a Council of State ; the examination of theologians with the assistance of a Grand Ducal Commissary , &c , &c ; all these rights , acquired by the Government , constituted , in the opinion of the Curialists , encroachments on the power of ordination , as well as on the power of jurisdiction attributed to the Catholic Church .
In our second article we spoke of concessions which the Baden dynasty had made to the Austro-Papist League . In these compliances to the enemies of all liberty the dynasty acted in opposition to the people . The Chamber , although elected under the triple influence of the Grand Ducal employes , the seigneurial aristocracy , and the Ultramontane priests , and although composed of by no means revolutionary elements—even this Chamber , from its first assembling in 1819 , presented a decided resistance to any attempt at strengthening the privileges of the
revenarits of the Middle Ages . It pronounced itself against the secret tendency of the nobility to extend its feudal rights , and against the tendency of the priests to interfere in the most delicate relations of political and even of private life . Already then , however , ( only one year after the proclamation of the Charter !) the inclination of the Crown to seek for support in the higher clergy and in the high nobility against the spirit of middle-class selfgovernment , which it had evoked in a moment of despair , did not escape observation . The deputies of the Chamber saw one of their colleagues
seized by the gendarme for having expressed the feelings of the people on the privileges of the higher clergy of tho Roman Church , and of the territorial aristocracy . The Grand Duke prorogued or dissolved one Chamber after another , to the delight of the Papists , who were sure of their game . Nevertheless , if the Government of Baden persecuted those who attacked Ultramontanism , it was not , in the first instance , from any very ecclesiastical motives . The Grand Duke Louis ( 1818-30 ) was too much of a Prussian corporal to be an acolyte .
His paramount consideration was the security of his monarchical sovereignty ; concerning the rights of the Throne Ms ideas were stiff enough . The Episcopate , hoping to take advantage of tho hatred of the Government against the " demagogues , " insidiously approached the Throne : insinuated that tho State could only be saved by the severe discipline of the Church , which , while it formed true servants of God , Avould react favourably on the spirit of the people . " Spiritual influence , " said the Episcopate of Freiburg , in a memorandum of
1827 , " should be the first aim of a bishop : therefore , he must have at his disposal canonical punishments ; but rewards also are strong incentives to the human heart , and the bishop has tiie means of dispensing them in the right of preferment , which he would not employ , the Grand Ducal Government may be well assured , save in promoting those high interests , which are the object of the Chief of tho State . " But the Government refused to be
reduced by this language of the wolf in tho lamb ' s skin . It was wolf enough itself to laugh at this affected innocence . The most prolix memoranda of the Episcopate were bowed out by the curteat rescripts . The State ceded to Ultramontanism on secondary points , where tho interests of tho Crown seemed to demand the sacrifice . But the Crown would not abdicate its most important rights over the Church .
¦ In the relations between the priests and the Government of Carlsruhe , a significant change took place in consequence of tho neeeasion of tho Grand Bulce Leopold and of the irroneh devolution of July . JSonio years before 1830 tho Hierarchy had been strengthened by tho intervention which tho sacred armies of the Holy Church , Austria and the French
Bourbons , had exercised at Naples , at Turin , ami in Spain . The confrecoup of these events was felt in Germany also , in the redoubled activity of the Lkaguk . In Bavaria , the accession of King Louis had inaugurated tlie reign of the purple-Btoekings . The Diet of Frankfort was occupied with projects for the partition of tho territory of Baden . The necessity of ? ' fortifying tho Catholic principle , " by breaking up
the petty States , wa 3 demonstrated in the pamphlets of publicists decorated with Austrian and Bavarian orders . The Government of Munich , contesting the right of succession of the presumptive heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden , who was the issue or a morganatic marriage , demanded the execution of the secret treaty with Austria . In the Duchy of Baden occult influences were at work , which were generally attributed . to the powerful instrumentality of the recently-elected General of the Society of Jesus , Father Roothaan , whose constant -communications with the Papal leaders on the Upper Rhine were ascertained some time after . v _ The new Grand Duke , Leopold , got the better ot
these difficulties by espousing , at his accession in 1830 , the moderate middle-class liberalism then in vogue . At that time there existed throughout Germany a popular excitement kindled by the revolutions in France , iu Switzerland , in Poland , &c . " Down with Jesuitism and Absolutism ! was the rallying cry of the German movements . The puerile inexperience of the Liberals , who were then at the head of those movements , saluted the new Grand Duke of Baden as a hopeful augury for the union and political and religious liberty of all Germany .
But , although these movements were badly led , the Anstro-Papist alliance , the Baden section of which had , in 1830 , the Princes of Lowenstbin for its chiefs , was at all events totally incapable of resisting the great current of popular opinion . In vain it protested in behalf of the rights of the noblesse-and of the clergy . At that time of ferment , the Episcopate also , which had never ceased to utter complaints , demands , reclamations in defence of that right of preferment which it had lost , was roundly dismissed with all its grievances by the Ministry of
the Grand Duke . . .. v But since 1832 , the general reaction which followed the fall of Warsaw , brought upon the Duchy of Baden also an era of servitude to the crozier . The true character of the Grand Duke came out . He was a timid man , who had seen with terror the democratic spirit looming behind the liberalism of the middle classes . Drowning hia mediocre intelligence in the pleasures of champagne , he left the cares of his government to his noble equerries , grand-huntsmen , and grand-drinkers , who , by their relations with the high aristocratic families ,
were drawn into the hierarchical conspiracy . The chateau of Carlsruhe fell more and more under the sovereign influence of a Jesuitical camarilla , who were intriguing for the public recognition of the Order of the Society ; for the introduction of Grey Sisters , affiliated to the Order ; for the modification of the civil code , in the sense of clerical omnipotence ; for the expulsion of the employes of the State , who were not regular attendants upon the Papal church ; for the prevention of ahti ecclesiastical communities , which were being organised in the bosom of Catholicism and Protestantism .
The political movement of the country since 1832 embraces an uninterrupted history of resistance to the united Romanist and Absolutist conspirators . The changes which the Baden dynasty introduced into the Code Napoleon , which ever since the French invasion had been the law of the country , were made yi the interest of police and clerical authority . A direct influence was accorded to the priests over the private life of citizens , over marriage , over the right of wardship : in short , over all the most considerable interests of family and property . Tho Catholic priests , acting by the orders of a hierarchy , made a political weapon of the provisons of the law . To resist these aggressions , the people began to rally round the banner of religious liberty ( Glaubensfreiheil ) , in the democratic sense of the word .
The priestly Propaganda was then ( 1832-40 ) shaking to its centre the neighbouring Switzerland , which had always been the stronghold of Ultramontanism . The former prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of tho Faith , Pope Gregory , returned , with ardour , again to the doctrine of pro posse pcrscqui . The thunders which he launched against tho articles of the Conference of linden were enough to shako the Governments that slept on the brink of the precipice ' .
Yet tho Governments , except by fits and starts , do not seem to have been thoroughly aroused at that time , though under the impulsion of Popo Gregory Komanism was organising throughout Germany a general levy against the secular powers . The conflicts of the Archbishop of Cologne , Dkostk von Vihciikkino , with the King of Prussia , Frederick William III ., concerning mixed marriages , hail their echo from tho Rhino to the Oder . The Episcopate
of tho Upper 1 thine , embracing in its circumference tho dioceses of Maycnee , Fulda , Limburg , Rottenburg , troubled tho consciences of believers for a long time after with that question of " mixed marriages . " The Baden Government mado no sign of tho needful energy . It felt itself relieved from a heavy load when , niter tho death of Frederick William III ., his successor , tho present Crypto-Catholic and romantic Frederick William IV ., re-instated the arrested bishops in their dioceses , and arranged tho
difficulties in compliance with the wishes of the Court of Borne . But that question of " mixed marriages" was revived again later ; and without any regard to the difficulties of the Government , the Roman clergy were sometimes seized with a sudden fancy of stirring up a general commotion . Since 1840 the intimate councils of the Crown and the administration of the State of Baden have been filled with the men who are now the most furious supporters of the pretensions of the Archbishopric of Freiburg , and the most determined enemies of the government of the Prince Regent .
Ultramontanism was openly employed by the Go . vernment in falsifying the elections to the Chambers . Chiefs of the police , censors of the press , governors of towns , administrators of provinces—even members of the Ministry itself were appointed to their offices by favour of their attachment to the Papist cause . At Freiburg and at Mannheim ultra-Catholic journals , surpassing in virulence all the fury of the Veuillots , were founded and
supported by the money of members of the Government . These stipendiary journals attacked daily , not only the democratic party , but the fundamental law of the State , the code , the administration * the dynasty itself ! Very singular friends indeed ! Yet the Government , knowing the popular spirit , dared not separate from them . Notorious Jesuits ascended the pulpits of Freiburg and Heidelberg . What Hurter , the secret adept of the Papal Church , had begun in Switzerland and in the south of Germany , was
continued in Baden by the Professors Buss and Zellprecious instruments of Loyolisaa . Buss , a cunning capucin-like Romanist , was , with the Baron of Andlaw and other crusaders , an active member of that party which in 1848 and 1849 was intriguing for the re-establishment of a German Catholic Empire , under the sceptre of the House of Hapsburg . Zeix , a great connoisseur of the classics , a renowned humanist , an elegant Jesuit , is the same man who -a few weeks ago , at
Vienna , concluded an address with these words " Domine , salvum fac Imperatorem nostrum Franciscum Josephum . " Under the influence of men like Zell , the Government of . Baden consented to the establishment of the Society of JesuB in landed estates in the neighbourhood of Heidelberg : that establishment , it is true , was disguised in appearance , but the Government was well aware that it was the organised centre of dark conspiracies . Moreover , by the introduction of the Order of Sisters of Mercy , the Government provoked a cry of general
indignation . . To destroy Radicalism , the State put its agents , its gendarmes , all its governmental resources , at the disposal of Ultramontanism , which , marching step by step with the chiefs of the Sonderbuno m Switzerland , strove to re-animate in Baden a fever ot religious hate , and , in the spirit of the Inquisition , to persecute free thought . " The Government was not ashamed to evoke the most savage passions or dark ages for the sole purpose of dividing the party of its political enemies—the party of the people .
But that " party" was tho entire population . " there be one important element more than anotner which in the south of Germany has contributed to awaken the people as to the tendencies ot tnoi aynasty and of tho aristocracy : if there be one tmng more than another which has contributed to convert a subject into a Republican , that important element is the sombre oppression which Romanism ana xwy alism united sought to inflict on a people ot spirit , honour , and independence . In 1848 the people oi Baden distinguished themselves by rising tl }^ destroy the throne , the nobility , and clerical »¦ UC 3 UUV iiiu iiiroiiu , nits ji « jw « " * v » . vmairpr the m «
Peasant , citizen , soldier , all took up : J and it was not tho Church ( far from * J ) JJ thrice saved the Crown . It was the arm « l " of other dynasties , it was a swarm ot *™ bayonets coming in overwhelming number ^ , « wicj , ^ tected and restored the dynasty . ^ J ° J tells octogenarian , " tho A rchbishop of ireiDuifc , knowingly the reverse of tho truth , when ° » oa ^ of « tho services rendered by th « ^ " ^ thc Gcr-Crown in days of wild disorder . " »« » " * £ t the man Revolution , tho Roman Church von ' [ w mercy of the democracy . It had not , wo ^ sure , forgotten its pretensions , but it was j . ^ If it was not stripped of its immense V ™ V * [ t is frnJtn -rtf imnrnntinn of cllicanC , an < l _ «» ' -. i , in
simply because tho German Revolution na e ( l into the hands of reformers who wero ™ , tll 0 to know anything . Thus it was that in » nt to Church preserved its possessions , wme worthsomething like twelve millions ot » "\ or the thanks to the ignorance , the carelessness , treachery of the popular chiefs . rtntraced in In 1853 , tho Grand Ducal Governmoj . j t la onfc ^ close contest with thc hierarchy . llieU « n » ^ t | lC know tho total isolation of tho Crown fS tlltc , people . Initiated before 1818 into the trieiw fl ^ tho Papists know well every weaknesss « gtftt 0 every anxiety of tho Government . It « . t | I ( 5 itself that has reared and nursed its too . t , w Court that has sown thc wind—lot ic » fltorm !
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iofi . THE h E A D E R . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 31, 1853, page 1264, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2019/page/16/
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