Bancroft Davis to Hamilton Fish, April 19, 1875

No. 243. Mr. Davis to Mr. Fish.

Sir: Referring to my No. 82, I have now the honor to forward a translation of the text of a bill pending in the Prussian house of deputies for the repeal of the clauses in the constitution giving to ecclesiastical corporations the right to manage their own affairs. This bill will probably be passed into a law to-day or to-morrow.

I also inclose the text (translated) of a new law to be submitted to the chamber for the sequestration of monastic property.

I also inclose a translation of the petition addressed by the bishops to the Emperor on the 2d instant, and of the reply by the ministry by order of the Emperor.

In order to complete the files of the Department, I also inclose a translation of the declaration by the bishops respecting the election of a new Pope, made in February last, having accidentally omitted to send it at the time.

I have, &c.,

Project of law for changing the relations between church and state.

The following is an analysis of the projected hill for abrogating the three articles of the constitution regulating the relations between church and state in Prussia:

“Since it has lately been judged necessary to regulate by legislation the indispensable limits between church and state, in order to establish the definite and fixed position of the two powers, the government has often heard the objection raised to the effect that the measures adopted by it tended to injure the arrangements of the fundamental compact, which assures the independent administration of their affairs to religious bodies. When the question was first brought forward as a legislative measure in 1873, this objection appeared plausible, for article 15 of the constitution still existed in its primitive sense, which allowed of a more or less wide interpretation. The arbitrary interference of the Catholic bishops and that of the organs of the state had even given this article a meaning which much exceeded its real sense. To define this real sense was the object of the law of April 5, 1873. It was intended to re-establish in a definite manner, and for every one, the fact that even the autonomial administration of ecclesiastical affairs was subject to the sovereign right of the state, to its legislation, and its supervision. Nevertheless, the same objection continues to be urged, and was very recently raised on the occasion of every proposed law concerning ecclesiastical affairs. Continually to repeat this accusation of unconstitutionality in the two chambers as well as in the press is the more grave, because it disquiets the people, lays the authorities and legislators open to suspicion, and causes the laws to be considered invalid and of no effect before they have been promulgated. Such a solution of the matter is not tolerable in any state, especially at a time so fruitful in serious agitations. Such a state of things must absolutely be opposed with energy and promptitude. This cannot be attained until the relations between church and state shall have been regulated, no longer by general and equivocal provisions, but by special laws alone; that is to say, by a modification of the fundamental compact. The legislature must find a, way open to assure the state at all costs against a clergy directed by Rome. Provoking and battling against the sovereign rights of the civil power, restored to liberty by fresh legislation, this power will know how to defend itself against its aggressors. This is why it is proposed to suppress article 15. This act of defense is not necessitated by the attitude of other forms of religions. The legislative provisions which already regulate their position with regard to the state suffice. Fresh laws are useless. Where there are defects, the legislature will give corporations which submit to public order the security which is due to them. The suppression of article 16 is justified by the fact that, since the religious communities have enjoyed perfect freedom in their relations with their superiors, and that the publication of ecclesiastical injunctions is now subject only to the conditions imposed by the law on publications of every kind, the confidence of the government has been seriously abused. It will be sufficient to recall the encyclical of the 5th of February, addressed to the episcopate, to understand the pressing necessity for restraining excessive liberty assured by the said article within limits compatible with the public welfare. Article 18 is but the corollary of article 15, applicable in a solitary and determined case. The suppression of article 15, therefore, necessarily involves that of article 18. The abolition of these articles will not, however, be any obstacle to high clerical positions being held by men who obey the laws, a condition which cannot be given up by a state, which, in consequence of the various religious beliefs of its population, has the greatest interest in seeing the different religious communities live in peace with one another. The projected law is composed of this single clause: ‘The articles 15, 16, and 18 of the constitution of January 30, 1850, are abrogated. The legal state of the Evangelical and Catholic churches, as, well as the other religious communities, is regulated by the laws of the state.’”

The text of the articles which it is proposed to abolish is as follows:

“Article 15. The Catholic Church, as well as the Protestant Church, and every other religious society, regulates and administers its affairs in an independent way; but it remains subject to the laws of the state, and to the supervision defined by the laws of the state. Under the same conditions, every religious society keeps the possession and the enjoyment of its funds, and of the establishments and foundations destined for its worship, its teaching, and its charities. Article 16. The relations of religious societies with their superiors are free. The publication of ecclesiastical ordinances is subject only to the restrictions to which all other publications are subjected. Article 18. The right of nominating, of proposing, of electing, and of confirming ecclesiastical posts is suppressed as far as it belongs to the state, and is not based upon patronage or on special legal titles. This provision does not apply to the nomination of ecclesiastics in the army or in the public institutions. The law regulates the rights of the state relating to instruction, to the employment and removal of ecclesiastics, and fixes the limits of the disciplinary powers of the state.”

• Article 1. The state places under sequestration all monastic property.
• Art. 2. The orders which have for their object the education or the care of sick persons will be tolerated for two years; after that time they will be totally suppressed.
• Art. 3. All other orders and monastic corporations will be abolished in six months.
• Art. 4. All property which has been given to these orders by their members will be restored to the latter.
• Art. 5. The oldest members of monastic bodies, and those who may be incapable of working, will receive an annual pension from the state.

Correspondence between Catholic bishops and the Emperor.

The following is the text of the petition addressed to His Majesty on the 2d of this month by the Prussian bishops:

“Fulda, April 2, 1875.

“Most Serene and Most Mighty Emperor, Most Gracious Emperor, King, and Sire: A bill has been presented to both houses of the Diet by Your Imperial and Royal Majesty’s ministry by which the further enjoyment of the state grants accorded to the Catholic bishoprics and clergy will be made dependent upon a previous declaration of the administrators of dioceses or the clergy that they will unconditionally obey the state laws. So unconditional a declaration is incompatible with the conscience of a Christian. Indeed, the Apostles, and innumerable Christian martyrs, suffered death rather than submit to state laws and public ordinances which prohibited them from proclaiming the divine truth or demanded on their part a denial of the Christian faith. We being, therefore, unable to give that declaration without acting against our conscience or infringing upon the principles of Christianity, thus the attempt to force us to obey by withholding material means can never be regarded as admissible from a Christian stand-point.

“Moreover, the respective grants from the state to the bishoprics in question are in compliance with a legal obligation which the state undertook when it assumed possession of the secularized church property in accordance with explicit stipulations, and, to quote the well-known words of a Prussian minister, they were undertaken under a pledge of the honor of Prussia; and as regards other state grants to clergymen, they also by no means sprang from a mere liberality of the state toward the church, but have likewise a legal basis either in the secularization of cloisters and ecclesiastical institutions, or in right of patronage, or in royal promises, and the suspension of these grants just at the present moment must especially serve to stir bitter feelings in the hearts of the Catholics, since just now considerable improvements of salary from the general revenue are granted by the state with gracious liberality to the clergy of other Christian denominations.

“We feel, however, the threatened suspension of the state grant most painfully, because it is expressly described as a punishment for the attitude of the Catholic bishops and clergy with regard to the May laws, although they are unable to co-operate in the execution of these laws without violating their most sacred duties and the divine constitution of the Catholic church.

“We should fear to trespass upon the veneration due to Your Majesty if we were even to consider the supposition possible that it could respond to the intentions of Your Majesty to demand such an infidelity and violation of duty on the part of the appointed guardians of ecclesiastical order.

“We, therefore, do not address ourselves to the houses of the Diet, where the proportion of Christian feeling begins to vanish more and more, but address direct to Your Majesty, as the protector of the Christian church recognized by Prussia—to the Crown by which the Catholics have likewise ever stood with true loyalty during political storms—the respectful prayer that Your Majesty will deny your sanction to the intended law as being a violation of duty and acquired rights and a source of unspeakable affliction and peace-disturbing confusion.

“In deepest reverence, with most entire submission, we remain Your Majesty’s most humble, true, and obedient.”

(Here follow the signatures.)

The following is the text of the reply made by the ministry by order of the Emperor:

“Berlin, April 9, 1875.

“His Majesty the Emperor and King has deigned to charge the ministry with the reply to the petition addressed to His Majesty on the 2d instant by the Prussian bishops assembled in Fulda:

“In fulfilling the imperial instructions, we cannot avoid expressing our astonishment and regret at the fact that ecclesiastics of such high position as the right reverend bishops could make themselves the vehicle of an assertion that it would be in Prussia a denial of the Christian faith to promise obedience to such laws which in other German and foreign states have been obeyed for centuries, and are still most readily obeyed by the Catholic clergy and their ecclesiastical superiors, and unconditional obedience to which continues to be sworn there by the Catholic clergy by a sacred oath. None the less remarkable and untrue is the assertion that the laws against which recently the disobedience of the bishops has been directed in Prussia only forbid the proclamation of the divine truth. With regard to the right reverend bishops mentioning that improvements of salary are at the present being granted to the clergy of other denominations which did not at the same time benefit the Catholic clergy, a superficial glance at the bills before and the debates of the Diet would have sufficed to convince the right reverend bishops themselves of the untruth of their assertion. It can just as little be unknown to the right reverend bishops that the measure which they ask His Majesty not to sanction, at the same time using offensive expressions about its contents, could only have reached the Diet with the imperial consent. The demand that His Majesty should, notwithstanding, refuse his sanction after it had been adopted by the Diet is the more strange, since the right reverend bishops themselves will not believe that the grants, the suspension of which is in question, would have been ever made, if at their bestowal the right had been reserved to the bishops and clergy to be obedient or not to the laws of the state according to the papal will.

“With regard to the petition calling the law which withdraws the state-grants a source of unspeakable affliction and peace-disturbing confusion, those among the right reverend bishops, who, in the year 1870, before the proclamation of the Vatican resolutions, saw that such conditions would arise from those resolutions, and announced this publicly in eloquent terms, should ask themselves if they, by a true and firm maintenance of their convictions, would not, perhaps, have been able to preserve our fatherland from the confusion and disturbance of peace which they themselves warningly prophesied, and which we now, with them, deplore.

“We request your grace to kindly communicate this letter to the co-signatories of the petition.

“THE STATE MINISTRY.”