signatures of twenty-three German bishops and representatives of bishops to Prince Bismarck, February 11, 1875

THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS IN REPLY TO PRINCE BISMARCK.

The following is the text of the joint declaration just issued by all the Roman Catholic bishops of Germany, in reply to Prince Bismarck’s well-known dispatch on the election of the next Pope:

“The Staatsanzeiger (official Berlin Gazette) has recently published a circular-dispatch, indited by the Prince Chancellor on the 14th of May, 1872, dealing with the election of the next Pope. This dispatch, according to the declaration of the Staatsanzeiger, is the key to the contents of that portion of the Arnim case papers withheld from the public. Proceeding from the supposition that by the Vatican council and its two important enactments concerning infallibility and the jurisdiction of the Pope, the relative position of His Holiness toward the secular governments has been entirely changed, the dispatch arrives at the conclusion that the interest of the secular governments in the election of a Pope has been very considerably increased, and that their right to look after such election is placed upon an even firmer basis than heretofore. These conclusions are as unjustifiable as their premises are unfounded. Considering the grave nature of the document in which they appear, and the inferences forced upon us as to the principles governing the ecclesiastical policy of the German imperial chancellerie, we, the undersigned arch-pastors, deem ourselves equally entitled and obliged to oppose publicly the erroneous views expressed in the dispatch. The dispatch contains the following assertions relative to the votes of the Vatican council:

“‘By these enactments the Pope is enabled in every diocese to exercise episcopal rights and substitute his own authority for that of the local bishop. The episcopal jurisdiction has been completely superseded by direct papal authority. The Pope no longer reserves to himself certain specified rights, as formerly, but all episcopal rights have been transferred to him. He has replaced the bishops principal, and it solely depends upon him practically to assume the functions of any of the local bishops, not excluding those affecting the relations of that bishop to his government. The bishops henceforth are only the tools, and wholly irresponsible employés of the Pope. They have become the officials of a foreign sovereign, and that a sovereign who, by dint of his infallibility, is a more absolute monarch than any other monarch in the world.’

“All these assertions are utterly devoid of foundation, being at variance with the wording of the Vatican enactments, as well as with the meaning of the same, such as it has been repeatedly interpreted by the Pope, the episcopacy, and the acknowledged representatives of Catholic theological erudition. In accordance with those enactments, the papal jurisdiction is indeed a potestas suprema ordinaria et immediata—a supreme official power conferred upon the Pope by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through Saint Peter, and extending to the whole of the church and each individual diocese, that unity of faith, ecclesiastical discipline and government maybe duly upheld. The papal power, it is true, then, is no power confined to certain specified rights reserved by the Pope. But this is no new doctrine. On the contrary, it is a doctrine which has always been a recognized doctrine of the Catholic faith—a well-known principle of eanon law, a truth which the Vatican council, opposing the Gallican, Jansenist, and Febronian heresies, has only confirmed and explained in accordance with the verdicts of preceding councils. In virtue of this doctrine the Pope is bishop of Rome, not bishop of any other city or diocese, not bishop of Cologne, Breslau, &c. But in his capacity as bishop of Rome he is Pope, that is, is arch-pastor and supreme head of the whole church, chief of all bishops and all the faithful believers, and his papal authority, far from being restricted to certain exceptional cases, is always and everywhere in full force. It is the duty of the Pope to control the action of the bishops, and if any bishop should be prevented from attending to the function of his office, or if any other exigency should require it, the Pope is both entitled and obliged, not as bishop of the respective dioceses, but as Pope, to issue any orders necessary for the proper administration of such diocese. These papal rights have been recognized by all European states as belonging to the system of the Roman Catholic Church, and whenever any European government had occasion to enter into negotiations with the Pope, it has acknowledged him as the chief of the entire Catholic Church, including both bishops and believers, and he never has been regarded by any European government as only the owner of certain specified and reserved rights. There is, further, absolutely nothing in the enactments of the Vatican council to justify the assertion that the Pope has in consequence of these enactments become an absolute sovereign, and that a sovereign more absolute than any other monarch in the world. In the first place, the field over which the ecclesiastical authority of the Pope extends is distinct from that swayed by the temporal power of a monarch, nor do Catholics deny the sovereignty of monarchs in regard to secular affairs. But, independently of this, the designation of a Pope as absolute monarch is inadmissible, even with reference to the field allotted to him, because the Pope acts under the law divine, and is bound to adhere to the ordinances laid down by Christ for his church. The Pope cannot change the divinely-ordained constitution of the church, though the secular legislator may be able to remodel the political arrangements intrusted to his keeping. The constitution of the church, in all its essential points, is based upon the direct injunctions of the Divinity, and exempt from all arbitrary experiments of mankind. The same divine regulations which created the Pope created the bishops likewise; the bishops to have their own peculiar rights and duties, allotted to them by God Himself, to modify which the Pope has neither the right nor the power. Hence, it is a glaring mistake to assume the Vatican enactments to have superseded episcopal authority by papal power, and to have replaced by the Pope the bishops, who are henceforth only his tools and employés, without any personal responsibility. Under the eternal doctrine of the Catholic Church, it has been expressly declared by the Vatican council that the bishops are no tools of the Pope, no mere papal employés, without personal responsibility, but pastors appointed by the Holy Ghost to represent the apostles; to govern, as good shepherds, the flocks intrusted to them. In the 18th century of Christian ecclesiastical history, the papacy has been placed over and by the side of the episcopacy, both being divinely instituted by Christ; so it will be also in the future. The Pope’s ancient right of exercising his power of ecclesiastical government in any part of the Catholic world has never made episcopal authority illusory, nor is the new interpretation of this old Catholic principle calculated to raise apprehensions in this respect as to the future. It is universally known that the dioceses of the Catholic world have, since the Vatican council, been directed and governed by their bishops, in exactly the same manner as before that date. We specially protest against the statement that the bishops, in consequence of the Vatican enactments, have become papal employés, without personal responsibility, and we beg to observe that it is not the Catholic Church which acknowledges the immoral and despotic principle that the command of a superior officer relieves the subordinate from personal responsibility. As to the opinion that the Pope, by means of infallibility, has become an absolute sovereign, it is based upon an entirely erroneous conception of the dogma of infallibility. As the Vatican council has clearly and unmistakably pronounced, papal infallibility, in accordance with the nature of things, is confined to the field belonging to the doctrinal authority of the church, and is restricted by Holy Writ, tradition, and previous decisions of the church. The action of the Pope in governing the church has in no way been altered by the enactment of papal infallibility. The opinion that the relations of the Pope to the episcopacy have been changed by the Vatican council being entirely indefensible, the conclusion drawn from these premises, that the Pope has assumed a novel position toward the governments, is equally groundless. We cannot restrain ourselves from expressing the deepest regret that, in the above circular dispatch, the German imperial chancellerie should have advanced opinions founded upon the assertions and conjectures of Protestant scholars, and some former Catholics, rebelling against the whole legitimate episcopal authority vested in the Holy See. These assertions and conjectures have been repeatedly and emphatically contradicted and refuted by the Pope, the bishops, and Catholic theologians and canonists, as the legitimate representatives of the Catholic Church. In our respective dioceses, we have the right to demand that, if the principles and doctrines of our church are to be discussed in this wise, our opinion be taken too, and that, so long as we regulate our conduct by these principles and doctrines, our words be credited. In thus correcting the erroneous version of the Catholic doctrine contained in the circular dispatch of the Prince Chancellor, we have no wish to enter upon what is foreshadowed in that dispatch concerning the election of the next Pope. Still, we feel it our duty to protest solemnly against the attempt made to interfere with the independent election of the chief of the Catholic Church, and we declare that the validity of any papal election can be decided only by the church, to whose authority every Catholic will unconditionally submit in Germany as anywhere else.