The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-08-24
SornIag Star and Catholic messenger.
80 opIHANs, SUNDAY, AUGUST ~ 1873.
lCorre.pondenoe of the London Tablet
Church and State in Germany.

Church and State in Germany.
sir:-Prince Bismarck's power and pres
fige rose to such pitch in Germany after
the French war, that all parties in the State,
with one exception, seemed as If they
thought him some omniPotent lncarnate,
and fell PROSTATE in the dust before him.
The Catholics alone, remaining mistaken
in their spiritual allegiance to the Pope,
have ever since been considered by the
Prince "a q sort of rebels whom his pride
cannot brook. He has, therefore, resolved
to reduce them to com plete submission, and
has caused set of new church laws to be
framed, obedience to which is ibcompati-
BILE with the recognition of any other aut-
hority in spirituais than that of the State.
For the present, those laws are restricted
to Prussia, but they will no doubt be ex-
tended, ere long, to the Empire at large.
To obey them the Catholics must deny
their faith, must become apostates or hypo
crites. The Prussian Bishops have at
once declared, in a body, to the govern
ment that they will not cooperate in
carrying out such laws. They show them
selves as good as their word. Prince
Bismarck is memorable. A rigorous per-
secuton has begun. The Jesnits have
artists, Nuns of the Sacred Heart, are ex
periepcipg the same fate. Meanwhile the
press, the stage, the public lecture hall,
the caricaturst, are unremittingly en-
ployed in straining all their powers of
.blasphemy, SANDER, sarcasm, aud ribaldry,
to infiame the public mird against the
Catholic Faith. Even the studio of 80 re-
nowned a painter ns William Kaulbach,
the Director of the Royal Academy of Art
at Munich, has catered to the same vile
cause by the production of a series of coarse
caricatures from the hand of the great mas
ter himeelf also notorious for his pictorial
libel on st. Peter Arbues.- But such a
prostitution of lofty genius failed not to
elicit an Indignant protest against il,
signed by upwards of 100 of kaulbach's
fellow-artists in all parts of Germsns.
Prince Bismarck's party seem strongly
persuaded that his new chursh-laws will
succeed in Kidding the German Empire of
the Pope's spiritual authority. 1t will
set the seal, they say, to Sadowa and
Sedan, will be the elimination of his glory,
and make him q more famous man than
Luther or Frederic the Great. Forty or
fifty years ago, perhaps, there might have
been some grounds for oil this, when the
the Church in Germany, and the Dalbergs,
the Wessepbergs, the Spiegels, were her
leading prelates when open disciples of
Kant, like Flngerless, were directors OF
her episcopal seminaries, and balls were
given in those establishments in carnival
time ; when the Catholic faith, in short,
seemed on the eve of extinction, presenting
almost as dlapidated a condition at that
time in Germany, as tho Protestant faith
actually does now. But the era of the
Synod Of Ems has been succeeded by that
Of the Vatican Council, and what differ
should be 80, but for the divine and i'm
Perishable nature of our holy religion.
True, the Jesuits are exiled, but their
work remains-a restoration to all its
pristine depth and fervour of the belief in
the supernatural character of the Church.
khn nno l,alr nkfs k,@1 49, A.
whelming majority OF the clergy and laity,
hence the wretched failure of the cold
Catholic" heresy, failure which such ex ,
posures of it as that lately made by Franz
Won Florencourt will be far more likely to
aggravate than DIR. Reinkens's election as
missionary Bishop to retrieve. What an
enigma is the human heart Witness this
veteran, this renowned journalist Franz
Won Florencourt. Long years ago, at the
opening Of his brilliant career, he warmly
espoused, as high-minded infidel, the
cause of Archbishop Droste- Vischering of
Cologne against the Prussian Government.
and was rewarded with the grace of cou-
version to the true faith. He continued t.
be one ofits most distinguished champions
till the period of the Vatican Council.
Strangely enough he then took umbrage
at the new dogmatical definition, tramp
ing underfoot those very principles of
obedience to ecclesiastical authority which
especially in his famous book on his own CON
version, published in 1852, he had so fer
vently professed, so eloquently defended.
He fraternized with the "Old Catbolicn
apostasy, and plunged into a controversial
warfare with his son, a lea, ned and LOYAL
priest, who sought in vain to reclaim his
erring parent But his errors have not. il
seems, so darkened his mind or perverted
his heart as to make Franz Won Florcn
court an admirer of Prince Bismarck's &c
clesastical policy. On the contrary, that
policy has aroused his utmost Indignation,
and in . letter denouncing it, addressed
the other day to the hreu- Zetung, of Der
lin, he sharply rebukes his cold Catholic"
brethren for their open and undivided an
prevail of Bismarck, aud takes occasion to
give an account of his three years cx-
perience of their sect than which nothing
could be more crushing. lie appears az il
thoroughly ashamed of it, as if he repudi-
ated it, but at the Same time shows no
sign Of reconversion to the Church.
Whether DIR. Dollinger views the " Old
Catholics" in the same light. as Franz Won
Florencourt l cannot say. But one heard
nothing of him latterly in connection with
their doings. He has refused the dignity
of stall in Bishop" Reinkep's newlS