The San Francisco call., 1896-01-23

concerning the state now
taught etc
Let me ask DR.. Wendte is this fair Is his case
so bad that he must suppress the truth? His
thesis is that the church is superior TO the
state in temporal things. Why did he leave
out the words Moreover the church wields
spiritual power only" This is the very point
| have been insisting on all along. Why did
DR.. Wendte suppress it? Is this Protestant
scholarship? Is this American fairness? call
on Protestants and Americans to Judge be-
tween DR.. Wendte and US.
HERR voN TEUFELsDRoEKH.
DR.. Wendte calls in eminent friend of his
to give testimony against the church, Baron
Won Holtzendorff. This shows by the wav that
DR.. Wendte can lay the whole world under
contribution and back up the oral testimony
OF his cook by the autograph of a baron. DR..
Wendte, however, conceals the fact that this
professor with the unmanageable name was
one of the bitterest opponents of Catholicism
during the Bismarckian prosecutions and that
his opinion is as free from bias as the opinion
OF butcher trying sheepfor its life.
1t may be well just here to give q short
sketch of the Falck laws which DR.. Wendte evi-
IDENTIFY approves as just and satisfactory
arrangements between the church and the
state.
In the year 1949 the fifteenth article of the
German constitution affirmed that every
religious society shall order and manage its
own affairs Independently, but shall remain
subject TO the general power of the state" !"
Such was the law until 1872. Under it Catho-
lies were peaceful and loyal to the state They
They helped 10 found the empire in their
blood.
Yet this blood was hardly dry before Bis
marck charged them with disloyally and CON
spiracy. He never produced particle of evil
dence, yet he rushed through the Legislature
bills which broke the old constitution in
pieces and subjected the church to an intoler-
able slavery. Among other provisions the new
laws banished the religious orders, made gov
ernment consent necessary to the nomination
of parish priest; fined and imprisoned
Bishops Tor the exercise of their spiritual
office; subjected to the state the education of
the clergy, even to the examination for orders
and established final tribunal of ecclesias-
tical appeal in Berlin. LetAmericans consider
what this means. The church was to be turned
into department of the civil service.
Not pastor could be appointed to a congre-
CATION unless he had political pull. Not a
candidate for orders could hope to realize the
object OF his ambition unless he went through
the German sausage machine. And yet on
shores OF the Pacific at the end of the nine
teenth century an apostle of sweetness and
light faces the American people and glorifes
this brutal despotism. / am ashamed of YOU
DR.. Wendte. l thought that as lover of lib
erty your sympathies would rather pe with the
confeSsors of the faith who endured exile and
| imprisonment rather than bend their necks to
such yoke thought that every freemen
would in spirit take his stand with Windthorst
and his gallant band who fought the man of
blood and iron and who sent him to CanoSsa.
The German Catholics triumphed in the
fight because they had justice and the eternal
DEGREES of the God of liberty on their side 1t
IS SAD that an American citizen should be so
blinded with prejudice as to refuse honor to
men who rightly struggled to be free.
THE ORIGIN OF THE FALcK LAWS
Contrary to what DR.. Wendte insinuates and
his baronial friend openly states, the persecu-
tion was not occasioned by the action of the
church. The persecution was caused by the
desire of Bismarck to turn the Catholic or
ganization into political machine. DR.. Fried
berg, professor of law at Leipsic and one of the
chief advisers OF the Government, together
with Dr. Wendte's friend Won Holzendorff, let
out the scheme. The fact was that as long as
the church was separated from the state, that
is, up TO 1872, she had grown too powerful
AS Bishop Yon Kettler says, "The true reason
OF all those measures aimed against the lawful
rights of the church is that the spiritual power
OF the church is based upon the foundation of
freedom"
Friedberg has we'll said that if the church
was separated from the state it would become
too united to the people. He instanced the
United States, and with Teutonic frankness de-
clared. ''fhe whole question has become one
OF main force and the state must 90 so far as
to deprive the church of her influence over
the people in order that its own power may
be firmly established"
Won Holzendorf said of the Protestant
church in his Year Book of the German En-
pire (p. 478. Leipsic, 1879: cit has no intel
lectual unity, because ashortsighted orthodoxy
has sown and fostered indifference toward the
church, and also from the fact that the Pro-
testant church did not create constitution
suited to its own spirit. Who could count
upon the High Consis tory OF the court OF Ber-
lin outliving for q day the separation of the
church from the state? or that the fiercest
party strife would not break it up into sects?
But what an opportunity for the impact mass
OF the Catholic church as opposed TO these
diSmembered elements
From which we learn that the Falck laws
and Dr. Wendte's friends
First-Were opposed to the separation OF
church and state.
Second-Because If the Protestant church
were separated from the state it would fall to
pieces and the Catholics would get the lions
share of the fragments
Thlrd-Because as long as the Catholic
church is free as In the United States it is the
church of the people
tourth-There in order to turn it into
Government control.
THESE were the motives which inspired the
Msy laws. These hre the principles which are