KULTURKAMPF

Church-State conflict in Prussia and other states in germany, in Austria, and in Switzerland (1871–90). It became known as the Kulturkampf (struggle for civilization) after Rudolf Virchow, an atheist and materialist scientist, thus described it (Jan. 17, 1873) in the Prussian Landtag, where he represented the German Liberal party. The term is misleading because the struggle developed from a complex of causes.

Antecedents. The dispute began in Prussia and had its main center there. This predominantly Protestant territory had been the scene of a major Church-State conflict concerning mixed marriages during the 1830s (see cologne, mixed marriage dispute in). King Frederick William IV (1840–61) ended this disagreement, and for the duration of his long reign granted considerable freedom to Catholics, permitting the Church to prosper. For nearly three decades after the settlement of the Cologne affair, Prussian Catholics enjoyed a liberty superior to that in most other sections of Germany, although intolerance continued to be the rule in many German principalities under Protestant rulers. State control of religion was common, even in Catholic states such as Bavaria. From about the mid-19th century, however, opposition to the Church in Prussia was on the increase from diverse quarters and for a variety of reasons. Part of it was confessional. Protestant hostility tended to subside until 1850, but became much more pronounced after that because of growing Catholic activity and demands for further liberties. The marked progress of ultramontanism, the increasing influence of the papacy in Germany and elsewhere, and finally the solemn definitions of papal primacy and infallibility at vatican council i (1870) disturbed many Protestants. So did the writings of dÖllinger and others against Luther and the Reformation. The growing practice of recruiting membership in various kinds of societies along sectarian lines further separated Protestants and Catholics. There were unfounded fears of an imminent Catholic offensive.

German liberalism became very hostile to Catholicism. After the revolution in 1848, liberalism in Germany developed along lines more philosophical than political and fell under the influence of hegelianism and its views on the unlimited power of the state. The liberal outlook was materialistic and antiecclesiastical. To speed the process of laicizing society, secularizing education, and eliminating all religious influences from public and private life, the liberals advocated a return to Prussia's former practices of state control over religion. Middle-class financial and industrial interests, strong supporters of liberalism, objected also to the progressive social views of Bp. Wilhelm von ketteler and the center party. The naturalistic liberal view of the world and of man was so diametrically opposed to the Catholic one that the struggle between them could be regarded, in part at least, as a Kulturkampf. The syllabus of errors (1864) served to widen the gulf between liberals and Catholics.

Nationalistic and political factors were also part of the background of the Kulturkampf. In the drive to unify Germany, Catholics favored the inclusion of Austria, whereas Protestants sided with Bismarck in the successful move to eliminate this great Catholic power from united Germany and to make Protestant Prussia the leading state. Germanism was portrayed as the equivalent of Protestantism and Prussianism.

Solidarity among Catholics increased with the mounting offensive against them. Prussian Catholics took the lead in organizing themselves for political, social, and religious purposes. The formation of the Center party in 1870 was the best-known manifestation of this trend. One of its effects, however, was to stimulate the opposition.

Otto von Bismarck was the person most responsible for inaugurating the Kulturkampf. His motives were both religious and political. He misunderstood and disliked Catholicism as a religion, and a number of political considerations reinforced his opposition. Catholics were the chief opponents to his plans for uniting Germany, but excluding Austria. During the Franco-Prussian War some Catholics in southern Germany sympathized openly with France. In Alsace-Lorraine many of the Catholic clergy opposed incorporation into the new German Empire. Catholic nostalgia for a "Great Germany" did not disappear in 1870. Catholics throughout Germany showed themselves wary of a Protestant emperor. Bavarians voiced suspicions that unification under the Hohenzollerns aimed to convert all Germans into Prussians and Lutherans.

Bismarck's suspicions about Catholic patriotism increased when the clergy in Silesia advocated the use of the Polish language in confessional schools and resisted Germanization. Bismarck wanted a centralized state, but Catholics inclined toward a federated one. Their particularist views were understandable because Catholics were a minority group in the Empire as a whole, but they won political support among Protestants in Hanover and elsewhere. The Center party was sufficiently powerful to challenge the chancellor's dominance. The Catholic Church, Bismarck thought, should be subject to state control, like other religious groups. In his foreign policy Bismarck believed it advantageous to ally himself with the new Kingdom of Italy. The Center party, however, pressed for intervention in the roman question to bring about the restoration of the states of the church. Bismarck condemned this policy as preferring the welfare of the pope to that of the fatherland. He denounced the Center as a state within a state and as a gathering of enemies of the Empire. The chancellor tried to destroy the Center by having the Holy See disavow the party, and when this attempt failed, he resorted to open conflict with Catholics. In doing so he had the support of the liberals and of many Protestants.

The Conflict. The Kulturkampf began with the abolition of the Catholic bureau in the Prussian ministry of education and public worship (July 8, 1871).

Prussia. The government began to support the old catholics in their conflicts with the hierarchy. In August, Bismarck ordered normal schools and school inspection in Alsace-Lorraine removed from the control of the Catholic clergy and placed under lay supervision. The Pulpit Law (Kanzelparagraph ) was enacted (Nov. 28, 1871) by the Reichstag, placing severe penalties on criticisms of the state from the pulpit. Tension increased when Pius IX refused to accept Cardinal Gustav Hohenlohe as the first ambassador of the Empire to the Holy See. This rebuff led Bismarck to remark (May 15, 1872): "We shall not go to Canossa."

Upon the proposal of Adalbert Falk, Prussian minister of education and public worship, a law was passed (March 1872) in the Prussian Landtag that subjected all schools to state inspection. Bismarck sought primarily to terminate anti-German activities by priests in Silesia, but the Center party saw this as an opening wedge to secularize education completely, a step the liberals had been advocating. In June all religious were excluded from public education in Prussia, and the Reichstag ordered all Jesuits expelled from the empire within six months (July 4,1872). As a result, more than 500 members of this order went into exile. When Pius IX protested (December 1872), Bismarck severed diplomatic relations with the Vatican. In 1873 the Redemptorists, Vincentians, Holy Ghost Fathers, and Religious of the Sacred Heart fell under the same ban as the Jesuits.

In 1873 the Prussian Landtag promulgated a series of laws in May—hence the name May Laws. They placed priestly training under close government supervision and required seminarians, who must be German nationals, to study three years in a German university and to submit to state examinations in literature, history, and philosophy. Clerical appointments by bishops were subjected to government veto, and restrictions were placed on episcopal powers of excommunication and of discipline, although appeals could be made from episcopal decisions to a newly created civil tribunal.

One effect of these May Laws was to unify Catholics. Prussian bishops refused to cooperate in carrying out this legislation. Priests supported their bishops, even though many of them were fined and imprisoned. The Center party increased greatly its representation in the Landtag and Reichstag. Archbishop Mieczyslaw ledÓchowski was arrested and exiled for opposing the teaching of the catechism in German to Polish children. The archbishop of Cologne and the bishop of Trier were also arrested. A second set of May Laws, in 1874, made recalcitrant bishops and priests liable to deposition and exile. During vacancies caused by their removal, their offices were to be administered in accordance with the Prussian government's directives. Pius IX declared the May Laws null and void (February 1875). An attempt by a Catholic to assassinate Bismarck (July 1874) was utilized by the chancellor to try to discredit the Center party and to justify further measures against Catholics. Civil marriage was made obligatory in Prussia (February 1875), and later in other German states. In April of 1875, the Landtag passed the so-called Bread-basket Law, which permitted the state to suspend all financial grants in dioceses where the law was not obeyed. In May all religious, except those engaged in hospital work, were expelled. In June all Church property was confiscated, and title to it was transferred to lay trustees elected by the parishioners. By 1877 thousands of parishes had lost their pastors, and nine of the twelve Prussian bishops were in exile. Although some bishops were able to administer their dioceses secretly through delegated priests, the disruption of Church life was very serious.

The height of the Kulturkampf came in 1875. Catholic resistance remained firm; yet Ludwig windthorst prevented an extremism in the Center party and in the growing Catholic press that would preclude negotiation and compromise with Bismarck. By 1875 there was no longer likelihood of an alliance of German Catholics with Austria against the empire. Then, too, the coalition of national liberals and conservatives that had supported Bismarck lost its coherence, and the socialists emerged as a new political enemy that Bismarck had to take into account. Emperor William I favored a more moderate policy. Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903) proved more conciliatory than his predecessor, and the papal nuncio at Munich began conversations to end the strife. Bismarck slowly gave way, but he was reluctant to repeal the May Laws outright, and he insisted upon the Center party's cooperation on certain military issues. Falk was dismissed in 1879, and his successor was given wide discretionary powers to alleviate the May Laws. German Catholics resented the exclusion of Windthorst and other Center leaders from the negotiations in Vienna between Prussia and the Vatican. Restoration of diplomatic relations with the Holy See came in 1882. In 1886 and 1887 the May Laws were modified to the satisfaction of Catholics. Other anti-Catholic measures were repealed in 1890 and 1891, but it was not until 1904 that the section of the law expelling Jesuits was rescinded, and not until 1917 was the anti-Jesuit legislation completely abrogated.

Elsewhere in Germany. Some other German states followed Prussia's example. Baden, which had introduced restrictions on Catholics in the 1860s, enacted laws similar to Prussia's concerning clerical education and appointments. It required all primary schools to operate as interdenominational ones (Simultanschule ) and assisted the Old Catholics. Although Baden did not copy Prussia's severity in enforcing these laws, the Archdiocese of Freiburg remained vacant from 1868 to 1881. Hessen-Darmstadt introduced interdenominational schools, but the other measures patterned on Prussia's were not strictly enforced. Baden and Hessen-Darmstadt repealed their Kulturkampf laws between 1880 and 1886. In Catholic bavaria, Johann von Lutz, the liberal minister of education (later premier), started the Kulturkampf in close cooperation with Bismarck. Bavaria aided the Old Catholics, established Simultanschule, and until 1890 reverted to the type of state control of the Church (Staatskirchentum) prevalent in the 18th century.

Austria. A Kulturkampf began in Austria before 1870. In 1868 the liberals under Prime Minister Count Franz von Beust transferred marriage jurisdiction to civil courts, secularized the administration of public schools, and undermined the public position of the Church. In 1870 the government used the definition of papal infallibility as a pretext to abrogate the concordat of 1855. The liberals also cultivated the Old Catholics and impeded the Jesuits. In 1874 a set of May Laws passed the Austrian parliament that seriously affected the Church's legal position, restricted the rights of religious orders, placed Church funds under State supervision, and imposed upon bishops the obligation of notifying the state concerning ecclesiastical appointments. Pius IX sharply condemned the legislation, and Cardinal Joseph von rauscher, Bp. Joseph Fessler, and Bp. Franz von rudigier offered resistance. Since the enforcement of these measures was not severe, the Austrian bishops were divided, and a serious Church-State conflict was averted. When the liberal parties lost their influence (1879), much of the damage to the Church was soon undone.

Switzerland. In Switzerland, Catholics were in a difficult situation after the military defeat of the Sonderbund in 1847. The Jesuits were subsequently banned and monasteries were closed. The Syllabus of Errors and the definition of papal infallibility incensed Protestants and led them to enter a bitter onslaught against the Church. Old Catholics received government protection and were allowed to form the Christian Catholic Church (1875); in Protestant cantons they were given many Catholic churches for their use. In Basel, Bp. Eugène lachat was expelled for proceeding against priests who refused to accept the decrees of Vatican Council I. In Bernese Jura, where protest was strongest against the expulsion, priests faithful to their bishop were forced from their parishes and replaced by Old Catholic priests. At Geneva, Bp. Gaspard mermillod was similarly deposed and expelled (1873) for attempting to establish an episcopal see in the city. In 1874 the federal constitution was revised to prohibit the establishment of new dioceses or monasteries without the federal government's consent. Jesuits and other religious orders were expelled from the entire country. The papal nuncio was asked to leave (1874), and diplomatic relations with the Holy See were severed until 1884. Civil marriage became obligatory; and schools, interdenominational. One effect of this repression was to draw Swiss Catholics closer together. Leo XIII began negotiations, seeking a settlement, and in 1883 Mermillod was able to return. Religious peace gradually returned.

Conclusion. The Kulturkampf caused much suffering for the Church, but it was not a success. Moral victory lay with the Catholics, who emerged more closely united and much more attached to Rome. Unfortunately, Catholics tended to develop the ghetto mentality of an oppressed minority and to remain aloof from the higher cultural life. For the state, the Kulturkampf had the bad effect of estranging millions of Catholic citizens for some decades.

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