§ 186.4. =The various German unions= gradually fell under ultramontane influences. The Borromeo Society circulated Catholic books inculcating ultramontane views in politics and religion. The Boniface Union, founded by Martin, Bishop of Paderborn, aided needy Catholic congregations in Protestant districts. Other unions were devoted to foreign missions, to work among Germans in foreign lands, etc. In all the universities such societies were formed. In Bavaria patriot peasant associations were set on foot, as a standing army in the conflict of the ultramontane hierarchy with the new German empire. For the same purpose Bishop Ketteler founded in A.D. 1871 the Mainz Catholic Union, which in A.D. 1814 had 90,000 members. The Görres Society of 1876 (§ 188, 1) and the Canisius Society of 1879 (§ 151, 1) were meant to promote education on ultramontane lines.--In =Italy= such societies have striven for the restoration of the temporal power and the supremacy of the church over the State. The unions of =France= were confederated in A.D. 1870, and this general association holds an annual congress. The several unions were called “_œuvres_.” The _Œuvre du Vœu National_, _e.g._, had the task of restoring penitent France to the “sacred heart of Jesus” (§ 188, 12); the _Œuvre Pontifical_ made collections of Peter’s pence and for persecuted priests; the _Œuvre de Jesus-Ouvrier_ had to do with the working classes, etc. § 186.5. The knowledge of the omnipotence of =capital= in these days led to various proposals for turning it to account in the interests of Catholicism. The Catholic Bank schemes of the Belgian Langrand-Dumonceau in 1872 and the Munich bank were pure swindles; and that of Adele Spitzeder 1869-1872, pronounced “holy” by the clergy and ultramontane press, collapsed with a deficit of eight and a quarter million florins.--Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati invited church members to avoid risk to bank with him. He invested in land, advanced money for building churches, cloisters, schools, etc., and in A.D. 1878 found himself bankrupt with liabilities amounting to five million dollars. He then offered to resign his office, but the pope refused and gave him a coadjutor, whereupon the archbishop retired into a cloister where he died in his eighty-third year. In the _Union Générale_ of Paris, founded in 1876, which came to a crash in 1882, the French aristocracy, the higher clergy and members of orders lost hundreds of millions of francs.