The Catholic World, Vol. 16, October 1872-March 1873Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 16, October 1872-March 1873
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Such is the amendment on the original motion for the recent legislation
with regard to the Jesuits which was proposed to the Reichstag by Dr.
Friedberg. The original motion was identical in aim and almost in
substance. The amendment is more exact and well‐defined, leaving not the
slightest loophole for possible evasion or escape. It was framed and
pressed on by the kindly spirit and generous hand of Prince Clovis of
Hohenlohe, the brother of the cardinal whose rejection by the Pope as
ambassador from Germany to his court gave such high umbrage to the
exquisitely sensitive Prince Bismarck.
Such is the law: plain, clear, and well‐defined. There is no mistaking it:
it is “goodly writ.” Paraphrased, it runs thus:
There is a body of men—and women even; for though we attach ourselves to
the chief point at issue, the phrase, “Those congregations of a similar
character,” may cover a very extensive ground, and seems ingeniously
framed for abuse—in Germany, possessed of certain property, colleges,
churches, seminaries, schools; possessed of certain rights as free
citizens of a free land: liberty of action and of thought. Most of them
are natives of the soil; many of them members of the highest families in
the empire. They have been doing their work all these years without let or
hindrance, or rumor of such. The state found no fault with them, or at
least never expressed it. Consequently, they went on without changing one
iota of their principles or mode of action, teaching in the universities,
colleges, and schools: preaching in the churches; gathering together
communities; giving themselves free voice in a free press, that all might
hear and tell openly what they were doing, and what they purposed doing.
Without a moment’s warning, without a trial or even a mockery of a trial,
the state swoops down on them, seizes their property, breaks up their
communities, turns them out of their homes adrift upon the world,
proclaims them outlaws, banishes them the empire, save such as were born
in it—one of whom happens to be a cousin to the emperor himself; and these
latter they proscribe to fixed limits under the surveillance of the
police.
And such is law! The law of the new German Empire: the first great step in
its reconstruction!
Short of death, the state could not do more utterly to destroy a body of
men. Condensed into a word, these measures are—demolition. As death alone
can make their penalty supreme, the crimes of these outlaws ought to be
proportionately great. What, then, are these crimes that in a moment
produced such a sentence?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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