The ‘Centre’ began by declaring itself ‘a political party which has assumed as its duty the representation of the interests of the whole nation in all domains of public life, in accordance with the principles of Christian doctrine.’ (_Katholische Weltanschauung_: Catholic conception of the world.) Soon they announced political action founded on ‘a Christian basis’ (christliche Basis), the spirit of which is thus defined by one of its apostles (Doctor Brauweiler, April, 1913): ‘In the domain of practical action, _concepts are determined by the end in view_. The formation of political concepts is comparable with the formation of juridical concepts. The jurist forms his concepts _with no other consideration than that of what is needed, in relation solely to the required end_. But no one can say that the juridical concept thus formed is a false one. In the same way, one may speak in politics of Christianity or Christian doctrine.’ In 1914, Doctor Karl Bachem of Cologne, published a pamphlet entitled: _Centre, Catholic Doctrine, Practical Politics_, where he declares that the doctrine of ‘universal Christianity’ is only a political formula intended to render possible the collaboration of Catholics and Protestants, chiefly in Parliament; that from the religious point of view this formula has only a negative meaning, and only means the determination to struggle against materialism, atheism and nihilism; that its positive content is defined by the Prussian Constitution which in paragraphs 14 and 18 lays down that ‘the Christian religion’ is the ‘foundation of the institutions of the State’. Thus, as M. Edmond Bloud justly remarks, Doctor Bachem makes the Prussian Constitution the Rule of Faith. Put ‘national interest’ in place of ‘Prussian Constitution’ and you will have the state of mind of many a modern French Catholic. The attitude of the German Catholics seems to me also representative of a certain Catholicism common to-day to other nations, in declarations of this sort: ‘The Catholic members of the “Centre” remain Catholics individually, _but the party, as a party, does not necessarily accept the Catholic conception of the world_.’ And again: ‘The Pope and the Bishops have authority in matters of religion, but wherever political matters are concerned we shall not allow ourselves to be influenced by the authority of the Pope or by that of the Bishops.’ (M. Edmond Bloud alludes to a conversation reported in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, April, 1914, where one of the chief of the ‘syndicats mixtes’ declared that, ‘The German Catholics have had enough of the Pope.’) What M. Bloud calls the ‘declericalization of the Centre’ is not a thing peculiar to our neighbours, nor is the joy of the great German nationalist organ (the Prussian Annals) when it observes that ‘the Catholic idea of the State is ceasing to be ultramontain and is becoming nationalist’.[175]