Ein.s Congress, a meeting of plenipotentiaries of the archliishops of Mentz, (^)logne, Treves, and Salz- burg, held in the watering-place of Ems, in August, 178(), for the ]uirpose of delining the riglits belonging to bislio]is and archbisl)ops, and of opposing the exor- bitant demands of the ]iapal nuncio. The agreement which was arrived at, and which consists of 23 arti- cles, is called the Ems Punctation. The archbish- ops of Germany, as well as the emperors, had long been dissatisfied with the endeavors made by the popes, under the pretext of securini^ the executipn of the de- crees of the Council of Trent, to steadilj- enlarge the rights of papal nuncios and legates in Germany at
the expense of the bishops. A serious conflict was brought on by the elector Karl Theodor of Bavaria, who, in order to supersede as much as possible the episcopal jurisdiction of other princes of the empire, such as the archbishops of Salzburg and Cologne, over his subjects, induced the Pope to appoint a papal nun- cio at the court of Munich. Tlie archbishop of Salz- burg in 1785 requested the archljishop of INIentz, as primate of the German Catholic Church, to avert the new danger threatening the authorit}' of the archbish- ops. The primate remonstrated in liome, and his ex- ample was soon followed by the bishops of Eichstudt and Freising. But Pope Pius VI declared that the new nuncio in Munich, Z'oglio, would be clothed with the same authority' which had heretofore been exer- cised by the nuncio in Cologne. The archbishops of Mentz and Salzburg appealed to the emperor Joseph II for aid against this encroachment of the Pope upon their rights. The emperor replied, Oct. 12, 1785, that the Pope would at once be notified that the emperor would never allow an infringement upon the diocesan rights of the German bishops. Nevertheless, the new nuncio Zoglio made his appearance in Munich in March, 178G ; informed all archbishops and bishops whose dioceses embraced part of Bavaria of his ar- rival ; exercised all the prerogatives which the Pope claimed for his nuncios ; and even appointed a sub- nuncio at Dusseldorf. The archbishop of Cologne re- monstrated against these proceedings to the emper- or, and the latter ordered the elector Karl Theodor to forbid the nuncio the farther exercise of functions which did not belong to him. At the same time, the archbishops of Cologne, Treves, Mentz, and Salzburg forbade their sulijects to receive anj' orders from the nuncios of Munich and Cologne. In order to organize a combined resistance to the papal encroachments, the archbishop of Mentz invited the archbishops of Co- logne, Treves, and Salzburg to send deputies to a con- gress to be held at Ems. The invitation was accepted, and accordingly tlie Ems congress met in August, 1786. It was composed of the assistant bishop Heimes, of Mentz, the oflicial Beck, of Treves, the official Von TautphaBus, of Cologne, and the consistorial councillor Bonike, of Salzburg. These deputies, on the 25th of August, agreed upon the Ems Punctation, the most im- portant points of which are the following : 1. All those papal prerogatives and reservations which were un- known in the first centuries, but derived from the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, must now be abandoned. 2. The bishops, having received from Christ the power to bind and to loose, the persons living within their dioceses must not pass over their immediate ecclesi- astical superiors in order to have recourse to Rome. No exemptions must any more be allowed except such as have been confirmed by the emperors. The members of monastic orders are forbidden to receive anj' orders from their generals, or any superiors living outside of Germany. 3. As the bishops have the pow- er to grant dispensations, the &o-cSi\\ei\ facilitates qnin- qiiennales shall no lontrer be asked from the papal court ; and the bulls, briefs, and rescripts of the popes, as well as all the declarations, rescripts, and orders of the Koman congregations, shall not be received in Ger- many without their express recognition by the bish- ops. 4. The nuncios shall have no ecclesiastical juris- diction, but shall be merel}' ambassadors of the Pope. The Punctation, signed bj' the four archbishops, was sent to the emperor Joseph, who assured the archbishops of his assistance, but also declared, perhaps influenced l)y the nuncio Caprara at Vienna, that the execution would depend upon an agreement between the arch- bishop on the one hand, and the exempts, the suf- fragan bishops, and the government on the other. Tlie papal party, in the mean while, endeavored to ex- cite the jealousj' of the bishops against the four arch- bishops, charging the latter with an intention of ex- tending their rights at the expense of those of the
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bishops. The archbishop of Mentz was in particular charj^ed with a desire to establish a primatical author- it}' over all archbishops and bisho|js of German}'. Amon^ the bishops who came forward to attack the Punctation, those of Spires, Hildesheim, and Wiirz- biirg were prominent. Soon particular interests caused disagreement among the signers of the Punctation. The archbishop of Mentz approached the Pope with a request to have baron von Dalberg appointed his coadjutor ; the archbishop of Treves (1787) appealed to Kome for a renewal of the facultates quinquennales ; and finalh', in 1789, all the four archbishops declared that they desired a settlement of the controversy, and that they recognised the right of the Pope to send nuncios and to grant dispensations. The literature on the Congress and the Punctation of Ems is very copious. The results of the congress were at once published in the work Resultate des Emser Congresses (Francf 1787) [also in Die neuesten Grundlarjen der deutsch-kath. Kir- chen-Verfasswiff, Stuttgardt, 1821]. The official reply of Kome is entitled Responsio ad Jtfetropolitanos Mogunt. Trevir. Colon, et Salisb. super Nuntiaturis (Romse, 1789). See also Neudecker, in Herzog, Eeal-Enci/klop. iii, 784 ; 'Munch,Gesch. des Emser Congresses; Pacca (papal nun- cio at Cologne), Hislor. Denkiciirdigkeiten (Augsburg, 1832) ; Stigloher, Die Errichtung der piibstl. Nuntiatur in Miinchen und der Emser Congress (Ratisbon, 1866). (A.J.S.)