ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH V4 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
States. The successor of Pius (Leo XIII), though be- lieved to be more mihlly disposed, has not yet receded from tlie standpoint of his predecessor. Tlie poiuiticate of Pius IX became of exceeding importance in the inner history of the CathoUc Church. The promulgation of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Vir- gin Marv, and of a syllabus which characterized a nmnber of doctrines and views commonly held in civil- ized countries as heretical or erroneous, indicated a de- termination on the part of the pope and his advisers to force a belief in, and submission to, the extreme theories concerning the papal authority upon the entire Catho- lic Church. This victory of the extremest papal party within the Catholic Church became complete when, in 1870, the Vatican Council proclaimed the infallibility of tlie doctrinal decisions of the pope as a tenet of the Catholic Church. A considerable number of bishops, chiefly from Germany, Austria, and France, made a de- termined opposition to the adoption of the new doctrine, chiefly on the ground of its being inopportune. After its adoption by the council, however, the opposing bish- ops gradually submitted to the demand of the pope to have the doctrine promulgated in their dioceses. Sev- eral did so with undisguised reluctance ; some (as bish- op BecUmann of Osnabriick) were said by their inti- mate friends to have secretlj' remained opponents of the innovation even on their death-bed ; but externally all yielded, and not one of the bishops separated from the Church in consequence of the great change which had been made by the Vatican Council. The lower clergy quite generally followed the example of the bishops. A number of professors of Catholic theology at the German universities continued, however, to refuse their submis- sion, and were therefore excommunicated. As many thousands of laymen sympathized with them, the neces- sity of providing for their religious wants gradually led to the organization of " Old Catholic" congregations in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and even the elec- tion of Old Catholic bishops in Germany and Switzer- land. In France, a distinguished pulpit orator, father Hyacinthe, has been active in the interest of Old Ca- tholicism, but thus far (1879) without effecting any or- ganization. In Italy, the friends of an Old Catholic reformation have a secret organization, with a bishop elect at its head. The numerical strength which the Old Catholic Church had attained after eight years of hard and incessant labors was far from meeting the ex- pectations of its founders. The total number of the popidation which expressly' and formally severed their connection with what was called, by the Old Cath- olics, the Vatican Church did not exceed 200,000 per- sons, an insignilicant nimiber if compared with the 200,- 000,000 who remain nominally connected with Rome. But the reluctance of the bulk of the Catholic popula- tion to sever their nominal connection with the Church of their ancestors cannot be taken as a proof that the Catholic Church retains its control over the nations which refused to separate from her in the 16th century. The history of the Catholic nations during the last cen- tury furnishes, on the contrarj', ample proof that the influence of the national Church in all these countries has to a very large extent l>con undermined. In if^pain the Cortes freipienth' defied the authority of the Church. In 1835 nearly all the convents were abolished, and only a few of them have ever been restored. In 1837 the Cortes abolished tithes and confiscated the entire prop- erty of the Church. In 1840, during the provisional regency of ICspartero, the pa|)al nuncio was expelled from the country; and in 1811 the union of the Span- ish Churi'h with IJome was declared to have ceased. Kepeatedly the Cortes decided in favor of religious toleration, especially during the short time when Spain was a republic. King Amadeo I, and still more Al- phonso XII (since 1874), deemed it expedient to seek a reconciliation with the pope; but even they have been unal)]c to grant all flic demands of the Church. — Porliir/(tl has been, almost without interruption, at va-
riance with the claims of the popes. All the religious orders of men, and nearly all those for women, have been suppressed. In the Cortes a liberal, anti-Koman party is invariably in the ascendency ; even the majority of the priests and bishops sympathize more with the govern- ment than with tlie pojie, and up to the end of 1878 the government had forbidden and prevented the promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility. — In France the revolution of 1830 not only expelled the Bourbons from the throne, but stripped, to a large ex- tent, the Church of its political power. According to the new constitution, the Roman Catholic Church was no longer the religion of the State, but only of the ma- jority of Frenchmen. The affairs of the nation were for many years conducted by a Protestant prime minis- ter, (iuizot. Najjoleon III endeavored to strengthen his dynasty by making extensive concessions to the hie- rarchy; and even after the establishment of the republic in 1871, the majority of the Legislative Assembly and one of the presidents of the republic (MacMahon) favored the Catholic restoration in order to check the confirma- tion and advance of republican principles; but in 1879 the success of the Republican party at the general elec- tion, in spite of its dentmciation by all the bishops, placed the government of the country in the hands of statesmen who are fully determined to annihilate the influence of the Catholic priesthood upon the govern- ment of France and upon the education of the rising generation. — In the little kingdom of Belf/ium, which, in 1830, established its independence of Holland, the Cath- olic Church has, on the whole, exercised a greater in- fluence upon legislation than in any other country of Europe; but, notwithstanding the immense power of the Church, the liberal partj-, which is in open and bit- ter enmity to the Church, secured at the general elec- tion in 1878 a majority in both chambers, and has since prepared a law on public education which will exclude the influence of the Church. — In Austria the close alliance between the absolute government and the popes for the supjiression of all liberal tenden- cies was terminated by the introduction of a constitu- tional form of government in 1848. An attempt which was made in 1855 to re-establish this alliance by a new Austrian concordat, which gave to the Catholic bishops a far-reaching influence upon public affairs, was of short duration. The re-establisliment of a parliamentary gov- ernment has shown that the majority of both houses are adverse to the continuance of Church influence upon public affairs, and that they uphold the principles of re- ligious toleration and of State education. — Ilaly has,\ike Spain and Portugal, expelled the religious orders and confiscated the property of the Church ; it has fully sec- ularized public instruction, and, more than any other government of the world, it is impelled to reject the claims of the Church, because these claims involve the destruction of Italian unity. — Among the states o{ Spcm- ish and Portiigiiese America there is not one which has not had, from time to time, its conflicts with pope and bishops. The progress of religious toleration and of a secidar school system, after the Protestant models of Germany and the LTnited States, and in opposition to the bishops, proves that the Church has ceased to have a firm hold on anj' of these states. See Old Cath- olics.