Catholic world exhibited to the union. Little was felt
here of important men. deeds, and speeches. The
cathedral capitular Hiniioben of Mayence. the "real
miles gloriosus oi the meeting," uttered hectoring fan- faronades about the glorious victories of Roman t latholi- cism in Germany, and expressed the confident ho| e, in regard to the forty new Protestant churches built by the Gustavua Vdolphua Union, that these would Bbortly again be cast out into the garden of rejected stones. •• Harlequinades also were not wanting. Prof, rlreuzer, of Cologne, e. g., comforted those present in regard to
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the charge of ultramontanism with the proverb, 'There stands the ox at the mountain ;' from which it follows incontestable that the oxen are the real Cismontanes, be- cause they are not able to pass over the mountain ; and as regards the papacy, it is evident that Christ himself, who called upon his Father on the cross, was a papist ; indeed, every man is a born papist, because the child lisps ' papa' already in the cradle ; and other such comical things." As a change, it was also greatly lamented that two hundred and seven large and twelve hundred and thirty-four small journals were in the service of the Protestants of Germany, while, on the other hand, the Roman Catholics had only six large and eighty-one small ones.
The tenth general assembly was held at Cologne (September, 1858). All agreed that the rt-sults hith- erto achieved were satisfactory. In general, the de- portment of this conference was more dignified, the contents of its speeches more important, than those of the former years. "Still the jester Himioben was not wanting this time also. He exhorted the women to form Parament unions, and informed them that the first union of this kind was formed in the year 33 after Christ, in consequence of the first secularization, when the soldiers cast lots for the garment of the Saviour, which he had worn the evening previous as a chasuble at the first celebration of the mass. Indeed, we can even go farther back than this : Mary, who made swaddling- bands for the child Jesus, was the proper originator of the union. After being edified with such trifles, but also hearing many important truths, especially concern- ing the study of history and the musical culture of the young, the meeting was closed by consecrating the pillar of Mary built at Cologne in honor of the im- maculate conception." The eleventh annual conference. which was held at Freiburg in 1859, expressed the hope that soon all Germany will be brought back within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church; while the twelfth, held at Prague in 1860, lamented over the wounds which were inflicted upon the papacy in that same year. The thirteenth general meeting, held at Munich in 1861, ex- tolled the virtues of the hol}r father, and declared the robbing of the pope's territory to be a robbery of God. The seventeenth, which was held at Treves in 1865, praised the encyclica published in 1861 in the bull "Quanta cura"as the greatest deed of the 19th century; pronounced John Goerres (q. v.) as the greatest German, and the holy coat at Treves as the symbol of Catholic unity. In this tenor it went on. " Half childish, half spleenish remained the rest of the meetings, until the day at Breslau, in 1872, when humor gave place to rage, naivete to fanaticism, and the ostensible peace- policy to the ringing of the alarm-bell'' (Kurtz).
The most prominent societies in connection with the original Pius societies are the Bonifacius unions for the support of needy Roman Catholic congregations in Prot- estant Germany (an imitation of the Gustavus Adolphus Union) ; the Charles Borromeo unions, to spread good Roman Catholic writings; the Vincentius and Elizabeth unions, for visiting the sick and taking care of the poor; the Journeymen unions (founded by Kolping, of Elber- feld, in 1816), for the spiritual and temporal sustenance of journeymen; the unions of The Holy Childhood of Jesus, composed chiefly of children, who contribute monthly five pennies for the salvation of exposed hea- then children (especially in China), and daily pray an Ave Maria for them. These are the most prominent organizations in the service of the hierarchy, and are found all over the world. In the United States there is hardly a large town in which one or the other of these societies is not to be found. The tendency is the same, although the name may be different. The pur- pose of these organizations in the United States is to bring the state as much as possible under the influence and control of the hierarchy, and the political arena is the field of labor. Already they influence the legislat- ures, school-boards ; yea, we may say they form a state
within the state. The clergy commands a great ig- norant mass, easily fanaticized, and ready to do any- thing "in majorem Dei gloriam et honorcm papa; infal- libilis." The doctrines of the Vatican are promulgated through numerous papers, and the utterances made at the annual gatherings of the different organizations are the best proof of the spirit which animates these soci- eties. See Herzog, Real- Encyklop. s. v. Piusvereine; Theolog. Universal- Lexikon, s. v.; Wetzer u. Welte, Kir -chen- Lex ikon, s. v. ; more especially Kurtz, Lehrbuch der Kirchengi sch. ( Mitau, 1874), ii, 332 sq. See also Ul- tramontanism (in its conflict with Germany). (B. P.)