RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Doeg
Doellingrer
In 1843 Harless gave expression to his views on the controversy concerning the immaculate conception of the virgin, and DolUnger 4. Begin- answered that the Church permits a nings of difference of opinion regarding a sub- Break ordinate question concerning which with Rome, there is no tradition and nothing is revealed. His hearers, in 1847, presented him with an address on his birthday, and in acknowledging his thanks he spoke upon the significance of a German Catholic, or national church, and pointed out as its special mission the conservation of theological learning. As they conceived it, the principal mission of himself and his friends was, not only to maintain freedom of faith and conscience, but also the independence of Church and State, with a similar basis for all religious societies. The opposition to him, which began in 1849, because of his national church tendencies never waned. The archbishop of Mimich, Count Reisach, a Jesuit scholar, denounced him, and, on the whole, he was regarded at Rome with the greatest mistrust.
Meantime Dollinger had projected a comprehensive church history, and in connection therewith had collected material for a history of 5. Position the popes. In 1857 there appeared upon the at Regensburg as part thereof Hei- Temporal denthum und Jvdenihum, Vorhalle zur Power. Geschichte des Christenthums (Eng.
transl., Tfie Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ, 2 vols., London, 1862 reprint), and in 1860 Christenthum und Kirche in der Zeit der Grundlegung (Eng. transl.. The First Age of Christianity and the Church, 2 vols., 1866). Besides this he busied himself with a history of the heresies of the Middle Ages, and upon many journeys to Italy drew from wide sources. In 1857 he finally made his often planned journey to Rome. The attempts of the Italians for a United Italy appeared to him to have miscarried. Even Napoleon III. seemed to be weakening. Without an ecclesiastical state the control of the Church was believed unpossible; and the Jesuits insisted upon the necessity of such a state as a part of the Catholic faith. At Easter of 1861 certain ladies of the nobility requested him to say something regarding the situation. In response he gave his Odeon lectures, in which he considered the possibility of the fall of the Papal State. The nuncio left the hall in the middle of the discourse, and the Roman Catholic world was thrown into great excitement. Napoleon had the substance of the lectures transmitted to him by telegraph. Dollinger published the lectures with an explanatory introduction in Kirche und Kirchen, Papstthum und Kirchenstaat (Munich, 1861, Eng. transl.. The Church and the Churches, or the Papacy and the Temporal Power, London, 1862), and even Pius IX. was appeased by the fiattering picture of himself which it contained. Meanwhile a severe conflict broke out between the Jesuits and the German theologians. No unscholastic theologian or philosopher was accepted as trustworthy, no theological faculty as Catholic, which was not held by the Jesuits. Many German theologians considered that a
conference of scholars was necessary, and Dollinger was mduced to issue the caU. It cost, however, endless trouble to bring it about. But 6. Widen- on Sept. 28, 1863, Dollinger opened ing of the conference with his celebrated Breach address. Die V ergangenheit und Gegenwith Rome, wart der katholischen Theologie. This was the signal for a stormy outbreak on the part of the Jesuits against Dollinger, and, indeed. It was clearly evident that a reconciliation between them and the German theology was now impossible. The breach widened rapidly and a most vigorous fight on paper took place, in which the Jesuits' organ at Rome participated. In the syllabus of 1864 the lectures of Dollinger were put under the ban. No less objectionable was his Papstfabeln des Mittelalters (Munich, 1863; Eng. transl.. Fables respecting the Popes in the Middle Ages, London, 1871; New York, 1872), in which he criticized the Donation of Constantino and elaborated on the heresy of Pope Honorius I. This was regarded as directed immediately against papal infallibility. In Aug., 1866, Dollinger's friend Bishop Weis of Speyer wrote to Rome that there had lately appeared in Munich a school of theologians who strove to lower the authority and rule of the apostolic chair, and especially to oppose the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope. Archbishop Manning in London on Feb. 25, 1866, wrote to Rome that Dollinger was writing against the prerogatives of the holy chair. Archbishop Scherr of Munich considered it to be the best solution of all the difficulties, if Dollinger should die of the attack of pneumonia from which he was then suffering.
Nothing definite concerning the purpose of the approaching Vatican Council (q.v.) was known until the Civilta Cattolica in Feb., 7. The 1869, raised the curtain through the Vatican correspondence of Cardinal Antonelli. Council, Thereupon Dollinger again took up his Excom- his pen and published in the Augsburg munication. Allgemeine Zeitung a series of articles, collected in August into a book, Der Papst und das Konzil, under the pseudonym of Janus (Eng. transl, The Pope and the Council, London, 1869). He opposed pope and council, and the work displayed such knowledge of papal history that it was immediately suspected that the author could be none other than Dollinger. At the same time he issued the so-called Hohenlohen Theses, and followed shortly with his anonymous Erwagungen filr die Bischofe des Konzils vher die Frage der Unfehlbarkeit, at once translated into French and sent to the bishops. Both writings, however, gave the sources insufficiently, and therefore were quite useless for ignorant or poorly instructed bishops. Cardinal Schwarzenberg urged upon Dollinger that, at least as a private individual, he should attend the Council ; but he preferred to remain in Munich, where he published regularly in the Allgemeine Zeitung Briefe vom Konzil, based upon material furnished him from Rome, each of which fell as a bomb i]i Rome. Einige Worte iiber die Unfelhbarkeitsaddresse and Die neue Geschaftsordnung im Konzil were articles which still more militated against
DoeUinerer Bogwa