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Page 123

 

123 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Ems, Congress of

bishops above all to come to an understanding with the bishops under them. This advice was at once adopted, but it was too late. The German bishops felt aggrieved because they had not been admitted to the consultation at Ems, and even though some of them were won over, a part held entirely aloof. This opposition of the bishops found its leader and spokesman in Count LimburgStyrum, prince bishop of Speyer, who came out in public with his criticism of the resolutions of Ems and thereby started lengthy literary discussions on both sides.

The contest between the archbishops and the nuncios had broken out at the close of 1786. Zoglio had appointed a provost in Diisseldorf, inter nuncio for Jiilich and Berg; and Pacca 3. Further granted a matrimonial dispensation

Complica- regardless of an objection made by dons. the elector of Cologne. As the latter, like the electors of Treves and Mainz, granted certain matrimonial dispensations in degrees not covered by their quinquennial faculties, Paces, sent on Nov. 30, 1786, a circular to all priests and general vicariates, declaring the invalidity of these dispensations. Then the archbishops of Cologne, Treves, and Mainz gave all their priests the command to return this circular to the sender. In this they were supported by the emperor. The Imperial Council in Vienna published two decrees in which Pacca's action was designated as unseemly and improper and his circular was formally declared invalid. The elector of the Palatinate was, moreover, directed not to concede any jurisdiction to the nuncio Zoglio, and also to prohibit the internuncio appointed by him from executing the orders given by the nuncio. But the elector of the Palatinate objected strongly to this censure, and demanded of the priests of the diocese of Worms that, under penalty of confiscation of their temporalia, they should at once return the archiepiscopal order which had demanded their sending back the circular of the nuncio. He also required that they should accept no directions from the archiepiscopal vicariate without his consent, and laid claim to the power to receive a nuncio as one of his rights as sovereign and made it known to the emperor that his territorial rights might be limited by imperial legislation but not by decrees of the Imperial Council. Zoglio now appointed, with the encouragement of the elector, a subdelegate in Heidelberg.

Still greater dangers for the German archbishops arose among themselves. In 1785 the German " League of Princes " (Fiirstenlrund) had been formed. Its existence was in danger, if on the death of the aged and invalid archbishop of Mainz, Friedrich von Erthal, his successor did not sustain his policy. Under these circumstances Prussia undertook to play the part of mediator in the contest between the elector of Mainz and the curia, and a secret arrangement was made that Theodor von Dalberg, the candidate preferred by Prussia and agreeable to the cathedral chapter of Mainz, should be recognized by the pope as the successor of the elector. This agreement also stated that both the elector and Dalberg promised

to remain true to the union; but both took upon themselves as well the obligation of not putting the resolution of the Congress of Ems into execution. On June 5, 1787, Dalberg was chosen coadjutor archbishop of Mainz. In pursuance of this arrangement he openly abandoned the ground taken in the Ems agreement, petitioned in Rome for the renewal of the quinquennial faculties, and raised no objection when the nuncio in Cologne was commissioned to undertake his episcopal examination (processes informativus).

The other bishops also appeared to be more peaceably inclined. Then Pius VI. adopted a measure which provoked great excitement; in a brief of Nov. 6, 1787, he granted the petition of the elector of the Bavarian Palatinate to take a tithe of the incomes of the ecclesiastical property throughout the whole extent of his territories. This concession was all the more important because it was to last ten years and the nuncio in Munich was ordered to collect the tithe and commissioned to punish with all censures, and even with excommunication, those who refused the payment, and, if necessary, to depose them from their offices and benefices. All the German archbishops were affected by this order; Mainz, in the diocese of Worms; Cologne, in the duchies of Jiilich and Berg; Treves, in Augsburg; Salzburg, in his Bavarian territories.

This procedure on the part of the curia, to be sure, caused the elector of Mainz to return to the side of the other archbishops, and induced them to approach the emperor again in order to obtain action against the nuncios. With their assent an imperial court decree was issued, which referred to the Diet of Regensburg the controverted question whether nuncios with jurisdiction should be tolerated in Germany. But not even the archbishops earnestly intended to bring about a decision at the diet; they only wished to put pressure on the curia. The negotiations were without issue and finally the archbishops decided to take the advice which had been given them and preferably to reach an understanding with the curia directly; but their efforts in Rome met with no success. The answer which finally came to them, dated Nov. 14, 1789, was in the form of a brief, which was a memorial filling three hundred and thirty-six quarto pages. Therein the pope insisted upon all his demands in thei-r full scope.

The curia had made no mistake in its calculations. Under the pressure of the revolutionary

trend of the times, which proceeded 4. The from France, the opposition of the Outcome. German archbishops collapsed. The

electors fled from their capitals in 1792 when the French General Custine drew near. The abolition of the ecclesiastical principalities, ordered in 1803, together with the still more potent factor of the rise of Ultramontanism, have saved the nineteenth-century papacy from a resurrection in power of the ideas of 1786.

The defeat of the German archbishops may be explained on many grounds. It' was disadvantageous for them that public opinion, which backed them at the start, soon turned from them and became interested in other things; but the lament-