"BismarckFailed To Control The Catholic Church In Germany" Discuss.
“Bismarck Failed To Control The Catholic Church In Germany” Discuss
Witold Kozlowski 6EN
This essay will set out to present the reasons for Bismarck’s failure to control the Catholic Church in Germany. It will mainly concentrate on the May Laws, since the Church’s strong opposition to this particular legislation, was what brought about the causes of Bismarck’s failure.
The doctrine of papal infallibility by Pope Pius IX, published on 18 July 1870, immediately created a division within the German Catholics. The New Catholics regarded the question of papal infallibility as another of his attributes to be accepted, while the Old Catholics found this objectionable. Both sides of the dispute appealed to the state: the former for the support of the Pope’s bulla; the latter for protection against the Episcopal inhibitions disallowing them to perform their functions (mainly university professors).
Bismarck, being an opportunist, could not let this chance go by. He regarded the division among the Catholics as their weakness and thus as an opportunity to introduce legislation, which would grant him control over the German Catholic Church (this, in turn, was his flaw, since his ill-prediction of the Catholics’ reaction brought about his failure). This was no new idea of his. Even before the mentioned Pope’s bulla, he thought of the Catholics as having an allegiance outside the state, which marked them off from the ‘good Germans’ hence his keenness on seizing power over the Church to increase state influence. Furthermore, the Liberal Party openly opposed the principles of the Catholic Church and would help Bismarck pass this legislation through parliament, which asserted him still further to turn plan into reality.