THE TRIALS OF THE CHURCH IN BISMARCK'S DOMINION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 189, 10 November 1876, Page 12

THE TRIALS OF THE CHURCH IN BISMARCK'S DOMINION.

(From the German Contributor of the 'Liverpool Catholic Times/) The Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs has at last pronounced the sentence of " deposition " against the Archbishop of Cologne, after a sham trial which lasted four hours. As a matter of course, his Grace did not appear at the trial, nor had he engaged any counsel to defend his cause, so that the prosecutor, Mr. Irrgahn, of Paderborn, had it all his own way. The report was read by Professor Dove, of the University of Gottingen. The great attachment of Prussian Catholics to Pius IX. was unmistakably shown on the 18th of June, when, from Cologne and neighborhood alone 118 congratulatory telegrams were sent to the Holy Father. The Archbishop of Cologne received 3,400 letters and cards on his fete-day. A few days before the Corpus Christi Feast, the pupils of the Gymnasium of Bonn were informed by the school authorities that the Gymnasium, as a body, would not take part in the procession, but that, individually, the students might join in it, if they liked. Availing themselves of this singular "permission" from their " Catholic" director, nearly all the students, viz., 150, followed the Holy Sacrament, but birds of one feather will flock together — they chose to walk very properly in ranks, as, no doubt, they had a good right to do. The Director, however, was of a different opinion, for lie severely punished the students of the upper classes for having walked in a body.

The Princess Josephine, of Hohenzollern, has presented the Sisters of Mercy, of Wiesbaden, with a beautifully-embroidered church vestment in grateful remembrance of the seat her Royal Highness was allowed to occupy in the Sisters' little chapel, during her sojourn in Wiesbaden.

In several localities tie Sisters of Mercy were ordered by Government to abstain in"f uture from giving lessons in needle work, and to limit their activity to nursing the sick. The Prussian Government seems to consider a needle a dangerous weapon in the hands of nuns, a sort of needle-gun with which they might kill patriotic feelings in the hearts of their pupils. If they were not blind, they would see that they themselves do that sort of work so thoroughly that the victims of their despotism neeed not go to the trouble of undertaking it. How could a Prussian subject love his rulers, when they constantly wound his most sacred feelings ; when they destroy his peace and happiness ; when they rob him of the blessings of his religion, forbidding him to have his own children baptized or buried, unless he consents to accept the ministrations of an apostate priest, k. few days ago, a poor peasant of Florenburg, near Fulda, went to the " interdicted" priest of the village, and with tears in his eyes implored him to bury a child of his who had already been dead several days. The priest could do nothing in the matter, and advised the distracted father to see the Landrath about it ; but when he came to the Landrath, this official told him to make his application to a " legal" priest. The Gsrres Society, for the study of science in Catholic Germany, is offering several prizes of 1,500 and 800 marks each for the best biography of St. Boniface, a history of German philosophy since Kant, and a biography of Albertus Magnus.

Respecting the Corpus Christi procession at Ems, I am very sorry to have to correct a piece of intelligence contained in my last letter, which, I am sure, must have given great satisfaction to your readers. It was the Emperor of Russia, and not Emperor William, wlio assisted at the procession at Ems in the manner described. Although at first I thought the news a little too good to be true, yet I had no right to doubt its accuracy, as it originated in the * Nassauer Boten,' a Catholic paper that is always -well informed of the Emperor's movements in Ems.

The Protestant Church in Germany is really standing on her last legs ; in Middle Germany thousands of people will soon declare their separation from the Established Church ; in Heidelberg, there are more professors, than students, of Protestant theology ; and in the once famous Protestant seminary of Harborn, in Nassau, there is at the present time only one student of divinity listening to the lectures of half-a-dozen of professors.