Kulturkampf in Switzerland

The Kulturkampf in Switzerland was a conflict between the state and the Catholic Church under Pope Pius IX. at the time of the First Vatican Council of 1870 . The internal unification of Switzerland as a democratic constitutional state had already succeeded in 1848 and ended what was, as it were, the first phase of the Kulturkampf, the “ Sonderbund War ”.

Conflict over Gaspard Mermillod in Geneva

Gaspard Mermillod

A conflict broke out in Geneva , where the Catholic parish priest Gaspard Mermillod had transferred episcopal powers over the local Catholics without government approval. Because he exercised powers despite protests from the State Council , he was deposed on September 20, 1872. However, on January 16, 1873, the Roman Curia appointed him Vicar Apostolic of the Canton of Geneva . The Federal Council expelled him. Because the Pope described the action of the Swiss authorities as "shameful" in an encyclical on November 21 , the Federal Council broke off all relations with the Curia on December 12, 1873 and presented his to the Lucerne Nuncio (Vatican Ambassador) Gian Battista Agnozzi Passes to.

Bishop Eugène Lachat and the dissolution of the diocese of Basel

The bishop Eugène Lachat of the diocese of Basel proclaimed the dogma of infallibility after the council in 1870 , although the diocesan conference had forbidden this, i.e. the representatives of the cantons of Solothurn , Lucerne , Zug , Bern , Aargau , Thurgau and Basel-Landschaft . Pastors Johann Baptist Egli (1821–1886) in Lucerne and Paulin Gschwind (1833–1914) in Starrkirch did not want to recognize the new dogma. Lachat dropped her off and excommunicated her. Therefore, on January 29, 1873, the cantons (with the exception of Zug and Lucerne) declared the diocese to be discharged. Since the cathedral chapter refused to appoint a diocese administrator (an interim bishop), the authorities abolished the diocese on December 21, 1874. They also liquidated Lachat's property. This moved its headquarters from Solothurn to Lucerne.

Second federal constitution

The second Swiss constitution of 1874, validated by referendum, granted freedom of religion on a large scale for the first time . However, it also included articles that were anti-cultural, i.e. directed against the Catholic Church:

Art. 50 said that the establishment of dioceses was subject to federal approval
Art. 51 prohibited the Jesuit order
Art. 52 prohibited the establishment or rebuilding of abolished monasteries
Art. 75 deprived Roman Catholic clergy of the right to vote for the National Council

With the new constitution, Switzerland received civil status legislation and, in a second step after the constitution of 1848, consolidated national unity across languages and denominations.

Unrest in the Jura

When 97 clergymen of the Catholic Jura , which since the Congress of Vienna had largely belonged to the canton of Bern , protested against the proceedings of the diocesan conference and declared Lachat to be their legitimate bishop, they were deposed by the Bern government and, after unrest in individual communities, suppressed by military occupation were expelled in January 1874. However, this latter measure had to be withdrawn as unconstitutional by order of the federal government in 1875. But the Bernese people approved the church law with 70,000 against 17,000 votes, through which the canton of Bern maintained its sovereignty in church matters.

State Catholic theological faculty in Bern

In order to have elective Catholic priesthood candidates with a liberal (i.e. anti-Roman) disposition available for religious policy in the Catholic Jura, the Bern government council set up a Catholic theological faculty at the University of Bern on December 10, 1874. For this purpose she called on non-teaching academic theology interested personalities from the German and French resistance to the "new dogmas" ( Immaculate Conception , infallibility dogma ) such as Ignaz von Döllinger , who refused and sent his student and later biographer Johannes Friedrich for a year, Hyacinthe Loyson , Henri Michaud , Philipp Woker and Karl von Gareis .

The emergence of the Christian Catholic Church

Eduard Herzog, around 35 years old

As early as 1871 there were strong protests against the dogmas of the First Vatican Council. One of the protagonists of this protest was Professor and National Councilor Walther Munzinger , who had written about the papacy and the national church as early as 1860 . He organized the first Swiss Catholic congress in Solothurn on September 18, 1871 , which formed the nucleus of the Christian Catholic Church.

In Geneva church relations were re-regulated by state laws, the parishes were given the right to elect a pastor and all corporations were abolished (1875). Since the Roman Catholics refused to obey the new church laws, they lost the regional church privileges, which were now passed on to the Christian Catholic (= Old Catholic ) parishes, of which quite a number formed in Solothurn, Aargau, Zurich, Basel, Bern and Geneva ; At a "National Synod" in Olten on June 7, 1876, they adopted a constitution and elected Pastor Eduard Herzog, who was then active in the German Catholic community in Krefeld, as Switzerland's first Christian Catholic bishop.

The end of the Kulturkampf

The turmoil in Ticino and Freiburg, caused by the resistance to the rule of the ultramontanes , repeatedly forced the Federal Council to interfere in order to help the oppressed liberal minority to some extent to gain their rights and to prevent obvious violations of the law. The church dispute gradually lost its edge, and in 1878 the Roman Catholics in Bern and Solothurn submitted to church laws. The Roman Curia renounced its plan to establish a diocese in Geneva and in 1883 appointed Mermillod Bishop of Lausanne . Through his assurance that he would loyally obey the state laws, Mermillod obtained his recognition by the federal government, while the canton of Geneva refused him this. In 1884, in agreement with the Pope, it was decided to restore the diocese of Basel, which was supposed to be connected with the apostolic vicariate in Ticino. Lachat renounced the diocese, and the provost of the cathedral chapter of Solothurn, Friedrich Fiala , was appointed bishop.

In 1920 Switzerland reintroduced the papal nunciature. In 1948 the canton of Bern renamed the Catholic theological faculty to Christian Catholic theological, in 2001 it was merged with the Protestant theological and recently renamed the «Theological Faculty».

The Jesuit ban and the monastery articles were lifted in 1973. It was not until the third constitution of 1999 that Roman Catholic “clergymen” were eligible for election to the National Council, but the Federal Council's responsibility for the Roman Catholic organizational units was not yet dared to be deleted from the constitution, as too many changes would have resulted in the constitution being adopted can endanger the people. But in the referendum of June 10, 2001, this last article (Art. 72, Paragraph 3 of the new version of the Convention) was also repealed.

swell

Augustin Keller : In rei memoriam: files on the history of ecclesiastical political and ecclesiastical struggles of the seventies, collected and accompanied by comments . Sauerlander, Aarau 1883.

literature

Peter Stadler : The Kulturkampf in Switzerland. Confederation and Catholic Church in Europe, 1848–1888. Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-7193-0928-2 ; 2nd, expanded edition, Chronos, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-905311-97-6 .

Web links

supporting documents

↑ Friedrich, Johann: The struggle against the German theologians and theological faculties in the last twenty years: Speech held at the opening of the Catholic theol. Faculty at the University of Bern. Bern: Jent & Reinert, 1876
↑ He was very active at first, but the faculty couldn't keep him.
↑ An outstanding spiritual theologian who clearly expressed his position on Rome early on: Michaud, Eugène: Le papauté antichrétienne. Paris 1872
↑ The father of Gertrud Woker . He later gave lectures on history at the Philosophical Faculty in Bern. He commented several times on the faculty and on its academic and political status, for example: Woker, Philipp: About Catholic theological faculties. Der Katholik, II. Year 1879, issue 12 ff.
↑ He got the chair of Walther Munzinger, who died during the preparations for the establishment of the new faculty . After his time in Bern he said: Gareis, Carl: Heresies about the Kulturkampf. Berlin 1876. In Bern he began with his compatriot and colleague, who had also been appointed there, the legal standard work on the religious laws of Switzerland, which was then quickly completed in Germany, where both were called back: Gareis, Carl / Zorn, Philipp: State and Church in Switzerland. A presentation of the federal and cantonal church state law with special regard to recent legal developments and today's conflicts between state and church , Volume 1, Zurich 1877, Volume 2, Zurich 1878

[1] Friedrich, Johann: The struggle against the German theologians and theological faculties in the last twenty years: Speech held at the opening of the Catholic theol. Faculty at the University of Bern. Bern: Jent & Reinert, 1876

[2] He was very active at first, but the faculty couldn't keep him.

[3] An outstanding spiritual theologian who clearly expressed his position on Rome early on: Michaud, Eugène: Le papauté antichrétienne. Paris 1872

[4] The father of Gertrud Woker . He later gave lectures on history at the Philosophical Faculty in Bern. He commented several times on the faculty and on its academic and political status, for example: Woker, Philipp: About Catholic theological faculties. Der Katholik, II. Year 1879, issue 12 ff.

[5] He got the chair of Walther Munzinger, who died during the preparations for the establishment of the new faculty . After his time in Bern he said: Gareis, Carl: Heresies about the Kulturkampf. Berlin 1876. In Bern he began with his compatriot and colleague, who had also been appointed there, the legal standard work on the religious laws of Switzerland, which was then quickly completed in Germany, where both were called back: Gareis, Carl / Zorn, Philipp: State and Church in Switzerland. A presentation of the federal and cantonal church state law with special regard to recent legal developments and today's conflicts between state and church , Volume 1, Zurich 1877, Volume 2, Zurich 1878