Pius clubs

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pius clubs for religious freedom were the first organized forms of political Catholicism during the revolution of 1848/49 in Germany. Not to be confused are the Piusverein with the established in Austria in 1905 Piusverein Austria and also not with the 1857 founded in Switzerland Piusverein , a forerunner of the Swiss Catholic People's Association .

prehistory

The politicization of the Catholic population had already begun in the Vormärz . The mixed marriage dispute between the Church and the Prussian state and the resulting expressions of discontent by the Catholic population during the Cologne turmoil in the 1830s represented an important step.

The memory of these events led in 1848 to the demand for ecclesiastical freedom from the state, while the Catholic activists wanted to maintain ecclesiastical influence in society at the same time. The achievements of the March Revolution also opened up new unrestricted freedom of action for denominational associations, which led to the establishment of the first Pius Association in Mainz in March 1848, which was soon followed by other associations, which formed the " Catholic Association of Germany " as early as October 1848 in Mainz at the first German Catholic Day. united. In other regions, the development of the formation of associations was slower, e.g. B. in Regensburg, where a Pius association was not established until November 1848, but then twelve other Pius associations were established in the diocese over the course of a year, which founded further aid associations for charitable goals. All Pius associations had the goal of using the resources of the newly acquired liberal freedoms to secure the rights of the church and to improve the social situation of the working classes. These were good prerequisites for the emergence of a Catholic mass movement with a strong, especially extra-parliamentary effect. The associations sent numerous petitions to the Frankfurt National Assembly in order to promote the anchoring of church rights and independence from the state in connection with advice on fundamental rights.

organization

Catholic associations emerged in many places, of which the Pius Associations became the most important. They were named after Pope Pius IX. who was considered a supporter of liberal ideas at the beginning of his term in office (1846), but later became a bitter opponent of liberalism and modern society as a whole under the impact of the revolution . The first association of this kind was constituted in Mainz . On March 23, 1848, the Mainz canon Adam Franz Lennig called the "Pius Association for Religious Freedom" into being. Other foundations took place in the Rhineland , Westphalia , Nassau , Silesia , Bavaria , Württemberg and above all in Baden . There was with Franz Joseph Buss the main propagandist of the movement home. A certain parliamentary feedback existed with the " Catholic Club ", a loose intergroup alliance of Catholic representatives. At the end of October 1848, according to Siemann, there were 400 local clubs with around 100,000 members in Baden alone. However, these numbers, based on older research, are being challenged by more recent research. In his work on the revolution in the German south-west, Hippel assesses the effectiveness of the Pius clubs considerably less. According to this, there were only about 230 associations in the more than 800 parishes in Baden, which were also not infrequently a "one-man operation" of the local pastor and very often only existed for a very short time. According to this, there were only 50,000 members in the Pius clubs in Baden, which was still 15% of the adult Catholic men. Above all, however, the assertiveness of the Catholic associations in the strongly radicalized region was comparatively low, also because the Church itself had reservations about the poorly controllable grassroots organization. Like the Democrats and the Liberals, the Catholics also strived for an all-German umbrella organization. This was formed with the “General Assembly” at the beginning of October 1848 in Mainz. This gathering was the origin of the Catholic Days that have existed to the present day .

Political direction and goals

The political direction of the organization was not clear. Some of the clubs were close to the March Movement , but the majority were Catholic-conservative. Buß, who belonged to the right-wing parliamentary group Café Milani in Frankfurt, also belonged to this wing . Overall, they were opponents of the democratic movement, which wanted to limit the church's influence on society, for example through a state school system. The first General Assembly of Catholics approved a so-called 'safe-keeping at the German National Assembly. "On October 6, 1848 the main criticisms were the guarantee of the state school and the prohibition of the Jesuit Order by Parliament. The meeting was successful with their protest, the Jesuit ban was removed from basic rights and the church's right to oversee religious education was confirmed.

literature

  • Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society. Volume 2: From the reform era to the industrial and political “German double revolution” 1815–1845 / 49. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-32262-X , p. 730.
  • Wolfram Siemann : The German Revolution of 1848/49. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-11266-X , p. 108f. ( Edition Suhrkamp 1266 = NF 266).
  • Wolfgang von Hippel: Revolution in the German Southwest. The Grand Duchy of Baden 1848/49. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1998, ISBN 3-17-014039-6 ( writings on the political geography of Baden-Württemberg 26).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Stadler: Piusverein. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ Dieter Albrecht: Regensburg im Wandel, studies on the history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Museums and Archives of the City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): Studies and sources on the history of Regensburg . tape 2 . Mittelbayerische Druckerei und Verlags-Gesellschaft mbH, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-921114-11-X , p. 142 f .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang von Hippel, Revolution in the German Southwest , Stuttgart 1998: Verlag W. Kohlhammer (= writings on political regional studies of Baden-Württemberg, Volume 26), pp. 212–215