Faulhaber replies to Pacelli’s letter of June 10th and states his position against compromises agreed by the Bavarian People’s Party as to school issues in the Government’s cultural policy - June 13, 1919
Source: Timeline
June 13, 1919 Faulhaber replies to Pacelli’s letter of June 10th and states his position against compromises agreed by the Bavarian People’s Party as to school issues in the Government’s cultural policy.
English translation
Also on June 13, Father F.X. Eggersdorfer writes Faulhaber, explaining the reasonableness of BVP compromises with Hoffmann, while indicating that he is already undertaking efforts to break the BVP from its coalition with the SPD and Hoffmann. English translation
June 13, 1919 Faulhaber in Munich to Pacelli in Rorschach, Switzerland:
Your Excellency!
Most Reverend Lord Apostolic Nuncio!
Just yesterday, as I was receiving the most treasured letter from Your Excellency, it became possible for me for the first time to ask a member of the Bavarian People’s Party, the priest and professor Dr. Eggersdorfer of Passau, about the agreements among the political parties participating in the new Ministerial Cabinet. Thus it came out that the publication of the new Government’s program in the press, for example the “Bavarian Staatszeitung” no. 138 of June 1st, did not completely and accurately convey the official text of the program, which naturally makes it more difficult for us to step up against this program, as the decisive sentences about the culture-political future in Bavaria are not characterized with any kind of stylistic and logical clarity, much less statesmanlike insight. The most frightful sentence, which stands at the head of the Government program in the Staatszeitung: “The parties obligate themselves and their delegations in the Landtag to the implementation of the following program,” is not taken by Dr. Eggersdorfer as though the case is now already closed as to these agreements and modifications in the official deliberations in the Landtag are cut off in advance. He repeatedly maintained in any event that on account of transportation difficulties, plenary meetings of the Bavarian People’s Party have been extraordinarily difficult and that Minister Hoffmann has negotiated much with individual members of the party.
About the genesis of the agreements that have frightfully surprised and alarmed us Catholics in Bavaria, he says: About three weeks ago, Minister Hoffmann had the leaders of the Bavarian People’s Party and the German Democratic Party come to him and declared to them: either both these parties join in the Government or the Social Democrats will resign from the Government and leave Bavaria to Bolshevism. In order to protect the State from the return of the reign of terror of the Räterepublik, both the parties declared themselves ready to cooperate. In the negotiations, the representatives of the Bavarian People’s Party were apparently more mindful of the even more radical provisions of the previous constitution outline than of Catholic principles, and kept seeking only to moderate the much more radical provisions by way of compromise, for example they were apparently happy that section 15 of the State fundamental law (“religious societies order and administer their affairs independently in accordance with State laws”) is no longer carried over into the new program, but for other equally unecclesiastical stipulations they had less of a sharp eye.
Also the 16th birthday as the age of majority for religious matters was a compromise between the 14th and the 18th year. Moreover the responsible officers of the Bavarian People’s Party only read what was in the Government program, without paying attention to what was not in it, for example the Church’s right of taxing its own members, the right of schools run by religious orders. It would not be difficult at the moment to stop trusting the Bavarian People’s Party, but it would be very difficult to set up a new political organization of Bavarian Catholics in its place. Of any sort of quiet effort to secure the rights of the Church, I could learn nothing from Dr. Eggersdorfer.
I have now written, in the presence of my Diocesan Ordinariate, the following for Dr. Eggerdorfer to share about my standpoint to the People’s Party, in this way:
1. I do not underestimate the extraordinary difficulties of the present hour, especially not the danger of a new revolution, and I do not doubt the good intentions of the leaders of the People’s Party. There are, however, certain limits to compromises in religious-political questions, where inalienable principles and rights of the Church are at stake, and where the Government program of a Kulturkampf-inclined Minister cannot be accepted lock, stock and barrel at any price, even the price of Cabinet positions and other advantages. In particular, partisan political questions, such as how many Cabinet ministers and State councilors will be appointed from a party, may not be mixed with culture-political questions that substantially contradict the laws of the Church, the proclamations of the Bishops and the will of the Catholic people. It is one thing if the party is represented in an already existing coalition Cabinet and in realpolitik accommodates a lesser evil under protest, but it is something else if the party, before entering into a Government, obligates itself to the implementation of a program that is not compatible with Church law.
2. Hoffmann’s school decree of January 25th, which institutes a right of parents and guardians to take their children out of religious education, is, despite all protests of the Catholic people, not only continued in the new Government program, but even aggravated insofar as students 16 years and older can keep out of religious instruction by their own preference without any inquiry to the parents. Before the elections [of January 12, 1919], the People’s Party publicly demanded the confessional school and assurances of Catholic education, and now it has agreed to establish inter-denominational schools upon the request of a majority of parents [in a town or school district]. The trust of the Catholic people in the People’s Party must be heavily shaken by this, which will be shown in the next elections. The yieldingness of individual party members as to school policy is all the less understandable, as the Bishops previously sent every delegate the ecclesiastical guidelines for the school question in a memorandum that I approved for distribution.
3. Of all questions, the question of the confessional school is the most important, in order to bring in a general popular agreement in the so-called referendum. And if the confessional school is not established as the normal school, then we demand just as in Belgium in 1879, the free school, for which, however, only simple school taxes must be paid. Above all, the rights of parents in the school issue must be advocated as strongly as possible.
4. The next matter to be handled in the Landtag is the teacher law and the school finance law, where again in Article 76 Section 2 the school finance law of 1902 and with it the confessional school are disempowered. The People’s Party must above all put the question before the Bavarian people whether then the school policy of the day in Bavaria is going to be really the most urgent matter, or whether concerns for peace and the economy, for bread and work, might be more pressing than the implementation of the Government program of a Minister who coincidentally feels himself expert only in the field of education.
It is certainly in connection with this conduct of the Government, that the Holy Father has reservations about conferring upon the Government the indult for the right of presentation of parishes to new pastors. Among the ranks of the clergy, frankly the long vacancies are more painfully felt the longer they continue.
The great public Corpus Christi procession unfortunately cannot take place this year in Munich...
Yesterday in the Benedictine church of St. Boniface was the election of the new abbot here, former Prior Fr. Bonifaz Wöhrmüller...
With the wish that the Nunciature may be preserved for us in Bavaria, and the effectiveness of Your Excellency may be accompanied by the same rich blessing in the future as before, and with the expression of my deepest respect, I remain ...
June 13, 1919 Eggersdorfer to Faulhaber:
Your Excellency, Most Reverend Herr Archbishop!
May I be allowed to make the following expansion upon the report and remarks you allowed me to make the day before yesterday:
The suggestion that, as a corrective to the early age of religion-deciding maturity, the confirmation age might be pushed back and a more extensive instruction given for making such decision, in no way arose from the [BVP’s Landtag] delegation. There it was only agreed whether the negotiations should collapse over the issue of 16 years as the decisive age. My motion that they should was outvoted by 23 votes against versus 18 in favor. The suggestion of raising the confirmation age and providing more decisional instruction arose from a conference with the clergy of the city of Passau, which I held concerning these issues...
In the matter of the inter-denominational school, may I state clearly that the text of the agreement says:
“The transformation of existing confessional schools into inter-denominational schools or the new establishment of inter-denominational schools ...
Thus the inter-denominational school is not expressly made the norm. Rather it is presupposed that when the parents register their children at the beginning of the year, they will at the same time register whether they want the confessional or the inter-denominational school. Such preferences shall be registered not annually, but rather upon demand from time to time. That still appears to me to be the best we can achieve under the circumstances of the current majority. The state of the law up to now is worse. According to it, the entirety of the Munich schools could have been turned into inter-denominational ones at the beginning of the new school year, because up to now only the decision of the school authorities and the approval of the Government was necessary. The transformation would have certainly occurred, if I am correctly informed.
In the meantime a new act of the Hoffmannisch school battle appears to be at hand. Of the three monastic institutions for teacher training in Lower Bavaria, two have received a prohibition on taking in new students for 1919/20 (Seligenthal and Ursulinen-Straubing). The third, Freudenhaim-Passau, may only take 10 instead of 12. What is happening here with Upper Bavaria?
I sent Speck a quick copy of this instruction together with an outline of my discussion with Your Excellency, in order perhaps to bring about an early occasion to further dissolve the connection to Hoffmann.
Might I again present Your Excellency a copy of the resolutions of June 10th, with the devoted request that you examine closely whether they are basically on the right path. As soon as possible I will send Your Excellency an exemplar of the constitution outline. Then the recommended formulations shall be immediately sought.
Your Archepiscopal Excellency’s most reverential and devoted,
Dr. F.X. Eggersdorfer
Source: Nachlass Faulhaber, No. 7480