Falk Laws - Regulation

Regulation

In view of the Catholic resistance, the May Laws of 1873 gave responsibility for the training and appointment of clergy to the state, which resulted in the closing of nearly half of the seminaries in Prussia by 1878. Any cleric had to prove a university education and take a state examination. His appointment was subject to an obligation of diclosure to the Province's Oberpräsident (Upper President), who had the power to veto. During the reading in the Prussian Landtag in January, the Progressive deputy Rudolf Virchow had called the bill a Kulturkampf struggle for freedom from the church, a term soon adopted by both sides. The regulations translated into fewer seminarians and more parishes without priests, so that in many places half the parishes stood vacant, leaving hundreds of thousands of Catholics without regular spiritual care. In Trier, Catholics responded to the closing of the seminary by hosting seminarians in their homes and classes were conducted less formally. More commonly, seminarians were sent abroad for training, although such stop-gap measures did not nearly make up for the losses imposed by the May Laws.

At the same time a Prussian court for church matters was established. Those bishops acting contrary to the state laws were to be declared deposed. In October 1873 the Mainz bishop and Centre Party founder Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler, having publicly condemned the May Laws on a pilgrimage to Kevelaer, was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison, resulting in fierce protests. In March 1874 the Trier bishop Matthias Eberhard was put under arrest and died shortly after he was released from nine months of custody in 1876. Those assisting priests in contravention of the May Laws were subject to fines, arrest and imprisonment, and 210 people were convicted of such crimes in the first four months of 1875. On 13 July 1874 an assault on Bismarck's life by a Catholic journeyman at Bad Kissingen failed.

The May Law of 1874 even enabled the state administration to expatriate reluctant clergymen, one year later all congregations were dissolved except for those engaged in nursing. In April 1875 the Prussian Landtag passed the "Breadbasket Law", divesting clerics of any state support, as long as they did not officially acknowledge the primacy of the German Empire.