German Catholics - Early Growth

Early Growth

Within less than a year, the German Catholics grew to over 8,000 members. Communities were formed at Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, Offenbach am Main, Worms, Wiesbaden and several other locations. The movement garnered support from Robert Blum, a newspaper publisher in Leipzig. Blum published writings of the new movement and helped to organize it. Magdeburg was also prominent among the towns where congregations belonging to the new body were formed. There an instructor named Kote was a prominent worker.

Even before the beginning of the agitation led by Ronge, another movement fundamentally distinct, though in some respects similar, had been originated at Schneidemuhl, Posen, under the guidance of Johannes Czerski, also a priest, who had come into collision with the church authorities on the then much discussed question of mixed marriages, and also on that of the celibacy of the clergy. The result had been his suspension from office in March 1844; his public withdrawal, along with twenty-four adherents, from the Roman communion in August; his excommunication; and the formation, in October, of a "Christian Catholic" congregation which, while rejecting clerical celibacy, the use of Latin in public worship, and the doctrines of purgatory and transubstantiation, retained the Nicene theology and the doctrine of the seven sacraments. Together Ronge and Czerski appealed to the lower grades of the clergy to unite in founding a National German Church independent of the Pope and governed by councils and synods.