The action of the Government in supporting the Old Catholics may, however, be attributed to another motive.  The Catholics maintained that Bismarck desired to take this opportunity of creating a national German Church, and reunite Protestants and Catholics.  To have done so, had it been possible, would have been indeed to confer on the country the greatest of all blessings.  We cannot doubt that the thought had often come into Bismarck’s mind; it would be the proper and fitting conclusion to the work of creating a nation.  It was, however, impossible; under no circumstances could it have been done by a Protestant statesman; the impulse must have come from Bavaria, and the opposition of the Bavarian bishops to the Vatican decrees had been easily overcome.  Twice an opportunity had presented itself of making a national German Church:  once at the Reformation, once after the Revolution.  On both occasions it was lost and it will never recur.

The result, however, was that a bitter feeling of opposition was created between Church and State.  The secessionist priests were maintained in their positions by the Government, they were excommunicated by the bishops; students were forbidden to attend their lectures and the people to worship in the churches where they ministered.  It spread even to the army, when the Minister of War required the army chaplain at Cologne to celebrate Mass in a church which was used also by the Old Catholics.  He was forbidden to do so by his bishop, and the bishop was in consequence deprived of his salary and threatened with arrest.

The conflict having once begun soon spread; a new Minister of Culture was appointed; in the Reichstag a law was proposed expelling the Jesuits from Germany; and a number of important laws, the so-called May laws, were introduced into the Prussian Parliament, giving to the State great powers with regard to the education and appointment of priests; it was, for instance, ordered that no one should be appointed to a cure of souls who was not a German, and had not been brought up and educated in the State schools and universities of Prussia.  Then other laws were introduced, to which we have already referred, making civil marriage compulsory, so as to cripple the very strong power which the Roman Catholic priests could exercise, not only by refusing their consent to mixed marriages, but also by refusing to marry Old Catholics; a law was introduced taking the inspection of elementary schools out of the hands of the clergy, and finally a change was made in those articles of the Prussian Constitution which ensured to each denomination the management of its own affairs.  Bismarck was probably not responsible for the drafting of all these laws; he only occasionally took part in the discussion and was often away from Berlin.