A story from the second half of the 19th century in what is now Nowogrodziec says much about what awaited overly politicized clergymen during the Kulturkampf. From 1871 to 1878, Chancellor of the German Reich Otto von Bismarck waged a struggle against Pope Pius IX. The issue was the doctrine of papal infallibility, which, in the chancellor’s view, could undermine the authority of the state and lead to divisions in united Germany.
In the 19th century, Bolesławiec County was inhabited mainly by Protestants, but Catholics were a large religious group. The Catholic parish in Naumburg on the Queis River (Nowogrodziec) included Milików and Parzyce, where Catholics were the majority, as well as Gierałtów, Czerna, Nawojów Śląski, Ocice, Zebrzydowa, Nowa and Mierzwin, where Protestants were the majority. The town’s main Catholic church was the Church of St. Peter and Paul.
Catholics organized themselves into formal societies. At a regular meeting of one of them, the local priest Josepha Matuschke was a guest. The priest was asked to prepare a lecture. It was the content of his speech that brought him before the court.
Father Matuschke most likely criticized the policies of the Reich authorities. We can only guess what he said to those gathered. Did he praise Pope Pius IX? Did he speak about the pope’s infallibility? Or did he criticize the repression of Catholics in Otto von Bismarck’s Reich? He certainly addressed political topics that were controversial enough at the time for them to become the basis for the prosecutor bringing charges against him.
The priest’s trial took place in 1875 before the District Court in Bolesławiec. The prosecutor wanted the priest sentenced to several days in prison and also demanded the dissolution of the society that had invited him to give the lecture.
The court sided with the prosecutor. The verdict against the priest was unfavorable: seven days’ imprisonment. The society, which in the authorities’ opinion had allowed meetings to become too freewheeling, was also outlawed. Today, such a situation would be unthinkable. Priests in Poland do not shy away from politics; they often influence it and profit from it, like Tadeusz Rydzyk of Toruń.