Category: Church and State

• The Bismarck-Pope Secret Pact

  This theory holds that Otto von Bismarck and the papacy, despite their public Kulturkampf conflict, were secretly converging on a common goal: the containment of liberal democracy, radical parliamentarianism, and mass politics in Europe. In its strongest form, the theory argues that the fierce anti-Catholic struggle of the 1870s was eventually superseded by a quiet understanding that throne and altar, state and church, could cooperate against socialism and democratic upheaval. The documented record does show a real transition from open conflict to negotiated accommodation after Pope Leo XIII’s election in 1878 and Bismarck’s political turn away from the National Liberals. What remains unproven is the larger allegation that this amounted to a covert anti-democratic alliance spanning Europe.