Kulturkampf

Under the influence of ascending new philosophies and ideologies such as the enlightenment, realism, positivism, materialism, nationalism, secularism and liberalism, the role of religion in society and the relationship between society and church underwent profound changes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many countries endeavoured to strip the church of worldly powers; reduce the duties of the church to spiritual affairs by secularising the public sphere and by separation of church and state; and to assert the supremacy of the state, especially in education.[3] Róisín Healy (2003) argues that across Europe, the Kulturkampf operated mainly on the state level and was found "especially in strongholds of liberalism, anti-clericalism, and anti-Catholicism."[4]

Pope Pius IX (ca. 1878)

The Catholic Church resisted this development which it portrayed as an attack on religion and sought to maintain and even strengthen its strong role in the state and society.[5] With the growing influence of enlightenment and after having lost much of its wealth, power and influence in the mediatisation and secularization of the early 19th century the church had been in a state of decline.[6][7] The papacy at this time was at a weak point in its history, having just lost all its territories to Italy, with the pope a "prisoner" in the Vatican.[8] The church strove to revert its waning influence and to keep sway in such matters as e. g. marriage, family and education and initiated a Catholic revival by founding associations, papers, schools, social establishments or new orders and encouraging religious practices such as pilgrimages, mass assemblies, the devotion of Virgin Mary or the sacred heart of Jesus and the veneration of relics;[9] the pope himself became an object of devotion.[10] Apart from the extraordinary proliferation of religious orders, the 19th century also witnessed the rise of countless Catholic associations and organisations, especially in Germany and in France.[11] Catholic propaganda including the interpretation of daily events was spread through local and national Catholic newspapers prominent in all western European nations as well as through organized missions and groups dedicated to pious literature.[12]

In the 19th century, the Catholic Church promulgated a series of contentious dogmas and encyclicals. In 1832, in the encyclical Mirari vos, Pope Gregory XVI condemned liberalism, free press and free thought.

Under the leadership of his successor, Pope Pius IX:

• 1854: the church proclaimed Mary's immaculate conception.
• 1864: the Vatican published the encyclical Quanta cura and Syllabus of Errors.
• 1870: the First Vatican Council declared the dogma of Papal infallibility.

With its "Syllabus of Errors" of 1864, the Catholic Church launched an assault on the new ideologies, condemning 80 philosophical and political statements, mainly the foundations of the modern nation state, as false. It rejected outright such concepts as freedom of religion, free thought, separation of church and state, civil marriage, sovereignty of the people, democracy, liberalism and socialism, reason as the sole base of human action, and in general condemned the idea of conciliation with progress. The announcements included an index of forbidden books.[13]

A profound change was the gradual reorganization of the Catholic Church and its expansive use of the media. The popes worked to increase their control of the Church. Heavily criticized by European governments, it was centralized and streamlined with a strict hierarchy, the bishops sought direction from the Vatican and the needs and views of the international church were given priority over the local ones. Opponents of the new hierarchical church organization pejoratively called it ultramontanism.[14][15]

In view of the church's opposition to enlightenment, liberal reforms and the revolutions of the 18th/19th centuries, these dogmas and the church's expressed insistence on papal primacy angered the liberal-minded all across Europe, even among some Catholics, adding fuel to the heated debates.[16][17]

The dogmas represented a threat to the secularized state as they reaffirmed that the fundamental allegiance of Catholics was not to their nation-state, but to the Gospel and the Church and that the pope's teaching was absolutely authoritative and binding on all the faithful. Secular politicians even wondered whether "Catholicism and allegiance to the modern liberal state were not mutually exclusive". British Prime Minister Gladstone wrote in 1874 that the teaching on papal infallibility compromised the allegiance of faithful English Catholics. For European liberalism, the dogmas were a declaration of war against the modern state, science and spiritual freedom.[18][19]

The pope's handling of dissent of the dogmas, e. g. by excommunication of critics or demanding their removal from schools and universities, was considered as "epitome of papal authoritarianism".[20] In direct response to the Vatican's announcements, Austria passed the so-called May-Laws for Cisleithania in 1868, restricting the Concordat of 1855, and then cancelled the concordat altogether in 1870. Saxony and Bavaria withheld approval to publish the papal infallibility dogma; Hesse and Baden even denied it any legal validity. France refused to publish the doctrines altogether; Spain forbade publication of the Syllabus of Errors in 1864.[21]

Anti-Catholic caricature in the Munich Leuchtkugeln, 1848. A warning not to rejoice yet. The Catholic cleric as a fox and blind passenger on the wagon of progress, in order to later reverse the course of history.

By the mid-19th century, liberal policies had also come to dominate Germany and the separation of church and state became a prominent issue.[22][23] The Kulturkampf in Prussia is usually framed by the years 1871 and 1878 with the Catholic Church officially announcing its end in 1880 but the struggle in Germany had been an ongoing matter without definite beginning and the years 1871 to 1878 only mark its culmination in Prussia.

In the wake of other European countries, most German states had taken first steps of secularisation well before unification. Predominantly Catholic Baden was at the forefront curbing the power of the Catholic Church (Baden Church Dispute, 1852–1854) and Kulturkampf Baden (Badischer Kulturkampf, 1864–1876).[24][25] Other examples are Prussia (1830s, 1850, 1859, and 1969), Württemberg (1859/1862), Bavaria (Bayerischer Kulturkampf, 1867), Hesse-Nassau or Hesse-Darmstadt.

In the 1837 Kölner Wirren ('Cologne Confusion') of legal and policy issues regarding the children of mixed Protestant-Catholic marriages,[26] Prussia's final settlement was considered a defeat for the state as it had given in to demands of the Catholic Church.[27] In 1850, Prussia again had a dispute with the church about civil marriage and primary schools[28] and in 1852, it issued decrees against the Jesuits. As in many European countries, Jesuits were being banned or heavily restricted in many of the German states e. g. in Saxony (1831) and even in Catholic ones such as Bavaria (1851), Baden (1860) or Württemberg (1862).[29]

Not to be left out, the German areas to the west of the Rhine had already gone through a process of separation of church and state in line with a radical secularization after annexation by revolutionary and Napoleonic France in 1794. After their return to Germany in 1814, many if not most of the changes were kept in place.[30]

In the Vormärz period, Catholic publications usually portrayed revolutions as negative and dangerous to the existing order as well as to the interests of the Catholic Church. Most of them considered a viable Catholicism to be necessary for the very health of society and state and to be the only true and effective protection against the scourge of revolution.[31] The unsuccessful German revolutions of 1848–49, which the Catholic Church had opposed, produced no democratic reforms and attempts to radically disentangle state-church relationships failed. In the revolutionary parliament, many prominent representatives of political Catholicism took the side of the extreme right-wingers. In the years following the revolution, Catholicism became increasingly politicised due to the massive anti-modernist and anti-liberal policies of the Vatican.

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and Franco-Prussian War of 1870 the Catholic Church sided against Prussia and it was an outspoken opponent of German unification under Prussia (as well as of Italy's unification).

The Catholic dogmas and doctrines announced in 1854, 1864 and 1870 were perceived in Germany as direct attacks on the modern nation state.[32] Thus, Bismarck, the Liberals and the Conservatives representing orthodox Protestants found the Centre Party's support of the pope highly provocative. Many Catholics shared these sentiments, especially against the pope's declared infallibility and the majority of Catholic German bishops deemed the definition of the dogma as "'unpropitious' in light of the situation in Germany". While most Catholics eventually reconciled themselves to the doctrine, some founded the small breakaway Old Catholic Church.

According to the Bavarian head of government, Hohenlohe, the dogma of infallibility compromised the Catholic's loyalty to the state.[33] He sent a circular to all the diplomatic representatives of the Bavarian Kingdom saying, "The only dogmatic thesis which Rome desires to have decided by the Council, and which the Jesuits in Italy and Germany are now agitating, is the question of the Infallibility of the Pope. This pretension once become a dogma, will have a wider scope than the purely spiritual spheres, and will become evidently a political question: for it will raise the power of the Sovereign Pontiff, even in temporal matters, above all the princes and peoples of Christendom."[34]

The liberal majorities in the Imperial Diet and the Prussian parliament as well as liberals in general regarded the Church as backward, a hotbed for reactionaries, enemies of progress and cast monastic life as the epitome of a backward Catholic medievalism. They were alarmed by the dramatic rise in the numbers of monasteries, convents and clerical religious groups in an era of widespread religious revival. The Diocese of Cologne, for example, saw a tenfold increase of monks and nuns between 1850 and 1872. Prussian authorities were particularly suspicious of the spread of monastic life among the Polish and French minorities.[35] The Church, in turn, saw the National-Liberals its worst enemy, accusing them of spearheading the war against Christianity and the Catholic Church.[36]

At unification in 1871, the new German Empire included 25.5 million Protestants (62% of the population) and 15 million Catholics (36.5% of the population). Although a minority in the empire, Catholics were the majority in the states of Bavaria, Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine as well as in the four Prussian Provinces of West Prussia, Posen, Rhineland, Westphalia and in the Prussian region of Upper Silesia. Since the Thirty Years' War the population was generally segregated along religious lines and rural areas or towns were overwhelmingly if not entirely of the same religion. Education was also separate and usually in the hands of the churches. There was little mutual tolerance, interaction or intermarriage. Protestants in general were deeply distrustful of the Catholic Church.

Bismarck c. 1875

Unification had been achieved through many obstacles with strong opponents. These were the European powers of France and Austria, both Catholic nations, and the Catholic Church itself, the three of which Bismarck perceived as "Coalition of Catholic Revenge". For Bismarck, the empire was very fragile and its consolidation was an important issue. Biographer Otto Pflanze emphasizes, "Bismarck's belief in the existence of a widespread Catholic conspiracy that posed a threat to both his German and European policies."[37]

In a Protestant empire, the Catholic Church was to lose its good standing which it had enjoyed for centuries in the Catholic-dominated Holy Roman Empire and which it would have continued to enjoy in a German empire united under Austrian auspices. Thus, in 1870, on the eve of unification, the Center Party was explicitly founded to defend the position of the church in the new empire.

Bismarck was highly concerned that many major members and supporters of this new party were not in sympathy with the new empire: the House of Hanover, the ethnic minority of the Poles, the southern German states. In 1871, the predominantly Catholic states of Southern Germany had only reluctantly joined the empire, increasing the overall share of the Catholic population to 36.5%. Among this Catholic share was Germany's largest ethnic minority, well over 2 million Poles in the east of Prussia, who under Prussia and Germany suffered discrimination and oppression.[38] Bismarck regarded the new Centre Party not only as an illegal mixup of politics and religion and the church's "long arm" but also as a unifying force for Catholic Germans and Poles and thus a threat to the consolidation of the empire. He feared that the Centre Party would frustrate his broader political agendas and he accused the Catholic priests of fostering Polish nationalism as had been done openly in the provinces of Posen and Upper Silesia.[16][39][40][41][42]

Prussian Minister of Education, Adalbert Falk, 1872

The Liberals regarded the Catholic Church as a powerful force of reaction and anti-modernity, especially after the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870 and the tightening control of the Vatican over the local bishops.[43] The renewed vitality of Catholicism in Germany with its mass gatherings also attracted Protestants – even the heir to the Prussian throne, with the king's approval, attended one.[44] Anti-liberalism, anti-clericalism, and anti-Catholicism became powerful intellectual forces of the time and the antagonism between Liberals and Protestants on one side and the Catholic Church on the other was fought out through mud-slinging in the press. A wave of anti-Catholic, anticlerical and anti-monastic pamphleteering in the liberal press[44] was answered by anti-liberal preaching and propaganda in Catholic newspapers and vice versa.

For these reasons, the government sought to wean the Catholic masses away from the hierarchy and the Centre Party and the liberal's demands to curb the power of the churches meshed well with Bismarck's main political objective to crush the Centre Party.

According to historian Anthony J. Steinhoff:

Bismarck's plan to disarm political Catholicism delighted liberal politicians, who provided the parliamentary backing for the crusade. Yet, the phrase the left-liberal Rudolf Virchow coined for this struggle, the Kulturkampf, suggests that the liberals wanted to do more than prevent Catholicism from becoming a political force. They wanted victory over Catholicism itself, the long-delayed conclusion of the Reformation.[45]

At least since 1847 and in line with the Liberals, Bismarck had also been of the professed opinion, that state and church should be completely separated and "the sphere of the state had to be made secure against the incursions by the church,"[46] although his ideas were not as far-reaching as in the United States or in Great Britain. He had in mind the traditional position of the Protestant church in Prussia and provoked considerable resistance from conservative Protestants. This became clear in a heated debate with Prussian culture minister von Mühler in 1871 when Bismarck said: "Since you stopped my plans in the Protestant church, I have to go via Rome."[47] In August 1871, at Bad Ems, Bismarck revealed his intention to fight against the Centre Party, to separate state and church, to transfer school inspection to laymen, to abolish religious instruction from schools and to transfer religious affairs to the minister of justice.[48]

On 22 January 1872, liberal Adalbert Falk replaced conservative Heinrich von Mühler as Prussian minister for religion, education and health. In Bismarck's mind, Falk was "to re-establish the rights of the state in relation to the church". Yet, unlike Bismarck, whose main motivation for the Kulturkampf was the political power struggle with the Centre Party, Falk, a lawyer, was a strong proponent of state authority having in mind the legal aspects of state-church relationships. Falk became the driving force behind the Kulturkampf laws. Although Bismarck publicly supported Falk, he doubted the success of his laws and was unhappy with his lack of political tact and sensitivity. The differences in their attitudes concerning the Kulturkampf eventually put the two politicians at odds with each other.[49][50]

With this background and the determination of church and state, the Kulturkampf in Germany acquired an additional edge as it gathered in intensity and bitterness.

• June 8: Fusion of Catholic and Protestant sections in the Prussian Ministry of Culture (responsible for religious matters). The Catholic section had been installed in 1840. The reason given for the merger was, that "the exclusively political attitude of equal justice to all" was to be adopted and that for that purpose one ecclesiastical department was required.[54][55] The merger was also a precondition for the School Supervision Act of the following year.[56]
• December 10: Empire, Pulpit Law (Kanzelparagraph) passed at the initiative of Bavaria and meant to curb what was considered the misuse of religious sermons for political agitation from the pulpit.[16][57] The law read: "Any cleric or other minister of religion shall be punished with imprisonment or incarceration of up to two years if he, while exercising his occupation or having his occupation exercised, makes state affairs the subject of announcements or discussion either in public before a crowd, in a church, or before any number of people in some other place designated for religious gatherings in such a way that it endangers the public peace."[58][59]

• January 22: Adalbert Falk became Prussian minister for spiritual, educational and health matters
• March 11: Prussian School Supervision Act (Schulaufsichtsgesetz). This legislation was at the heart of the Kulturkampf, abolishing church oversight of the Prussian primary school system (Catholic and Protestant), excluding the clergy from education and eliminating its influence in curricular matters.[19] This was a milestone for liberalism, as placing education into the hands of the government had always been at the top of its agenda. It was to ensure an open-minded and neutral education as the prerequisite for a progressive society. In the eyes of Bismarck, this law was necessary after the church, putting itself in opposition to the state, used the schools to incite the young against the government.
• April: The Vatican rejected Gustav Adolf, Cardinal Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst as German ambassador to the Holy See. Schillingsfürst had been critical of the infallibility dogma but eventually accepted the decision of the council. Therefore, Bismarck took him for a suitable mediator. In response to the rejection, the diplomatic mission was left vacant and Prussia suspended relations with the Vatican in December 1872.
• July 4: Empire, Jesuit Law banning of the Jesuits who were seen as the emissaries of Rome and the spearhead of ultramontanism. By acknowledging the supremacy of Papal authority, the Jesuits were accused of contesting the secular authority. The law allowed for the dissolution of all Jesuit chapters and expulsion of its members. The following year the law was extended to closely related orders: the Redemptorists, Lazarists, Fathers of the Holy Ghost, and the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. Continued and increasing Church resistance and contempt of the 1871/1872 laws led to changes in the constitution and the enactment of further laws. In order to facilitate these laws, the Prussian Constitution was amended.
• September 20: The Prussian bishops, at a conference in Fulda, protested against the regulations hostile to the church.
• December 23: The pope, in an address to his cardinals, denounced the new laws as persecution of the church.

Rudolf Virchow, 1861

• January 17: The term Kulturkampf comes into play. Debating the law on education conditions for the employment of clerics, a Progressive deputy in the Prussian legislature – the distinguished medical scientist and pioneer of public health methods, Rudolf Virchow said: "Ich habe die Überzeugung, es handelt sich hier um einen großen Kulturkampf" ('I am of the conviction that this is about a great cultural struggle').[60][61] He repeated this term in a call for a vote by the German Progress Party on 23 March 1873. It was ironically picked up and derided in the Catholic press and enthusiastically defended in the liberal.[62]
• January 30: While the laws were being debated in parliament, the Prussian bishops submit a protest against the planned legislation and in a memorial, they announced their opposition to the new laws.
• April 5: Prussia, Amendment of Sections 15, 16 and 18 of the Prussian Constitution:
  • In section 15 the sentence "The Protestant and the Roman Catholic Church, as well as every other religious community, regulates and administers its affairs independently" is supplemented by "but remain subject to the laws of the state and its legally regulated superintendence". It is added, that the same applies to the possession or beneficial use of institutions for religion, teaching, charity, endowments and funds.
  • Section 16, regarding the unrestricted dealings of religious communities with their seniors and public announcements according to general regulations was cancelled.
  • Section 18 cancelled the state's right to appoint, nominate, elect or confirm clerics for a post. But the amendment added, that the state could regulate the minimum education required for clerical posts, the appointment and dismissal of clergymen and servicemen of religion, and define the limits of ecclesiastical disciplinary measures.

• May 2: The bishops issued a common pastoral letter explaining to the faithful the necessity to unanimously and passively resist these laws.
• May 11-14: Four "May Laws" passed in 1873 and were enacted on May 11 through 14 that year.
• May 26: The bishops issued another pastoral letter calling on the faithful to resist the new laws and informed the Prussian government that they would not cooperate in their execution. Parish councils declined to elect new pastors or accept parish administrators. Exiled or imprisoned bishops used underground networks. The bishops of Münster and Paderborn refused the Kulturexamen for their seminaries and appointed priests without notifying authorities. Clergy obeying the mandate of the bishops immediately became subject to the punishments prescribed by the laws. Fines were imposed in hundreds of cases and the clerics resisted to pay at which, in turn, the government resorted to force, either by confiscation or imprisonment of up to two years.[63]
• November 21: In his encyclical Etsi multa on the persecution of the Church in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, the pope wrote of Germany "No wonder, then, that the former religious tranquility has been gravely disturbed in that Empire by this kind of law and other plans and actions of the Prussian government most hostile to the Church. But who would wish to falsely cast the blame of this disturbance on the Catholics of the German Empire!"[64] He claimed that Freemasonry was the motivating force behind the Kulturkampf.[65]

Ludwig Windthorst, 1872

The Falk Laws, or 'May Laws' (Maigesetze), were a set of laws passed by the Prussian parliament in the years 1873, 1874, and 1875. Four laws passed in 1873 were enacted on May 11 through 14 that year:

1. Law on religious disaffiliation allowing a person to sever his connection with the church by simple declaration before a justice of the peace. This declaration freed him from all civil effects of belonging to a church, especially ecclesiastical burthens and dues.

2. Law on ecclesiastical disciplinary measures restricting the exercise of ecclesiastical punishments and means of discipline directed against the life, property, freedom or honour of citizens. This included the infliction of the great excommunication if proclaimed with the name of the guilty, because of possible disturbances of civil and social intercourse. Thus, disciplinary measures were almost totally restricted to the spiritual realm (see state Monopoly on violence).

3. Ecclesiastical disciplinary law concerning ecclesiastical power of discipline and the establishment of The Royal Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs. This subordinated the Catholic Church to state jurisdiction not only in external but also in internal matters.[66] The law regulated the exercise of disciplinary power by church authorities against their officers for special violation of their duties. Members of the court had to be Germans residing in Germany. Bodily chastisement by the Church was entirely forbidden, fines were limited to maximum amounts, restrictions of freedom could only consist in banishment to a church institution within Germany no longer than 3 months and not against the will of the person concerned. On the other hand, the new court also was given jurisdiction over ecclesiastical officers in violation of state laws.

With this law, the German clergy was to be exempt from any juridical body outside of the nation. Hence, judgments of the Holy See or the Roman Rota would not be binding upon them. The highest court was made up of Prussian ecclesiastics, all appointed with the permission of Prussian civil authorities. The Church's juridical and punitive powers were restricted by allowing clerics, e. g. those punished by the Church for not resisting the Kulturkampf laws, to appeal to the Royal Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs. Bishops in defiance of this law could be deposed.

4. Education standards and civic registry law concerning the education and appointment of priests. Regarding the Protestant Church, these regulations had already been in force for a long time. All men intended for priesthood needed a graduate degree (Abitur) from a German gymnasium and study 3 years of theology at a German university.

All appointments of clerics had to be approved by the state. Herewith, training and appointment of the clergy came under state supervision. The traditional regimen of clerical study was to be replaced by a modern education in a liberal German institution, thus ensuring that candidates to the priesthood were imbued with the spirit of secularism. Furthermore, ecclesiastical offices could only be filled with the permission of the highest civil authority in each province, essentially reviving the ancient practice of lay investiture.[19]

• March 9: Prussian Civil Registry Law (birth, marriage, death). The same law was passed for the whole empire on 6 February 1875.
• May 4: Empire, Expatriation Law was meant to curb the exercise of church duties by clerics without the required consent of authorities. The law stipulated, that in such cases, after a final conviction, a cleric would be banned from his parish or sent to another place within the empire and, in case of reoccurrence, that the cleric would be expatriated and expelled.
• May 20: Prussian Law on the administration of vacant bishoprics. According to the law of 11 May 1873, administrators were to be elected for vacant bishoprics, authorizing laymen to assume administrative responsibilities at the parish level. This additional law stipulated that should an administrator not be elected according to the law, the property would be managed by a state superintendent.
• July 13: In the town of Bad Kissingen, Eduard Kullmann attempted to assassinate Bismarck with a pistol, but only hit his hand. Kullmann cited church laws as the reason for his attempt; he was sentenced to 14 years of Zuchthaus (correctional facilities with harsh forced labor). The assassination attempt led to an intensification of the Kulturkampf measures.

• February 5: The encyclical Quod Nunquam declared that the May Laws were invalid, "insofar as they totally oppose the divine order of the Church." The Catholic newspaper Westfälischer Merkur was the first to publish the whole text on the 18th of the same month in Germany. All the following papers publishing the encyclical were confiscated.[64]
• April 22: The Prussian Payment Law (Breadbasket Law) stopped government subsidies and payments for the Catholic bishoprics and clerics unless they signed a declaration of adherence to all laws.
• May 31: Prussian Congregations Law dissolving all orders within 6 months except those involved in care for the infirm. For teaching orders, the time could be extended.
• June 20: Prussian Church Finances Administration Law providing for a representation and a council elected by the parish for the administration of property.
• July 4: Prussian Old-Catholic Church Entitlement Law giving Old-Catholic communities of a certain size the right to use Catholic churches and cemeteries.

The last two laws passed in 1876 were of no practical importance:

• February 26: The possible punishment for violation of the pulpit law was extended to publications.
• June 7: The State Supervision Act provided for government supervision of all church assets in the Catholic dioceses in Prussia.

Studies that analyze the nationalist aspect of Kulturkampf, point out its anti-Polish character and Bismarcks attempt to Germanize Polish provinces in German Empire[84][85] The Poles had already suffered from discrimination and numerous oppressive measures in Germany long before unification. These measures were intensified after the German Empire was formed[86] and Bismarck was known to be particularly hostile towards the Poles.[87][88] Christopher Clark argues that Prussian policy changed radically in the 1870s in the face of highly visible Polish support for France in the Franco-Prussian war.[89] Polish demonstrations made clear the Polish nationalist feeling, and calls were also made for Polish recruits to desert from the Prussian Army – though these went unheeded. Bismarck was outraged, telling the Prussian cabinet in 1871: From the Russian border to the Adriatic Sea we are confronted with the combined propaganda of Slavs, ultramontanes, and reactionaries, and it is necessary openly to defend our national interests and our language against such hostile actions.[90] Therefore, in the Province of Posen the Kulturkampf took on a much more nationalistic character than in other parts of Germany.[91] Not an adamant supporter of the Liberal's general Kulturkampf goals, Bismarck did recognize the potential in some of them for subduing Polish national aspirations and readily made use of it. While the Liberals main objective was the separation of state and church as essential for a democratic and liberal society, Bismarck saw its use in separating the Polish population from the only supporter and guardian of its national identity. Prussian authorities imprisoned 185 priests and forced hundreds of others into exile. Among the imprisoned was the Primate of Poland Archbishop Mieczysław Ledóchowski. A large part of the remaining Catholic priests had to continue their service in hiding from the authorities. Although most of the 185 imprisoned were finally set free by the end of the decade, those who were released emigrated. The anti-Polish aspects of Kulturkampf remained in place in Polish provinces of German Empire until First World War[85]

In the late 19th century, cultural wars arose over issues of prohibition and education in the United States.[95] The Bennett Law was a highly controversial state law passed in Wisconsin in 1889 that required the use of English to teach major subjects in all public and private elementary and high schools. Because Wisconsin German Catholics and Lutherans each operated large numbers of parochial schools where German was used in the classroom, it was bitterly resented by German-American (and some Norwegian) communities. Although the law was ultimately repealed, there were significant political repercussions, with the Republicans losing the governorship and the legislature, and the election of Democrats to the Senate and House of Representatives.[96][97]

In the United States, the term "culture war(s)" refers to conflict in the late 20th and early 21st centuries between religious social conservatives and secular social liberals.[98] This theme of "culture war" was the basis of Patrick Buchanan's keynote speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention.[99] By 2004, the term was in common use in the United States by both liberals and conservatives.

Throughout the 1980s, there were battles in Congress and the media regarding federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities that amounted to a war over high culture between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives.[100] Justice Antonin Scalia referenced the term in the Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), saying "The Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite." The case concerned an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that prohibited any subdepartment from acting to protect individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. Scalia believed that the amendment was a valid move on the part of citizens who sought "recourse to a more general and hence more difficult level of political decision making than others." The majority disagreed, holding that the amendment violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The term, translated to Hebrew as Milhemet Tarbut (מלחמת תרבות) is also frequently used, with similar connotations, in the political debates of Israel—having been introduced by Jews who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.[101]