The Federal Constitution and Catholicism in Switzerland

In the second half of the 19^th century, and to some extent to this day, Swiss historians cultivated the “master narrative” that the Swiss liberals alone created the federal state with all its achievements. Even if the liberals, especially the moderate ones, can claim a large share of the federal state for themselves, the influence of Catholic conservatives and early socialists should not be ignored. Even in the current year, in which we are celebrating the 175^th anniversary of the Swiss Federal Constitution, articles have appeared that emphasise the liberal side alone. The following article emphasises and acknowledges the contribution of the Catholic conservatives to the federal state. Further articles will follow to focus on the role of other political and ideological forces.

At the beginning of this year, President Alain Berset gave a New Year’s address at the National Museum in Zurich to mark the 175^th anniversary of the Swiss Federal Constitution. Among other things, he also addressed the influence of Catholicism:

After the Sonderbund War*, the victorious cantons did not simply write a new constitution and impose it on the Catholic cantons.
  They involved them in the task. And created a sovereign state that was on an equal footing with the powers of Europe.
  This constitution of 1848 was a decisive step for Switzerland. […] We owe our culture of dialogue to it. It was followed by other important steps, I am thinking in particular of the introduction of the initiative and referendum – the basis of our direct democracy. It is these institutions and values that we are still committed to today.

The President of the Swiss Confederation refers to key points in the history of the creation of the 1848 Swiss Federal Constitution, and to important consequences, underlining the influence of the Catholic cantons in this regard. This was also emphasised by the Swiss historian Oskar Vasella (1904–1966), who called for the prehistory of the Sonderbund to be studied more closely to better understand the sources of the Swiss Federal Constitution:

Perhaps the revolutionary wave was only broken after all by the years of the conservatives’ resistance as well as by the Sonderbund War. The Federal Constitution of 1848 saved the principle of the states and thus also preserved the idea of a balance between the small and large states.

Despite the defeat of the Sonderbund, some of its demands were incorporated into the new federal constitution of 1848, as Vasella points out, including the principle of the states. The 23-member “Federal Revision Commission”, which included no conservative Catholic representatives but some liberal Catholics, endeavored to respect the rights and freedoms of the Sonderbund cantons and the Catholic religion when drafting the federal constitution. In particular, the victors took into account the cantons’ desire for extensive sovereignty, which was also expressed by liberal Catholic groups. In this way, it was possible to gradually integrate the losers well into the new federal state.

The new Federal Constitution and
Swiss Catholicism (1848–1874)

The explicit war aims of the Tagsatzung troops, based on a decision by the majority of the Tagsatzung, were the dissolution of the Sonderbund and the banning of the Jesuit order. The Sonderbund war was short and with the armistice, the Sonderbund war council was hastily dissolved. The Jesuit ban was moulded into a separate article by the commission that drew up the Federal Constitution in 51 days:

Art. 58. The Jesuit Order and its affiliated [associated] societies may not be admitted to any part of Switzerland.

This violation of religious freedom was not limited to the Jesuit order. The Jewish population in Switzerland was granted freedom of establishment only in 1866 and the right to practise their religion freely in 1874. However, the ban on Jesuits and the discrimination against non-Christian religions should not obscure the fact that the federal state set clear federalist accents by establishing cantonal school and church sovereignty and introducing the Council of States and the cantonal majority, thus accommodating the Catholic losers.
  The Federal Constitution combined the national principle with the continued existence of the states as sovereign cantons. The Confederation and the constituent states fulfilled their task in a dualistic cooperation based on subsidiarity. In this way, the Sonderbund indirectly helped to make a centralised solution more difficult as well as to prevent further revolutionary transformations in accordance with the wishes of the liberal-radicals.

The first total revision
of the Federal Constitution, 1874

The initially unsuccessful 1872 attempt to completely revise the Federal Constitution was another important step towards integrating the losers. The democratic movement had achieved success at cantonal level in the 1860s and now demanded the expansion of direct democratic institutions at federal level as well. However, the constitutional struggle was given an element of cultural warfare by the introduction of civil marriage urged in 1869. The First Vatican Council in 1870, which elevated papal infallibility to a dogma, intensified the cultural struggle in Switzerland as well as in Europe. This historical context and ultimately also the overloading of the total revision of 1872 played into the hands of the draft’s opponents, the conservative Catholic camp and the federalists of French-speaking Switzerland; the revision was rejected in a referendum.
  In 1874, only the conservative Catholics were still opposed to the hastily initiated second attempt – still characterised by the cultural struggle. This was because, although incorporating federalist concerns more strongly, the bill tightened certain culturally militant provisions, such as the ban on Jesuits. These provisions were subsequently referred to as the “religious exemption clauses”. The Jesuit ban of 1848 was now amended as follows:

Art. 51 The Jesuit Order and its affiliated societies shall not be admitted to any part of Switzerland, and their members shall be forbidden to engage in any activity in church or school.
  This prohibition may be extended by federal decree to other religious orders whose activity is dangerous to the state or disturbs the peace of the confessions.
  Art. 52 The establishment of new monasteries or religious orders or the restoration of abolished ones is prohibited.

The majority of Catholics (including liberal Catholics) felt that this was discriminatory, but they were unable to make their voices heard and the bill was adopted. (The “religious exemption clauses” were only repealed in a referendum on 20 May 1973!) And yet the revision meant that the conservative Catholics were better integrated into the liberal federal state because a decisive innovation of the constitutional revision of 1874 was the introduction of the optional referendum.
  The “Conservative-Catholics” used the referendum time and again and were thus able to play a more or less constructive role. In this way, direct democracy demonstrated its immense integrative power also at federal level for the first time, even if over the years, the Conservative-Catholics over exploited this new citizens’ right and repeatedly unleashed veritable “referendum storms”. At the same time, cultural militancy visibly waned. With the depression after 1873, the concerns of the population shifted further towards economic issues and the change of pontificate to Leo XIII brought about a calming of church politics.

Josef Zemp as father of the
constitutional initiative and first
conservative Catholic Federal Councillor

Josef Zemp (1834–1908) from Lucerne played a central role in initiating the constitutional initiative at the federal level in 1891. He had been a member of the Council of States since 1871, and after that a member of the National Council, and he was the leader of the Conservative-Catholic parliamentary group from 1881 to 1885. The “Zemp-Keel-Pedrazzini” motion, which demanded a partial revision of the Federal Constitution with a five-point programme, was tabled in 1884. Among other things, the parliamentarians demanded electoral reform (more proportional representation!) and an extension of the people’s rights (right of initiative). The motion represented a historic turning point in the development of political Catholicism, as it signalled the willingness of the previous opposition, including the opponents of the 1872/74 revision, to cooperate constructively in the federal state, which had been dominated by the “free-minded” (the liberals) since 1848.
  In 1891, the initiative for the partial revision of the constitution was implemented, as requested by the motion. This facilitated the ongoing development of constitutional law and made a further total revision unnecessary in the future. In the same year, Zemp was elected as the first Conservative-Catholic Federal Councillor. Zemp’s personality in particular ensured that the process of reconciliation and integration continued during his term of office as Federal Councillor and that a concordance policy gradually took shape. In return, the Catholic Church provided a meaningful answer to the social question of industrialisation with its Catholic social doctrine on the basis of natural law. In 1891, the “Labour Pope” Leo XIII published the first social encyclical under the title “Rerum Novarum”.  •

* The Sonderbund War of November 1847 was a civil war in Switzerland, then still a relatively loose confederacy of cantons. It ensued after seven Catholic cantons formed the Sonderbund (“separate alliance”) in 1845 to protect their interests against a centralisation of power. The war concluded with the defeat of the Sonderbund. It resulted in the emergence of Switzerland as a federal state, concluding the period of political “restoration and regeneration” in Switzerland.

This article was first published on 31 August 2023 in the Schweizerische Kirchenzeitung (SKZ), No. 16/2023.