60 



AUSTEIA. 



ber. Finally, by article 14, no one can be compelled 

 to abstain from work on days celebrated as fetes by 

 any church not his own. 



The bishops of Austria made a decided oppo- 

 sition to all these laws. "While the one on 

 civil marriage was under consideration in the 

 Lower House of the Reichsrath, fourteen bish- 

 ops addressed to the president of the ministry 

 a letter, in which they express apprehension 

 that, by the first article of the fundamental 

 laws, the Church will be deprived of the right 

 of settling her own affairs. In reply to this 

 letter, the president of the ministry, Prince 

 Auersperg, declared that during the debate on 

 the bill in the Eeichsrath the most ample op- 

 portunity was given for the free discussion of 

 its provisions, an opportunity which was not 

 neglected ; that no present law empowers the 

 courts to take cognizance of the question of re- 

 ligious teaching ; and as to the administration 

 of the Church's own affairs, guarantees for the 

 future are afforded by articles 14 and 15 of the 

 constitutional law. The Government, Prince 

 Auersperg says, entertains the highest regard 

 for religious liberty, and would at all times be 

 ready to afford powerful support to the au- 

 thority of the church, but equally, as the Gov- 

 ernment has no intention of passing beyond 

 the limits of state authority, just as little can 

 it assist in this being done by others. The 

 Government, therefore, declines entering upon 

 that part of the remonstrance which, even al- 

 though unintentionally, makes the obligations 

 imposed upon state officials by the constitution 

 the subject of an interpretation calculated to 

 lead the sentiment of duty in the minds of 

 those officials astray. 



In June, the Pope, in an allocution, com- 

 plained of those new laws as a one-sided vio- 

 lation of the Concordat, concluded in 1855, 

 between the Austrian Government and the 

 Papal See. (See ROMAN" CATHOLIC CHTJECH.) 

 The Chancellor of the Emperor, Baron von 

 Beust, addressed, on July 3d, to Baron von 

 Maysenburg, the Austrian ambassador in 

 Rome, a reply to the the allocution, of which 

 the following are the most essential para- 

 graphs: 



We cannot (it says), in the first place, admit the 

 obligation which imposes upon the Holy See the ne- 

 cessity of following certain precedents, and of adopt- 

 ing toward Austria the same proceedings as toward 

 other countries, of which the Holy See has had to 

 complain. Is it possible, in fact, to draw any com- 

 parison ? Have we attacked the territory or property 

 of the Church ? Have we oppressed the Catholic 

 religion and its ministers ? Putting aside examples 

 which do not bear on the case, we may, I think, 

 boldly affirm that there is no country in Europe where 

 the Catholic Church has so privileged a position as in 

 Austria, notwithstanding the laws of May 25th. The 

 circumstance ought to have been taken into account 

 before the imperial Government was confounded in 

 the same reprobation with other Governments which 

 were in reprobation to the Church and the Catholic 

 religion in a different way. We can understand that 

 the Holy Father may have felt it to be indispensable 

 to protest against the laws which modify the situation 

 created by the Concordat of 1855. We fully expected 



a proceeding of this kind, and we might have accept- 

 ed it silently, even if its form were less conciliatory 

 than we permitted ourselves to hope. But what we 

 cannot pass over without objection is, the condem- 

 nation hurled against the fundamental laws on which 

 the new institutions of the empire are based. These 

 laws were not the subject of dispute, and, by attack- 

 ing them as it has, the Holy See deeply wounds the 

 national feelling, and gives to the present difference 

 a meaning that is very much to be regretted, even in 

 the interest of the Church. Instead of simply con- 

 testing this or that application of the principles which 

 form the basis of the present Government of Aus- 

 tria, and which are the fruit of the happy accord be- 

 tween the peoples of the empire and their sovereign, 

 it is* the principles themselves that are condemned. 

 The Holy See thus extends its representation to ob- 

 jects which we can by no means admit to be within 

 its authority. It envenoms a question which already 

 produced only too much excitement, by directing 

 men's minds to matters where political will be asso- 

 ciated with religious passions. Finally, by condemn- 

 ing laws which include the principle of the liberty 

 of the Church, and thus offering it compensation for 

 the privileges it loses, it renders more difficult a con- 

 ciliatory attitude of the Government. It may not be 

 useless to remark here that these laws expressly^ guar- 

 antee to the Church the property of the wealth it pos- 

 sesses in Austria. This stipulation proves that the 

 laws in question are not hostile to the Church, since 

 they maintain to her those rights of which she has 

 been deprived in so many other countries. It is not 

 for me to judge in what measure this last considera- 

 tion ought to mitigate the judgment of the court of 

 Rome. What I have not a shadow of doubt about is, 

 that the people of Austria will find consolation in re- 

 membering that more than one very Catholic nation 

 is subject to legal arrangements of the same kind, 

 which yet live in peace with the Church, and that 

 there is especially one great and powerful empire in 

 Europe whose tendencies toward progress and lib- 

 erty have always been allied with very decided attach- 

 ment to the Catholic faith, and which, though gov- 

 erned by laws quite as abominable, has, up to the 

 latest moment, been blest with the indulgent sym- 

 pathies of the Holy See. My dispatch of the 17th 

 of June last, anticipated the bad consequences which 

 the allocution would produce, if it was not worded in 

 very moderate language. I regret extremely that 

 the court of Rome did not pay more attention to 

 these anticipations. They have been completely re- 

 alized. I do not think the Catholic population of the 

 empire have more zeal now than they had before for 

 the interests of their religion. On the contrary, we 

 see an increased ardor in the attacks directed against 

 the Church, the clergy, and the Pope. This hostility 

 would have been confined within the narrowest lim- 

 its, and would have been easily appeased, if the spe- 

 cial questions affected by the laws of May 25th had 

 alone been treated of in the Papal allocution. Before 

 concluding, I must here also express the painful sur- 

 prise which the appeal addressed to the Hungarian 

 bishops in the closing sentences of the allocution has 

 produced. It seems to me that Eome ought to be 

 thankful for the perfect tact and reserve with which 

 these delicate matters have been hitherto treated in 

 Hungary. It would be undesirable in every point of 

 view to raise new differences, and thereby to augment 

 the embarrassments which already exist... But it is 

 especially in the very interest of the court of Rome 

 that it appears to us inopportune to arouse the na- 

 tional suceptibility of the Hungarians. The appear- 

 ance of foreign pressure would produce in that nation 

 results the opposite to those wnich the Holy See de- 

 sires, and we should see a storm raised against the 

 legitimate influence of the court of Rome, similar 

 to that which is raging on this side of the Leitha. 

 These are the observations suggested to us by a pe- 

 rusal of the pontifical allocution. Lay them before 

 his eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State. We 



