The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-11 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

The present state of religion in Austria is
graphically described by our Vienna corre-
spondent as Catholicism under lock and key.
Catholicism is not dead in Austria, however
much the enemies of the Church are now in
the ascendant ; but it is stifled by timidity
and worldliness, imprisoned in secret corners
of the mind and heart by human respect ; its

profession of faith, as our Viennese correspon-
dent has it, is stowed away out of sight "in
an iron safe." For forty years and more the
Church was held in bondage by the State ; the
Austrian Government was on the verge of
creating a schism ; communication was cut off
between the episcopate and the Holy See ;
monasteries were suppressed, and religious
orders proscribed ; education was taken out of
the hands of the Church ; and the result was
that low views and false ideas took possession
of the minds of the people. But low views
and false ideas, as Canon Moufang justly ob-
served at the great meeting at Cologne the
other day, too surely work the destruction of
a people, and why is it, he asked, is Austria
to-day so weak and mean-spirited as to allow
its Government to declare that it will remain

neutral in the Roman question, but because the
people have for forty years been taught no
higher idea than to eat, drink, and be merry ?
Josephism, by hampering the free action of the
Church, paralyzed the religious energy of the
people. And when, by the Concordat, the
Emperor restored the liberty of the Church,
the remedy seemed to come too late, and the
Concordat remained almost a dead letter.

Catholicism in Austria had grown shy and
shame-faced, and shrank from public life and
an outward manifestation of its principles;

they were not rejected, but stowed away' in
an iron safe." Liberty came, but the spirit
and the will to make use of it were gone. The
limbs of Austria were so cramped by the long-
worn fetters as to have lost apparently every
power of free motion. Human respect weighed
more heavily than iron chains. The officials,
to whom belonged the administration of the
new laws giving effect to the liberty which the
Concordat conferred on the Church, throw
every obstacle in the way of their execution.
These men, trained under the long rule of
Josephism, were steeped to their lips in preju-
dice against.the Church's independence. The
upper classes, self-indulgent and worldly, and
unversed in Catholic principles, did not wish
to seem "bigoted" upholders of the Concordat,
or to be disturbed in their enjoyment of life
by the intrusion of religious questions. The
elder clergy were averse to what they called
the innovations introduced by the Concordat
—visitation of bishops—holding of synods—
restriction in their easy-going lives, and in
their too frequently unsacerdotal pursuits and
pleasures. What they prized above the liberty
of action which the Concordat bestowed was
good fellowship with their neighbours, and the
absence of "new-fangled and bigoted" notions
introduced from Rome, and unknown in their
younger days in Austria. The Austrian Epis-
copate even seemed to think it hopeless, or too
irksome, to do much to overcome the vis inertice
which had befallen Catholicism in Austria.
Catholicism seemed like a spent arrow; it car-
ried no force. Things, therefore, remained
pretty much the same after, as before, the Con-
cordat. A better spirit, however, was infused
into the Seminaries, and, thanks to the zeal
of the bishops, the younger clergy received a
training far different from that of their imme-
diate predecessors, the benefit of which the
Church is now beginning to reap.
The triumph of irreligious Liberalism and
middle-class Radicalism, which none were much
surprised at who were familiar with the state,
intellectual and religious, of thehitherto govern-
ing classes in Austria, has led to a rupture
between the bishops and the Emperor, has
done away with the half-heartedness and
timidity but too common among Austrian
Catholics, and has evoked a public Catholic
spirit which gives great hopes of better things
for religion than have been seen since the
days of Josephism. The movement which the
liberty of the Concordat failed to engender,
adversity and opposition have quickened into
life. There is a stir in the Catholic heart of
Austria, the reaction, which two weeks ago
we spoke of as leading Catholic France to
the assertion of its superiority in political and
intellectual power over the miserable minority
which, by means of a corrupt press and a
fictitious public opinion, aimed at directing
the policy of the country, is also setting in in
proverbially slow Austria. Strife has com-
menced, and stagnation is at an end. What-
ever comes to pass, the slack spirit and the
moral listlessness—the result of evil laws and
State tyranny, will no more be the lot of
Catholicism in Austria. The quarrel must
now be fought out ; for the division has taken
place, the slothful and the timid can no more
purchase peace by shameful concessions.
Irreligious Liberalism is bent upon dictating
its own terms, and they are fortunately such,
that even an Austrian Catholic, without, not
concealing, but denying, his profession of faith,
can accept. Such a war is infinitely prefer-
able to the religious compromise which Catho-
licism in Austria is but too prone to. The
Austrian bishops are zealous, resolute, and
out-spoken. The issue is plainly put ; the
people now see clearly what is at stake. They
are rallying round the bishops. A Catholic
party is forming in self-defence, in defence of
their dearest interests, in defence of laws
. affecting marriage, in defence of a Christian