Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/45

 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL-REFORM MOVEMENT 3 1

large volumes, which has received the highest laudation even from the most hostile sources.

In the church of Austria, which had suffered the most terri- ble degradation under the meddlesome and iniquitous rule of the "sacristan-emperor" Joseph II., the germs of a new life began to show themselves on the occasion of the revolution of 1848. The protagonists of the movement were the publicist Jarke, Father Veit (who had before his conversion been a Jewish pro- fessor of medicine in the university of Vienna), and especially Sebastian Brunner, who founded in 1848 the Kirchenzeittmg, through which he continued until 1866 to push forward the cause of Christian social-political reform, fighting especially for the liberty of the church and the restoration of the municipal liberties.

The Catholic social movement has since had a marvelous development in Austria. Among its foremost exponents have been the Baron von Vogelsang, who founded at Vienna in 1879 the Monatschrift fiir christliche Social- Reform; Count von Kufstein, who has devoted special attention to the exposition of the Christian doctrine regarding interest and usury; Prince Ludwig Lichtenstein, an earnest champion of the principle of parlia- mentary representation of professional interests, and of the establishment of chambers of labor and handicraft analogous to those of commerce ; Count Chorinsky, whose chief labors have been in the field of agrarian reform ; and Kempfe, who is devoted to the interests of the artisans and the development of working- men's societies.

In 1892 a national Catholic scientific association, called the Leo-Geselhchaft, was organized, having among its other special departments a section of social science, which adopted the Monatschrift fiir christliche Social- Reform as its official organ, and has devoted itself energetically to carrying out the program announced at the outset, under the following heads: (i) the investigation of the social and economic condition of the Aus- trian people; (2) the initiation of scientific studies in sociology and political economy from a Christian point of view; (3) the stud}- of labor, with a special view to the new attempts at its