Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/160

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN was aided by Melchior Khlesl, who brought about the counter-reformation in Austria. Khlesl was the child of Protestant parents; his father had been a baker in Vienna. He was converted by the court preacher, George Scherer. From the time of Scherer until the suspension of the order the court preachers were chosen in unbroken succession from the Jesuits. Khlesl became Provost of St. Stephen's, Chancellor of the university, and Bishop of Vienna. During the reigns of Ernst and his brother Matthias, Khlesl was all powerful. Rudolph II having shut himself up in Prague, the members of the Hapsburg family chose the Archduke Matthias to be their head. The Bohemians held to Rudolph II, but wrung from him a rescript (Majestätsbrief) in 1609. This confirmed the Bohemian Confession, granted the Protestants permission to use the university, and gave them the right to choose a consistory; it also allowed them three temporal estates of lords, knights, and cities having chartered rights to build Protestant churches and schools. Contrary to the provisions of this agreement, subjects of the Archbishop of Prague built a Protestant church at Klostergrab, and subjects of the Abbot of Braunau did the same at Braunau. The bishops ordered these to be closed, and when the Emperor Matthias supported them the result was (1620) the "Second Defenestration of Prague" with which the Thirty Years War began. The Elector Palatine Frederick V, the head of the Protestant League and of the German Calvinists, was elected King of Bohemia. The cathedral was altered to suit Calvinistic church services. The altars were demolished, the pictures destroyed, and Scultetus, the court preacher, arranged a church service. No ruler ever began to reign under more distressing conditions than Ferdinand II. The insurgents under Thurn stood before the gates of Vienna; those unfriendly to Catholicism within the city made common cause with the enemy. Ferdinand, however, never lost courage. Khlesl, Bishop of Vienna, proved to be too weak and was therefore confined first in the castle of Ambras and then in the castle of Sant' Angelo at Rome. He lived to have the satisfaction of being restored in state to his diocese. He founded in Vienna the Himmelspfortkloster, which commemorates the beautiful legend of the truant nun whose place as doorkeeper was taken during her absence by the Blessed Virgin.

After the battle of the White Mountain, Ferdinand took severe measures against the disturbers of the peace; they were driven out of the country, and finally the rescript, which had been the source of so much trouble, was annulled. A new constitution was published which, among other provisions, made the clergy the highest estate of the land. The emperor was obliged to give Upper Austria in pledge to Bavaria as security for the cost of the war. The cruelties of the Bavarian troops and Ferdinand's order, requiring the people either to leave the country or to return to the old belief, led to a peasant revolt under the leadership of Stephen Fadinger, the proprietor of a farm not far from St. Agatha, which was carried on until Fadinger died of a wound at Linz. The Catholic was now again the dominant religion and the Protestants retired into the little-frequented mountain districts. In Hungary te Government could not accomplish so much. However, Peter Pázmán laboured with success against the spread of the new religious doctrines. Pázmán was born at Grosswardein (Nagy Várad) of Calvinistic parents. At sixteen he changed his creed, then entered the Society of Jesus and studied at Cracow, Vienna, and Rome. At Rome Bellarmine and Vasquez were among his teachers. When professor at Graz he published the "Imitatio Christi". He finally returned to Hungary, became Primate, and gained great influence for the Church through his eloquence, the gentleness of his character, and his strong patriotic feeling. He brought about the return of fifty noble families to the mother church and was the author of a "Guide to Catholic Truth". He founded at Tyrnau a university which was later transferred to Budapest, and also the Hungarian College at Rome. Believing that the preservation of religion requires worthy servants he founded at Vienna, 1623, a college (Pazmaneum) for the training and instruction of clergy for all the dioceses of Hungary. Ferdinand II called Pázmán his friend. This emperor raised the bishops of Vienna to the rank of prince-bishops (1631). When this terrible religious war came to an end in the Peace of Westphalia, and the diplomats played with religious establishments and monasteries as boys play with nuts, and invented the term "secularization" to express the secular appropriation of the Church's estates, the Hapsburg princes were not willing to commit Austria to such a policy. At this crisis the Hapsburg Dynasty obeyed the directions of Providence. Had the house of Hapsburg then come forward as champions of the new doctrine which originated at Wittenberg, it would have been easy to renew the shattered imperial power in Germany and give to the crown of the Holy Roman Empire a lustre far exceeding that of any other European diadem. But reverence for God and Holy Church had greater weight with the emperors of this line than worldly advantage. For one hundred and twenty years they battled with the storms which the so-called Reformation had stirred up, while the armies of Islam attacked Vienna and the edge of the Ottoman Empire was pushed forward as far as Raab. Even when Louis XIV forced his way in from the West, bringing calamity in his train, and the war cry of the Osmanli was heard within the imperial citadel, the rulers of Austria still trusted in God. Innocent XI sent subsidies, and the saintly Father Marco D'Aviano aroused Christian enthusiasm by preaching a crusade. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary is a reminder that on the 12th of September, 1683, the power of Islam was forever broken before the walls of Vienna, and that the inheritance of St. Stephen was then freed from the Turkish yoke. God sent the rulers of Austria to do His work, and that they did it is an honour exceeding that of the quickly fading garlands which victory twines about the victor's chariot. During this period the Piarist and Ursuline orders were active in the work of education. New bishoprics were founded at Leitmeritz (1656) and Königgrätz (1664). Charles VI raised Vienna in 1722 to an archbishopric. While France at this time pointed with pride and reverence to its famous divines, the great preacher of Vienna was the always clever, but often eccentric, Augustinian, Father Abraham a Sanctâ Clarâ, whose family name was Ulrich Megerle. For example, preaching on the feast of the conversion of St. Paul (Pauli), he announced as his theme Gauli, Mauli, and Fauli. Gauli he interpreted to mean pride and sensuality (Gaul, "horse"); Mauli, gluttony, drunkenness, and wrangling (Maul, "mouth"); Fauli, indolence (faul, "lazy").

The fifty years preceeding the French Revolution are known in history as the period of the "Enlightenment". The Rationalist writers of this period believed that by enlightenment, in their sense of the word, a cure could be found for the evils of the time, and a means of promoting the happiness of mankind. Men were led more and more away from the influence of the Church, the loftier aspirations of noble and pious souls were scorned, and only the claims of a refined sensuality deemed worthy of consideration. The new ideas made their way into Austria, and that country became the birthplace of Josephinism, so called from the Emperor Joseph II,