May Laws (Austria-Hungary)

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As May Laws experts call three church laws that Emperor Franz Joseph I on 25 May 1868 in Cisleithania put into force. They were in by kk Prime Minister Prince Karl von Auersperg led Cabinet, called in journalism citizens Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Education Minister Leopold Hasner of Artha prepared and the Imperial Council decided.

The provisions of the Concordat of August 18, 1855 were thereby restricted or repealed.

The Concordat of 1855 had severely restricted the absolutist , state church sovereignty, Josephinian system and granted the Catholic Church more authority in educational and family matters. The cisleithan May laws of 1868 revised this vigorously: They were the result of the urging of liberal MPs, who at that time had a strong position in the Reichsrat.

The main points of the May Laws were:

  • Secular courts became responsible for matrimonial jurisdiction, including an “ emergency civil marriage ” if there were religious but not state obstacles to marriage , for example interdenominational marriages (RGBl. No. 47/1868).
  • The teaching and education system was placed under the direction of the state (RGBl. No. 48/1868).
  • The interdenominational relationships of citizens (upbringing of children in mixed marriages) were reorganized; From the age of 14, everyone was allowed to freely choose their religious denomination and also opt for the position “without religious denomination”, ie de facto leaving the church (RGBl. No. 49/1868).

Pope Pius IX In the same year in a secret consistory condemned the May Laws as leges abominabiles , as "despicable laws that must be violently condemned and rejected". He also condemned the Cisleithan constitutional law on the general rights of citizens of 1867, which is largely in force in Austria to this day.

In a pastoral letter of September 7, 1868, the Bishop of Linz, Franz Joseph Rudigier, called for resistance to the May Laws and thus came into conflict with the criminal law. When he was brought before the court on June 5, 1869, there were public demonstrations by the Catholic population for the first time.

Public prosecutor Elsner accused the bishop, "it is provoked to hate and contempt in the pastoral letters against the state authority". The jury unanimously sentenced Rudigier: on July 12, 1869, he was sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment for the "attempted crime of disturbing the peace" (the prosecutor had requested six months), but was pardoned by the emperor.

In Austria, the May laws still form the basis of the separation of church and state , because in principle they assigned public-law civic affairs in questions of religion to the authority of the state and the maturity of the citizen .

Subsequently, the dogmatization of the Pope's infallibility in matters of faith in 1870 was the reason to terminate the Concordat on the initiative of the then Minister for Culture and Education, Karl von Stremayr .

The Liberals did not identify with the revocation of the Concordat because it was carried out by the coalition ministry, which they attacked so severely. According to Egon Caesar Conte Corti , the concordat was only canceled when the influence of Archduchess Sophie , the Emperor's mother, had waned in favor of Empress Elisabeth. The representation of Conte Cortis allows the assumption that the personal events in the imperial family had a not insignificant influence on the course of the matter.

The Holy See was increasingly under the influence of the Kingdom of Italy - Austria's opponent in the Battle of Solferino in 1859 and the War of 1866  -: the Papal State was dissolved by the Kingdom of Italy in October 1870.

In 1874 further liberal church laws were passed. They were prepared in the government of Prince Adolf von Auersperg , brother of the Imperial and Royal Prime Minister of 1868, by Minister of Education and Culture, Karl von Stremayr .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ RGBl. No. 47/1868 (= p. 93 f.)
  2. ↑ RGBl. No. 48/1868 (= p. 97 f.)
  3. ↑ RGBl. No. 49/1868 (= p. 99 f.)
  4. ↑ Maximilian Liebmann: From Political Catholicism to Pastoral Catholicism . In: Franz Schausberger (Ed.): History and identity . Festschrift for Robert Kriechbaumer on the occasion of his 60th birthday (=  series of publications by the Research Institute for Political-Historical Studies of the Dr. Wilfried Haslauer Library, Salzburg ). tape 35 . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-78187-5 , p. 257 .
  5. ↑ Gerhart Marckhott: Bishop Rudigier's pastoral letter from the autumn of 1868 on the breach of the Concordat . In: New archive for the history of the Diocese of Linz . tape 8 , no. 1 (1993/94) . Linz, S. 62 ( online (PDF) in the OoeGeschichte.at forum [accessed on August 28, 2013] with facsimile).
  6. ↑ Trial report. In: Neue Freie Presse (Wiener Tageszeitung), July 13, 1869, p. 12
  7. ^ "Heroic Degree of Virtue" for Bishop Rudigier. In: kath.net. April 6, 2009, accessed August 28, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Christine Mann: Between tradition and modernity. The Güntherian Vinzenz A. Knauer (1828–1894) in search of truth in freedom. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60129-7 , p. 197.
  9. ^ Gertrud Elisabeth Zündel: Karl von Stremayr . Unprinted dissertation, Vienna 1944, p. 59.
  10. ^ Gertrud Elisabeth Zündel: Karl von Stremayr . Unprinted dissertation, Vienna 1944, p. 55
  11. ^ Egon Caesar Conte Corti: Elisabeth, the strange woman . Pp. 60 and 221
  12. ↑ RGBl. No. 50/1874 (= p. 101 f.)
  13. ↑ RGBl. No. 51/1874 (= p. 111 f.)
  14. ↑ RGBl. No. 68/1874 (= p. 151 f.)