AUSTRIAN CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS. T HE threat of the Pan-Germanic party
in Austria, a powerful, and in its way fanatical, party, to "turn Protestant en masse" is a very curious incident. No threat of the kind has been heard in Europe for centuries, and though it is most improbable that it will ever be carried out, the wrench involved in quitting an hereditary creed being too severe to be overbalanced by any political hope, there are circumstances in the situation of Austria which render it worth a moment's attention. To begin with, the change probably would have many of the results which the fanatics of Pan-Germanism expect, or say they expect, from its adoption. It would break the strongest of the many links which bind the Germans of Austria to the house of Hapsburg, and probably render the whole of them strongly, if passively, disloyal. That house is Catholic to the bone, and could hardly help the inclination to with- draw its favour from subjects who had offered it so " impious " a defiance. Then one main reason for the reluctance of the ruling party in Germany to accept the adhesion of Austrian Germans would disappear, for their new subjects would weaken, instead of strengthening, the Catholic element in the Empire. It was dread of the Catholic vote, as much as his wish for a great alliance which might enable him to defy both Russia and France, that induced Prince Bismarck after gratz to resist his master's earnest desire for the annexa- tion of Bohemia. The change, in fact, would pay from the point of view of the Pan-Germanic leaders, who have probably learned something from the steady effort of the Russian Government to extend the influence of the Orthodox Church, and who are aware of, and probably exaggerate, certain movements in Austria which are not favourable to Papal Catholicism. The Catholic Church in Austria, contrary to much of its modern policy, has linked itself with the aristocratic or High Tory party, which is hated by Liberal Germans for its narrowness and tendency to despotism, and by the German peasantry for its determined anti-agrarian views. These latter are in a bad economic situation, and attribute their distress, as the Irish used to do, to the clergy as well as the great land- lords. The Pan-Germans think that anti-clericalism may glide into anti-Catholicism ; and though this is most improbable in our modern world, we must not forget that something very like it did happen in this country. The great supports of Protestantism in England when the Reformation began were hatred of the Papacy as a foreign authority meddling in English affairs, and irritation against the oppressions of the higher clergy and the Courts over which they presided. There are traces of the same feeling among the Germans of Austria ; for though they are not, that we know of, worried by their Bishops" dependants as the English were, they hold the higher clergy to be strongly opposed to " enlightenment " in its modern sense, to scientific education, and to the levelling of all political distinctions arising from creed. They believe that the future of the race is involved in its culture, and speak and contend with a bitterness about opposition on this point which is far deeper than the somewhat similar bitterness of the Southern Protestants of Ireland. And, finally, there can be no doubt that, as everywhere else on the Continent, except perhaps in Rhenish Prussia, the wave of modern quasi-scientific scepticism has affected the middle- class German Catholics of Austria—the German Members once shrieked out in the Cisleithan Parliament, "We are all Darwinians ! "—and though at this distance we can see no evidence that it has affected the real people, the Pan-Germanic fanatics may see deeper into their latent opinions. If that is the case, though they are not Protestants, they are non-Catholics, and may go a step farther, it being a great historic truth that something in. the Teutonic and Norse peoples—probably their tendency to Individualism—inclines them to Protestantism ; while the Latin races and the Slays, both of which feel a necessity for mutual help and accord, angrily reject it. It is much easier, be it remembered, for a whole com- munity to change its faith, as it were, dramatically and at once, as the Scotch Lowlanders always seem to us to have done, than one by one. The disruption seems less, family ties are not broken up, and there is a secret feeling that if there is error God will not be hard on an error shared by a whole people. Those are undoubtedly some of the reasons which helped the great Mussulman conversions —the instance of Bosnia is the best known—and which to-day facilitate the occasional victories of Mahom- wedanism in India.
On the whole, we think there will prove to be very little in the movement, or the threat, whichever it is. The con- version of a class, even were it probable, would not matter much, and all the evidence procurable seems to show that the lower Austrian Catholics believe their faith as sincerely as any other population. The Anti-Semitic agitators could hardly have so much success among them if they did not. The Tyrolese in particular are supposed to be among the most faithful to Rome, and the Tyrolese Germans' owing to their jealousy of Italian interlopers, are very German indeed. The lower clergy of Austria, too, are represented to us in decidedly favour- able colours, except as regards their ignorance ; and in Europe corruption or laxity among the clergy has usually preceded any " apostasy " upon the national scale. The people, with their brutal directness, say, if these are the ministers of the faith, the faith is either false or a failure. Above all, one is influenced in disbelieving in religious cataclysms, by modern experience. It is vain to deny that persecution can ever be effectual, for it did. arrest Pro- testantism in France and stamp it out in Spain ; but it is safe to say that persecution which stops short of the death penalty has never yet killed a faith. It has failed with the Jews in all ages, it failed conspicuously with the Irish, it failed even in lands conquered by the Ilussulmans the moment the Khalifs sought taxpayers rather than devotees. It follows, a fortiori, that nations do not change their faith for any political advantage. We doubt if they ever did, and certainly the modern spirit, with its tendency to in- difference, has not increased the instances. The Poles are more Catholic rather than less Catholic under Russian and Prussian domination, and we see no sign that the Protestant communities still imbedded in the mass of the French population display the smallest inclination to become Catholics. On the other hand, the English Catholics do not become Protestant, while American Catholicism is fed by immigration rather than large con- versions. We take it the German Catholics of Austria will adhere to their creed, but the fact that this should be doubted or denied, even by rhetoricians, is strong evidence to the bitterness of the struggle going on among the races of Austria. Some modus vivendi, however, will probably be found at last, be it federalism, autocracy, or a govern- ment of sincere Gallios such as exists in India ; and the moment the right device is found the idea of large changes of creed will die rapidly, perhaps instantaneously, away. Why they should not occur we do not know, but as a matter of fact, in spite of persistent efforts, they have not within the last two centuries occurred. The nearest approach to them was the desertion of Catholicism by the French in 1798-1810, and that did not last for more than a generation.
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