The Vienna correspondent of the Times calls attention to a
most outspoken address recently delivered by Dr. Leopold Wahrmund, Professor of Canonical Law at the Innsbruck University. The Professor, though apparently a sincere Catholic who has repeatedly defended the Church, protested warmly against the subjection to the Papacy advocated by the Ultramontane party in Austria. He declared that such teaching was fatal to secular authority, and would end in Catholicism becoming the creed only of peasants, as paganism had become in the later days of the Roman Empire. The
Ultramontanes were destroying the vitality of the Catholic Church." The speech gave great offence to the Clerical party, and the Minister of Education was interpellated about it, but he only replied that while he feared that such speeches amounted to political demon- strations, and were therefore objectionable, he could not prohibit them, but must leave it to the Professors themselves to avoid disturbing the peace of the Universities. It seems evident that in Austria the cultivated Catholics, who have hitherto silently supported the Ultramontanes, have been irritated by recent aggressions into audible protests. Un- fortunately, the cultivated Catholics do not count heavily at the polling-booths.
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