SCHWEBACH
597
SCHWENCKFELDIANS
of transfer had been agreed upon, and furnished printed
instructions on the administration of property
to the church officials and to the patrons. The
minister of state, Schmerling, stopped the transfer
of the ecclesiastical property in Prague. In union
with his three suffragans, Schwarzenberg protested
to the emperor, the minister of state, and the governor
(19 March, 1862). However, the only effect of this
protest was the assertion of principle.
The year 1866, so unfortunate in the history of Austria, was especially unfortunate for Schwarzen- berg. On 25 May, while on his tour of visitation, he fell ill of smallpox. The German war seemed already unavoidable, and, when the manifesto of 15 June announced its outbreak, the cardinal, who regarded it as his duty to remain at Prague, ordered pubhc prayers and intercessory proce.ssions. One of the consequences of the misfortune on the Bohemian fields of battle was the change in the relations be- tween Church and State. On 25 May, 1858, the decrees of the Reichstag concerning marriage, schools, and interconfessional relations were con- firmed by the emperor. On 22 June Pius IX con- demned the decrees; the bishops had on 3 June issued a common instruction to the clergy, and on 24 June issued a collective pastoral. Both these last-men- tioned decrees were condemned by the imperial courts as breaches of the public peace and confiscated. It was to be expected that the legal proceedings pending against Bishop Rudigior of Linz would be extended to the bi.shops of Bohemia. In February, 1869, Schwarzenberg received the following in.struc- tion from the Holy See: "If the bishops or eccle- siastics are summoned before lay judges, let them in every possible case plead their causes through an attorney, and never appear personally and of their own accord before such judges". The cardinal re- gretted this, since he hoped that his ill-treatment might awaken many slumbering Catholics. The conflict about the concordat was not yet over, and a new conflict was threatening which in the name of freedom endangered the liberties of the Church, when Pius IX convened the Council of the Vatican (8 December, 1869-18 July, 1870). On the question of the infallibility of the pope, Schwarzenberg supported the minority.
The void left by the annulment of the concordat, Stremayr in 1874 sought to fill up by four new inter- confessional laws, dealing with the regulation of the external legal relations of the Catholic Church, the taxes providing for the so-called Religionsfond, the legal relations of the monasteries, and the recognition of new religious corporations. During the delibera- tions of the House of Peers Schwarzenberg vigor- ously opposed the proposed laws and condemned them in a carefully ])repared speech. However, it was impossible to defeat them entirely. Of Stre- mayr's four laws, that on the legal status of religious communities, authorizing the minister of public worship to suppress any monastery and to confiscate its property, had not yet passed. As soon as Schwarz- enberg heard that the monastery law was to be dis- cus.sed in the House of Peers in the middle of January, 1876, he convened a meeting of the bishops of the House of Peers; the eight bishops assembled in the Schwarzenberg palace. To the dehberations were also admitted Abbot Helferstorfer, Leo Thun, and His Excellency Falkenhayn. The result of the meet- ing was the "Declaration" signed by all the Austrian bishops that entertain the certain hope that a law of such content and so harmful in its effects shall never be enacted. Should, however, they find them- selves disappointed in this confident expectation, they must declare that so harmful a law should not be enacted and protest against the imputation that the Church could ever tolerate and ratify a religious order whose vocation and activity would merit the
mistrustful and suspicious regulations expressed in
the draft of the law. The bill was passed, but did
not receive the sanction of the emperor.
In 1882 the division of the University of Karl Ferdinand into a German and a Czechish was effected, but Cardinal Schwarzenberg would not agree to the division of the theological faculty, holding that it was the vocation of the priest to work for the reconcilia- tion and union of the various races in Bohemia. After his death this separation could not be pre- vented.
Among the many institutions, etc., introduced by Schwarzenberg we may mention: the priestly exer- cises, pastoral conferences, provincial synods (two), diocesan synods, the heritage of St. Adalbert for the support of poor priests, diocesan relief funds; estab- lishments of the Jesuits, Redemptorists, Notre-Dame, Grey Sisters, Sisters of St. Borroma^us, and Sisters of St. Vincent; popular missions; the Forty Hours' Adoration; the canonization of St. Agnes of Bohemia; the jubilee of Methodius; the jubilee of the Diocese of Prague; the papal jubilees; the Katholikenverein ; the Bonifaciusverein ; the Confraternity of St. Michael ; the Prokopius fund for the publication of good books; perpetual adoration; vestment societies; the cathe- dral building society. At the first episcopal meeting in Austria and at all the succeeding conferences, Schwarzenberg had always presided. At the meeting of 1885 he accepted his election as president, but reserved the right of joining in the debate. At the eighth session the cardinal was unable to appear on account of ill-health ; on the next day Schwarzenberg again presided, although very feverish, but hurried from this session to what was destined to be his death- bed. His remains lie in the cathedral at Prague.
NosTlTZ-RiENECK, Kardiiial Schwarzenberg: Ein Gedenkbild in Ungelriibler Glam (Vienna, 1888), 1— i4; Wolfsgruber, Friedrich Kardinal Schwarzenberg, I, Jugendu. Salzburgerzeit (Vienna, 1906).
C. Wolfsgruber. Schwebach, James. See La Crosse, Diocese
OF.
Schwenckfeldians, the name of a Protestant sect founded by the nobleman Caspar von Schwenckfeld (b. at Ossig in Silesia in 1489 or 1490; d. at Ulm 10 December, 1561). After studying at Cologne and P'rankfort-on-the-Oder Schwenckfeld served at the courts of several Silesian dukes. In 1521 he became a public adherent of the new doctrine preached by the so-called reformers, and was subsequently instru- mental in spreading it throughout Silesia. Irrecon- cilable differences having revealed themselves be- tween his views and the opinions of Luther, he re- moved in 1529 from Silesia to Stra.sburg. With his banishment from this city in 1533 opens that period of forced changes of residence which marked the later part of his life. His wanderings were due to persecu- tion exercised against him, mainly by Lutheran preachers who condemned his writings in a meeting held at Schmalkalden in 1540. The followers of Schwenckfeld never became very numerous and were organized into congregations only after his death. But they had even then to maintain a secret existence owing to persecution. Toleration was extended to them in Silesia in 1742 by Frederick II. Some mem- bers of the sect emigrated in 1734 to America and settled in Pennsylvania. While they have disappeared elsewhere the Schwenckfeldians number at present in the State just mentioned, 8.50 communicants with 8 churches and 6 ministers (Statistics of Dr. H. K. Carroll in the "Christian Advocate", New York, 26 January, 1911). Their church government is con- gregational and the ministers are chosen by lot. In the Schwenckfeldian teaching such stress is laid on the inner, spiritual, element in religion that it results in an utter depreciation of external worship. The sacraments are retained merely in a symboUcal sense. The administration of baptism to infants is discarded
