destroyed or devoted to other purposes. The property was confiscated to the State, and was set aside as a fund for the support of Churches. This made it possible for many new churches to be built in towns and villages that had been without any means of religious instruction, the inhabitants being obliged to go to service a great distance from their homes.
The Pope, then Pius VI, looked on in consternation at all these unheard-of innovations; and when remonstrances proved unavailing, his Holiness did an act unprecedented in history—he himself undertook a journey to Vienna to try to dissuade the emperor from making any further encroachments into the ecclesiastical domains. But although he was received and entertained with great honor, he failed of accomplishing his purpose.
The emperor went on in his Church reform by taking away a part of the diocese of the Archbishop of Prague and attaching it to the bishoprics, thus equalizing somewhat the income and the jurisdiction of these prelates. Their power, on the other hand, was much limited by removing marriage from their jurisdiction, placing it under the control of the civil authorities.
While these innovations were introduced, the Pope was silent; but when Joseph went so far as to prohibit pilgrimages to the various shrines in the country, and to dictate as to what sort of ceremonial should be observed in Church service, his Holiness again raised his voice in protest, this time threatening to use the extreme penalties of the Church against the daring monarch if he heeded not the warning of the Church. Joseph, not wishing to bring down upon himself the wrath of all the priesthood, left well-enough alone,
