The Religious Reformer

Abstract

Maria Theresa had considered religion the cement of Empire. To her, the Church of Rome was a strong unifying force, its claims to universal spiritual hegemony a constant to which her heterogeneous peoples could and should rally and its organizational leadership an ally which could focus the temporal allegiance of her subjects upon the crown. Church and state could operate in harmonious collaboration to their mutual benefit and to the everlasting advantage of those individuals whose destinies had been committed to their concurrent care. In the last analysis, of course, the sovereign might exercise a regency over the church, lest it overstep its jurisdictional boundaries, but the Catholic faith should be nurtured as the only “true religion” and as an indispensable bulwark of good government, public order, and social stability.¹ Somewhat similarly, Joseph II looked upon religion as a potentially useful moral vehicle for the guidance of “all inhabitants for the good of the state,” even asserting that “the service of God ... [was] inseparable from that of the state.”²