Leopoldine Society

The Leopoldine Society was an organization established in Vienna for the purpose of aiding Catholic missions in North America. Based on the French model of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Leopoldine Society was founded in 1829 in Vienna, and named in memory of the Emperor's daughter.

When the Society for the Propagation of the Faith was founded in Lyons, in 1822, it did not spread beyond the French borders for a considerable time. Other nations were not unwilling to cooperate, but were deliberating whether to start a similar society of their own or to join the one already in existence. At this time, in 1827, Bishop Edward Fenwick of Cincinnati, Ohio sent his vicar-general, Father Rese, to Europe to recruit German priests and to obtain assistance for his diocese. Father Rese reached Vienna in the latter part of 1828. He stimulated interest in the American missions in those with whom he came in contact. His descriptions of the New World, the scarcity of priests, and the prevailing poverty of the missions awoke a general public interest in the welfare of the American missions and the spiritual welfare of the enemy Protestants. To strengthen this feeling and encourage the formation of a society similar to the French society he published a description of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati (Abriss der Geschichte des Bisthums Cincinnati in Nord-America, Vienna, 1829), an excerpt from Father Stephen Badin's work. The Archbishop of Vienna, Leopold Maximilian Graf von Firmian, was so well disposed towards this undertaking that he brought it to the notice of the imperial family. Father Rese was granted an audience with the emperor, whose brother, Archduke Rudolf von Habsburg-Lothringen, Cardinal Archbishop of Olmutz, assumed the protectorate of the missionary work.

Next, the sanction of the Church was obtained. Pope Leo XII in the Papal Bull Quamquam plura sint, dated 30 Jan., 1829, approved of the nascent society. Meanwhile, the founders were busying themselves with the internal workings of the society. A public meeting was held on 13 March 1829, at the archiepiscopal palace. Canon Joseph Pletz, of the Metropolitan Church of St. Stephen, spoke on the propagation of the Gospel and what he saw as its civilizing influences upon the nations of the world. A month later, 15 April 1829, the statutes were adopted. These were drawn up much after the pattern of the French society. The only divergent points which need be mentioned were that the society was to be known as the Leopoldine Society -- Leopoldinenstiftung—to perpetuate the memory of the Maria Leopoldina of Austria, -Empress of Brazil, a favourite daughter of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor and wife of Pedro I of Brazil; and that the society should exist only in Austria-Hungary. On 13 May 1829, the first executive session was held. A pamphlet was designed and in it incorporated the oration of Canon Pletz together with the statutes and the corresponding regulations. The brochure was translated into all the languages spoken in the monarchy. The head office was established in the Dominican monastery and Herr Anton Carl Lichtenberg became its first actuary and Dr. Caspar Wagner its treasurer.

...
Wikipedia