Religion in Austria
Catholicism is the largest religion in Austria, representing 57.9% of the total population in 2017. The Catholic Church's governing body in Austria is the Austrian Conference of Catholic Bishops, made up of the hierarchy of the two archbishops (Wien, Salzburg), the bishops and the abbot of territorial abbey of Wettingen-Mehrerau. Nevertheless, each bishop is independent in his own diocese, answerable only to the Pope. The current president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. Schönborn belongs to the Central European noble family of Schönborn. Although Austria has no primate, the archbishop of Salzburg is titled "Primus Germaniae" (Primate of Germany).
Languages of Austria
The main native language of Austria outside Vorarlberg is Austro-Bavarian, whose many regionally different dialects are spoken. The north-eastern parts of Austria (with the capital Vienna) speak Central Austro-Bavarian dialects and the southern parts Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects. Austro-Bavarian differs a lot from Standard German, making it very difficult for German speakers of different regions to understand the native population. Austro-Bavarian has no official orthography, but there are literary efforts (), especially in poems, to depict the sound of the pronunciation in the spelling. Other words can only be heard while visiting particular regions of Austria and Bavaria that are only rarely used in Standard German, including "Griaß God" (literally: "greet god" = may god greet you), and "Servus/Servas" (at your service) as greeting phrases, or are denoted as strictly dialectal, like "Pfiat di" (literally: "watch over you [god]" = may God watch over you) with the meaning of "goodbye". This particular example also shows that the Austro-Bavarian grammar differs from Standard German.