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).
Away from Rome!
Since the time of Counterreformation among the Habsburgs, Austria was an almost exclusively Roman Catholic country. The Protestants only formed a vanishing minority. Only since emperor Joseph II’s enactment of the Patent of Tolerance in 1781, the exercise of religion was granted again to Reformed Christians and Lutherans. After the foundation of the German Reich in 1871, causing the “lesser German solution”, that is the unification of Germany under the control of Prussia excluding Austria, many Austrians still remained devoted to “Greater German ideas”. The German Nationals strived for a close political connection to the German Reich, and partially even aimed at complete dissolution of the monarchy of the Habsburgs and the annexation of the parts that were populated by the Germans to the German Reich. One of the leading advocates of this political direction was Georg Ritter von Schönerer. In the program of Linz in 1882, the German Nationals established the slogan “not liberal, not clerical, but national”, and opposed to the Jews, as well as to the political and societal influence of the Roman Catholic Church.