On February 6th from 10:35 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – A “free church in a free society” – open to all political parties and with express consent to parliamentary democracy: What the Catholic bishops formulated in the “Mariazell Manifesto” in 1952 and which sounds self-evident to today’s ears is the insight into a painful path of Catholic experience Church in the First Republic and under the Nazi dictatorship. The “criss-cross” documentary “Church History in Red-White-Red: Altar without a Throne” by Christian Rathner traces this path on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, at 10:35 p.m. on ORF 2, at the beginning of which the solution to the The alliance of “throne and altar” stood after the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and the church tried to face the new social situation constructively after the end of the Second World War.
Dealing with the difficult legacy of the interwar period and profound social upheavals preoccupied the Catholic Church in Austria after the Second World War. The formative figure Cardinal Franz König is the focus of the documentary “Church History in Red-White-Red: The König Era” (11:25 p.m.), in which director Christian Rathner examines the developments of the Catholic Church – in ecumenism, social issues and its positions on politics – outlines in the Second Republic.
“Church history in red-white-red: altar without a throne” – A film by Christian Rathner
The first half of the 20th century was a particularly intensive learning time for the Austrian Catholic Church. After the First World War, which led to the collapse of the monarchy, the church lost the Catholic emperor as its patron. The alliance of throne and altar inevitably dissolved. The church faced the challenge of asserting itself in an unfamiliar political environment. The fact that it refused to give up cultural-political positions such as the church’s influence on schools and marriage or the payment of priests by the state proved to be an external obstacle to peaceful understanding with its ideological competitors, especially the social democrats who were critical of the church. Political Catholicism, with the priest-chancellor Ignaz Seipel as chairman of the Christian Social Party, soon found itself in serious domestic political disputes.
Christian Rathner’s documentary essentially sheds light on the time of two archbishops of Vienna. Cardinal Friedrich Gustav Piffl, like his successor, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, was born in Bohemia and belonged to the German-Czech minority. Both faced enormous challenges. Piffl became archbishop in 1913. Soon after he took office, the First World War began, which ended with the collapse of the monarchy. He experienced the deepening political division in the country and the fire of the Palace of Justice in 1927 as the first climax of the conflict. He saw the dramatic social situation as a mandate for the Catholic Church to take action.
Theodor Innitzer, who succeeded Piffl in 1932, was barely in office when Chancellor Dollfuß eliminated parliament in March 1933. In February 1934, the suppression of the Social Democratic uprising against the dictatorial Dollfuß regime resulted in hundreds of deaths. The Catholic Church, with Innitzer at its head, supported the authoritarian experiment of the Austro-fascist corporate state with benevolence and tried in vain to find a modus vivendi with Hitler after the “Anschluss”. On the letter accompanying a pro-regime declaration forced from the bishops by Gauleiter Bürckel, Innitzer hand wrote “And Heil Hitler”. In doing so, he earned the reputation of a Nazi bishop, while the National Socialists called him a “Jew servant”: Innitzer founded the “Help Center for Non-Aryan Catholics,” which helped baptized Jews with legal questions, housing and school matters, necessary medical help, and provided support with the difficult formalities for leaving the country as long as this was possible. By placing the relief office under his personal protection and quartering it in the inner courtyard of the Archbishop’s Palace, the cardinal accepted the confrontation with the Nazis.
The film describes the events from the collapse of the monarchy to the First Republic, the Austro-Fascist corporate state and the rise to power of the National Socialists. At the end there is an outlook into the post-war period. In 1952, the “Mariazell Manifesto” identified the lessons from history. The Graz church historian Michaela Sohn-Kronthaler, her Viennese colleague Rupert Klieber and the Viennese social historian Florian Wenninger bring events to life whose effects can still be felt today.
“Church History in Red-White-Red: The King Era” – A film by Christian Rathner
He was one of Austria’s defining figures in the 20th century:
Cardinal Franz König. He campaigned for reconciliation between the Catholic Church and workers. And the Roman Catholic Church, which had entered into an alliance with the authoritarian corporate state in the interwar period, finally freed itself from party-political dependence. König made contacts with countries behind the Iron Curtain and was a sought-after interlocutor in interreligious dialogue around the world. As such, he also advocated for a new relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and Judaism during the Second Vatican Council. As head of the Vatican Secretariat, he initiated a department for atheism research at the University of Vienna and, as a man of ecumenism, founded the “Pro Orients”. The film documents Franz König’s career, shows the achievements of his time in office as well as the sobering end of an era: With Hans Hermann Groër, the Roman Catholic Church in Austria slipped into the “most serious crisis since 1945”, according to the words of the Graz church historian Michaela Sohn-Kronthaler. .
In addition to the church historian Michaela Sohn-Kronthaler, Christian Rathner’s documentation includes, among others, the Viennese church historian Rupert Klieber, the social historian Florian Wenninger, the Protestant church historian Leonhard Jungwirth, the journalist and author Herbert Lackner (“When Schnitzler argued with the Chancellor”) and the theologian and Atheism researcher Johann Figl (“Life after 1945”) has his say. Annemarie Fenzl, König’s long-time employee and head of the Cardinal König Archive, provides personal and previously little-known insights.