Tea at Trianon: The Leopoldine Society

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, January 22, 2022

The Leopoldine Society

From Echoes:

The Leopoldine Society was founded in Vienna, Austria, in 1828 by Father Frederick Rese. A native of Germany, Father Rese was a missionary priest who joined the Diocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1824, and four years later returned to Europe to solicit funds for the diocese. He gained an audience with Emperor Francis I of the Holy Roman Empire who permitted him to create a missionary society, a decision officially sanctioned by Pope Leo XII the following year.

The Leopoldine Society, or "Leopoldinen Stiftung," was named in honor of St. Leopold, the patron saint of Austria, and memorialized Maria Leopoldina, Empress consort of Brazil, Queen consort of Portugal, and late daughter of Emperor Francis II, who had died in 1826 at 29 years of age.

The society modelled itself upon the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, founded in Lyon, France, in 1822. Members were required to pray for the missions and contribute alms which were collected in Vienna and then distributed exclusively to missions in the United States. By 1861, 33 years after its creation, the society reported that it had contributed $436,000 to missions in the United States, but then saw a sharp decline. In its remaining 60 years, it could only raise about two-thirds of that amount, and officially disbanded in 1921.

Perhaps more important than these financial contributions were the activities of its missionaries in the United States. Some notable figures included St. John Neumann, Bishop of Philadelphia; Father Caspar Rehrl, founder of the Sisters of Saint Agnes; Father Joseph Salzmann, one of the first rectors of St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee; and Father Rese who, in addition to founding the society, would become the first Bishop of Detroit. Many of these missionaries came at a time when the population of the United States was expanding into the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and they helped ensure Catholicism had a firm footing in those regions.

Among the missionaries was also Father Stephen Raffeiner. Better known for his work in New York, he was invited to Boston by Bishop Benedict Fenwick in 1835, and returned several times a year to minister to the city's 200-plus German Catholics in their native language. He also began collecting funds to construct a church for this community, and a contribution of $2,389 from the Leopoldine Society in 1841 helped pay for a plot of land on Shawmut Avenue. Three years later on this site, Holy Trinity Church, of which is he considered the founder, was dedicated. (Read more.)