Enlightenment and Catholicism in Europe: A Transnational History

Chapter 9: Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch (1734–1785)

PARt 4 Catholicism, Enlightenment, and Habsburg Europe 9 R Franz Stephan Raut en s t ra u c h (1734–178 5 ) Church Reform for the Sake of the State tHoMAS WALLNIG Within the master narratives of the “Catholic Enlightenment” as well as within the relevant handbooks, Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch (1734–1785), abbot of Břevnov-Broumov, is usually referred to as the powerful Josephist reformer of the theological university curricula in the Habsburg state, and as the initiator of “general seminaries” for the religious education of all of the secular and regular clergy (Beales 1987–2009; Hersche 1977; Lehner and Printy 2010; Vocelka 2001). “German” Reform Catholicism of the late twentieth century has rediscovered Rautenstrauch as the founder of pastoral theology as an academic discipline (klostermann and Müller 1979; zulehner 1989–1990). Abbot Rautenstrauch represents the exception, and alleged contradiction , of a monk propagating and enacting Josephist church policies ; he is also the rare case of a monastic scholar with the necessary 209 210 Thomas Wallnig means at his disposal to realize his pedagogical visions. He can, without much reservation, be collocated within the context of the Catholic “Aufklärung,” as he himself used the term affirmatively. yet his ideas alone would appear less original and remarkable were they to be viewed apart from their institutional context and judged according to their actual impact on state and society. therefore, the following pages will focus on the complex relationship between these factors. Hence, what emerges is the complex portrait of a prelate becoming a state official, thereby transforming a monastic concern into a Jansenist one, a tridentine inspiration into a Josephist effort, and, accordingly, an intellectual agenda into a bureaucratic one. Rautenstrauch’s Abbey: Břevnov-Broumov Rautenstrauch was a monk, and later abbot, of the most powerful Benedictine monastery in Bohemia, Břevnov-Broumov. this abbey, situated near (today within the limits of) the city of Prague, was founded in 993 by St. Adalbert, in the context of the christianization of Bohemia (Hejdová, Preiss, and Urešová 1993). the Hussites had destroyed the abbey, and the religious community had fled to the northeastern Bohemian village of Broumov. In the decades following the thirty years’ War, Břevnov was rebuilt and took an active part in the massive efforts to re-Catholicize Bohemia after the fervid Utraquist episode of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Indeed , the abbot of Broumov played an important role in the prehistory of the Defenestration of Prague in 1618. Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch entered the monastery in 1751 under Abbot Benno Löbl (abbot 1738–1752), who had inherited from his predecessor othmar zinke (abbot 1700–1738) two main political concerns. First, the abbey incorporated four other communities and claimed total spiritual supremacy over the other Benedictine institutes in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. In the past, this had caused several conflicts, both within the larger Břevnovian community and outside it, when the archbishop of Prague saw his visitation rights diminished . these conflicts were carried out by various legal means on various institutional levels, from Vienna to Rome (Menzel 1999). Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch (1734–1785) 211 the second concern was a pedagogical one and aimed at the betterment of monastic education and discipline, for example, by the strengthening of ties with educational institutions like the Benedictine university of Salzburg. At the beginning of the 1750s, Abbot Löbl responded to Count Joseph Philipp kinsky’s (1700–1749) initiative for the creation of a Benedictine academy for young noblemen in Prague. there had already been various efforts in this direction in the southern parts of the empire (Hammermayer 1976), and Löbl could build upon the networks already established by Baron Josef Petrasch’s (1714–1772) “Society of the Unknown” (Societas incognitorum) in olomouc. Löbl invited some of the leading Benedictine scholars to Břevnov, and although the plans for an academy in Prague failed, the presence of Anselm Desing, o.S.B. (1699–1772), of Ensdorf Abbey; oliver Legipont, o.S.B. (1698–1758), of St. Martin’s Abbey, Cologne; Ulrich Weiß, o.S.B. (1713–1763), of Irsee Abbey; and Magnoald ziegelbauer, o.S.B. (1688–1750), of zwiefalten Abbey, contributed to an open intellectual climate in the abbey during the years of young Rautenstrauch’s formation and first teaching experiences. Desing, Legipont, and ziegelbauer were historians, and the last was charged with writing the abbey’s history. As successors...