Financial Support for the Churcli in Texas
value a few years later to Father Rese in founding the Leopoldi11e11- S ti f t1mg.8 Six years later Bishop Fenwick sent Father Rese, his Vicar-General, to Austria and Germany to beg for alms and to secure German-speaking priests to care for the faithful in his rapidly growing Diocese of Cincin- nati. Rese obtained an audience with Prince Leopold Maximilian, Arch- bishop of Vienna, who, in turn, presented him to Emperor Francis I. Rese immediately proposed to the Emperor the establishment of a branch of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, but Francis I thought it politically inadvisable. He was in favor of extending aid to the missions, particularly to those among the German settlers in America, but he preferred that the help be extended independently of the French Society. To promote the new organization, Rese published a pamphlet, Abriss de Gesclziclite Bistlmms Cincinnati in Nord A-m&rika, which was nothing more than a German version of the Cincinnati missionary reports previously printed in the A 1males of the French Society of Lyons. The result was the organization of the Leopoldinen-Stift1mg, whose statutes were formally approved by the Emperor on April 5, 18:29. Pope Leo XII had previously given the projected Austrian Society his blessing in the Bull Qtta-mq11am Pl1era Sint, of January 30, 1829. The executive board met on May 13, 1829, and agreed to name the Society in honor of the favorite daughter of Francis I, the late Empress of Brazil. 9 The provisions of the statutes adopted were simple. The Society was to cele- brate an annual solemn Requiem Mass on December I I for the repose of the soul of the deceased Empress of Brazil and the souls of all the departed members and benefactors. The contribution, following the example of the French Society, was a kreuzer, the smallest coin in circulation, worth about one-half cent, to be paid weekly to the leader of each group of ten. But the method of collecting the alms differed slightly from that of the French organiz:t- tion; the alms collected were turned over to the pastors of the respective parishes in which units were established; the pastors sent the alms to their respective deans, who forwarded them to their bishops, and they, 8 Theodore Roemer, "The Leopoldine Foundation and the Church in the United States, 1829-1839," in P;oneer German Catholics ;,. lite United Stales: Antoine de lva11 Rezek, "The Leopoldine Society," Tlte Catholic Encyclo,Ped;a, Index vol., p. 52. An account of its origin and work is also found in Peter Guilday, Tlte l.ift' and Times of John England. For a concise account, see Theodore R°'mer, Ten necades of Alms, 32-46. 9 Princess Leopoldine, wife of Don Pedro I of Rra1.il, had dit'd in t R27.
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