Financial Support for tlee Clmrc/1 in Texas
stated, to seek aid for Bishop Fenwick. Encouraged by his success in Austria, Rese went to Bavaria, where he was received by King Louis I. Political considerations, however, made inadvisable the founding of a society at that time, but the King authorized a collection of alms to aid missionaries in Cincinnati and other dioceses in America. The royal sanction for a collection was, in 1829, extended indefinitely, and ulti- mately resulted in the establishment of a regularly constituted society. The Archbishop of Munich was designated the director of alms for America and the clergy took up an annual collection. When the Second Provincial Council of Baltimore met in 1833, the Bishops made formal acknowledgment to the Archbishop of Munich for the invaluable aid given by the "Bavarian faithful in propagating the faith not only in the United States of America but also in the most distant regions." The irregular collection of alms could not compare with the systematic operation of societies like those of France and Austria. Rese, now the Bishop of Detroit. returned in 1838 and again visited Bavaria to solicit aid. King Louis I listened with interest to a report on the work being done in America·and to the request for the formal organization of a missionary society in the Kingdom. He asked that the matter be sub- mitted in writing. Bishop Rese pointed out in his written petition that the unhappy lot of many people in the trans-Atlantic wilds could be made easier and more souls could be saved through Christian charity. He recounted the rapid spread of Protestantism, and the expenditures of two million pounds by the English Bible Society in twenty years to purchase and distribute ten million bibles. Catholics. through the char- itable efforts of societies like the French Propaga.ti<m de la Foi and the Austrian Leopoldinen-Stiftrmg, were showing remarkable success in spreading the Faith. Rese acknowledged American indebtedness to the charitable Bavarians, but maintained that more financial assistance was needed, and this help could come, in part at least, by reorganizing the loose system of collections through the agency of a regularly constituted Bavarian society.u King Louis I had a genuine interest in the development of the Church and the propagation of the Faith in pagan lands. He felt a growing concern over the preservation of the Faith among the German immigrants in America. Not only did Louis readily consent to the proposal, but manifested impatience over the drawing of the constitution for the desired 1ZRoemer, of>. cit. . 50-51. Bi~hop Frederic Re~e had been con~ccrated Bi~hop of Detroit, October 6, 1 833.
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