Note 3 — THE COUNCIL OF 1771

Archbishop Santa Justa’s scheme of doing away with all popular church devotions (under the plea presented in this letter) had, singularly, its exact counterpart in several European countries, where, in almost the very same year, that identical movement was inaugurated in many places throughout all the dominions of Joseph II of Austria—in Austria itself, the Low Countries, Tuscany, Naples, etc. The mass of existing documents clearly show that the courts of Vienna, Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon were openly enlisted with the powers of irreligion to undo all Christian belief even among the poor people at large. Another point to be considered in connection with this is the social ferment and disquiet of that period.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A. ↑