Joseph Othmar von Rauscher

Joseph Othmar von Rauscher (born Oct. 6, 1797, Vienna—died Nov. 24, 1875, Vienna) was a cardinal and the influential tutor of the Habsburg emperor Francis Joseph; he was the primary engineer of the Austro-papal concordat of 1855.

Raised to the priesthood in 1823, Rauscher was appointed professor of church history and canon law at the Salzburg lyceum in 1825, director of the Oriental Academy in Vienna in 1832, and tutor of the future emperor Francis Joseph in 1844. Consecrated bishop of Seckau (1849) and subsequently archbishop (1853) and cardinal (1855) of Vienna, he devoted himself to the task of removing the restrictions on the Roman Catholic Church in Austria that remained from the 18th-century reign of Emperor Joseph II.

During the 1849 episcopal conference at Vienna, Rauscher urged the conclusion of an imperial agreement with the Holy See. Subsequently he served as chief representative of the Emperor in the negotiation of the 1855 concordat. A conservative reaction to the 1848 revolutions, it provided complete freedom from civil interference for the church, clerical control over education policy, and exceptional consideration for Catholic interests in all matters pertaining to religion. Against a storm of liberal opposition, Rauscher fought—unsuccessfully after 1867—for the preservation of this agreement. An opponent of the extreme ultramontanists, who wished to see all power of the church in the hands of the pope, he led episcopal resistance to the definition of papal infallibility at the Vatican Council of 1870 and later only accepted the dogma with reluctance.