The Austrian Bishops' Conference () is the official assembly of the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

bishops A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It is the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria, established as a formal body under

public law Public law is the part of law that governs relations and affairs between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that ...

in 1849. Its members include the

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

s of

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

, all

diocesan In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

and

auxiliary bishop An auxiliary bishop is a bishop assigned to assist the diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese. Auxiliary bishops can also be titular bishops of sees that no longer exist as territorial jurisdictions. ...

s, as well as the abbot of immediate Wettingen-Mehrerau Abbey. The

Episcopal Conference An episcopal conference, often also called a bishops’ conference or conference of bishops, is an official assembly of the bishops of the Catholic Church in a given territory. Episcopal conferences have long existed as informal entities. The fir ...

represents the Catholic Church towards the

Austrian Federal Government The Government of Austria () is the executive cabinet of the Republic of Austria. It consists of the chancellor, who is the head of government, the vice chancellor and the ministers. Appointment Since the 1929 reform of the Austrian C ...

in all matters of legal relationships between

church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and Jurisprudence, jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the State (polity), state. Conceptually, the term refers to ...

and

freedom of religion Freedom of religion or religious liberty, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice ...

. It is also the supreme

ecclesiastical authority Ecclesiastical government, ecclesiastical hierarchy, or ecclesiocracy may refer to: * Theocracy, a form of religious State government * Hierocracy (medieval), papal temporal supremacy over the State * Ecclesiastical polity, the government of a Chr ...

in Austria concerning Catholic

canon law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

. The assembly is a member of the

Council of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe The Council of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe (; CCEE) is a conference of the presidents of the 33 Roman Catholic episcopal conferences of Europe, the Archbishop of Luxembourg, the Archbishop of Monaco, Maronite Catholic Archeparch of Cypr ...

(CCEE) and of the

Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community The Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, formerly the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, (; COMECE) is the association of Catholic Church episcopal conferences in member states of the Europ ...

. It also runs the official Catholic

news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency ma ...

''Kathpress''. The current chairman of the Bishop's Conference is Franz Lackner, the Archbishop of Salzburg.

Legal bases

The Conference functions in accordance with the Documents of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

, in particular the ''

Christus Dominus (''Christ the Lord''; abbreviation "CD") is the Second Vatican Council's "Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops". The document was approved by a majority vote of 2,319 to 2 of the assembled bishops and was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 28 ...

'' Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops (37/38), the

1983 Code of Canon Law The 1983 ''Code of Canon Law'' (abbreviated 1983 CIC from its Latin title ''Codex Iuris Canonici''), also called the Johanno-Pauline Code, is the "fundamental body of Ecclesiastical Law, ecclesiastical laws for the Latin Church". It is the sec ...

(Cann. 447–459), and its own constitutions. Its legal position as a formal corporation under public law and representative body of a state-recognised religious community was confirmed by a 1933

concordat A concordat () is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both,René Metz, ''What is Canon Law?'' (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1960 ...

between the Holy See"> ...

Legal bases

Active Members

Conference Leadership

Members

Chairmen

See also

References

External links