Los von Rom (Via da Roma)

LOS VON ROM
(Via da Roma). -
The L. v. R. was an anti-Roman political, cultural and religious movement, which arose in Vienna in 1897 under the pretext that Catholicism was the principal obstacle to achieving the union of all peoples of the German race. After 1870, because of the predominance in Austrian political spheres of liberalism, a new form of the old Josephinism, the Catholic Church in Austria suffered numerous restrictions both in the cultural field and in the strictly religious one; and, although it did not have a Kulturkampf (v.) of its own, the Austrian Church had years of struggle. As a result of this state of affairs the L. v. R. movement arose, which was conceived, prepared, guided and supported by men representative of secular German culture, who proposed, by means of such a religious separation from Rome, to unite all Germans so as to be able to proceed united in the conquest of all branches of modern knowledge. German Protestantism strongly supported this movement with the aim of imposing upon the Austro-Hungarian countries the union of the German Reich under the Empire of the Hohenzollerns.

The first declaration of this movement took place in Vienna on 12 Dec. 1897 through the work of some students, who staged a demonstration in front of the seat of the People's Party with the cry of L. v. R. The leaders of the movement were G. v. Schönerer, V. Eisenkolb and F. Meyer, one of the heads of the committee for the coordination of the evangelical movement in Austria. The principal center was Innsbruck, where the Ulrich-Hutten League (Ulrich-Hutten-Bund) arose, along with the newspapers Der Scherer, Pfeile aus der Ebernburg and Mitteilungen an die deutsche Tagespresse zur Forderung der L. v. R. - Bewegung. To these newspapers were also added propaganda pamphlets. The fundamental organ of the movement was Die Wartburg (from 1905). The results of the campaign were rather modest. With great difficulty, through clamorous propaganda, it managed to gather 10,000 adherents (1900). The movement was checked by the zeal of the bishops, of the clergy and of the religious Orders, and by the organization of Catholic forces in the political field with the Christian Social Party, which soon became the strongest Party in the Cisleithanian parliament (v. DOTTRINA SOCIALE CRISTIANA).

Filippo Caraffa