LAUSANNE, GENEVA, and FRIBOURG, DIOCESES OF. — The diocese comprises four cantons: Fribourg, Vaud (except for the triangle south of Lake Geneva that extends to the gates of St-Maurice and has always belonged to the diocese of Sion), Geneva, and Neuchâtel, with a total of about 300,000 Catholics distributed across 227 parishes, served by about 400 diocesan priests. There are also 350 religious, a theological seminary, 42 male religious communities, and 320 female ones (1949). The proportion of Catholics is about 9/10 in the canton of Fribourg, half in that of Geneva, 1/6 in that of Vaud, and 1/7 in that of Neuchâtel. The rest of the population is Protestant, with the exception of some Jews and a small fraction of "Old Catholics" in the cantons of Geneva and Neuchâtel.
Originally, the diocese covered the territory that, in Roman times, constituted the "civitas Helvetiorum," i.e., most of the Swiss plateau (between the Jura to the north and the Alps to the south) with Avenches (Aventicum), southwest of Lake Murten, as its capital.
The first known bishops are those who, in the 6th century, attended the Merovingian councils. At that time, they resided in Windisch (Vindonissa, near Brugg, roughly halfway between Basel and Zurich), a city that arose near the site of the Roman legion camp established in Switzerland.
The Alemanni, pagan barbarians who had gradually invaded what is now German-speaking Switzerland north of the Alps, occupied the territory of the Burgundians, also Germanic but Christian (Arian) and much more moderate, who had merged in what is now French-speaking Switzerland with the Gallo-Roman population there and had adopted its language. This progression, according to all likelihood, prompted the bishop in the second half of the 6th century (perhaps in 561, at the time of the division of King Clotaire I's kingdom among his sons) to leave Vindonissa and settle in Lausanne (perhaps after a brief stop in Avenches, then almost in ruins). The transfer was certainly completed by 594, the year in which the bishop was buried in Lausanne. The eastern part of the diocese, however, was incorporated into the diocese of Constance, which was established at that time.
The boundaries of the diocese of Lausanne, from the High Middle Ages until the Reformation, were as follows: to the north, the Jura; to the west, the current Franco-Swiss border, then the Aubonne, a stream that flows into Lake Geneva between Lausanne and Geneva; to the south, the Bernese Alps chain as far as the Grosse Scheidegg, and, to the east, the entire course of the Aar River, from Lake Brienz to 6 km downstream of Solothurn. Like the diocese of Geneva, that of Lausanne initially had as its metropolitan the archbishop of Vienne in France, and from about the year 600 onward, that of Besançon. Among the bishops are remembered: St. Marius (Marius 574-94), St. Protasius (c. 561-?), St. Amadeus (1144-59), a disciple of St. Bernard and abbot of Hautecombe, before occupying the see of Lausanne; St. Boniface Clutine (1230-39), of Belgian origin.
At the time of the conquest of the Pays de Vaud by the Bernese in 1536, who introduced the Reformation wherever they could, the bishop, Sébastien de Montfalcon, abandoned the diocese. The Bernese seized his cathedral, his episcopal palace, and the lands of the see; the canons were dispersed, and the canton of Vaud (except for the Echallens district in the center) was gradually forced to embrace Protestantism. Similarly, in the years 1530-38, the principality of Neuchâtel, which had passed to the Reformation following the preaching of Farel, with the exception of the two localities of Cressier and Landeron.
The bishop, who was usually presented to Rome by the Duke of Savoy, now habitually resided in Burgundy, in one of the abbeys of which he was commendatory abbot. In 1603, an agreement was concluded whereby he would henceforth reside in Fribourg, a city that had remained Catholic along with its surrounding territory, thanks especially to the energy shown by its government at the time of the Reformation. From then on, the bishop stayed more or less for long periods in his new episcopal city, but only settled there permanently in 1663. At that time, the bishop was Giovanni Battista, Count of San Martino, a Piedmontese Franciscan of strict observance from Strambino (Turin). He was almost always in conflict with the canons of his episcopal city (the Chapter of St. Nicholas, erected in 1512-15 and exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction) and with the civil authorities, which, after the Reformation and during the bishop's absence, had arrogated to themselves certain rights in religious matters.
Subsequently, the bishop was appointed directly by Rome. Until the Revolution, he was chosen especially from the patrician families of Fribourg. Today, the Holy See chooses him from one of the diocesan cantons.
The somewhat abnormal situation of the bishop was finally regularized in 1924 with the elevation of the collegiate church of St. Nicholas and its Chapter to the status of cathedral, with the addition of the name of Fribourg to the title of the diocese. Among the recent bishops, we may recall Mons. Gaspard Mermillod, from the canton of Geneva (1883-91), later created cardinal and who died in Rome in 1892, and Mons. Marius Besson (q.v.).
There has never been a diocese of Fribourg, since this city, like Bern, Neuchâtel, and Solothurn, has always belonged to the diocese of Lausanne. On the contrary, until the early 19th century, there was a diocese of Geneva.
Around the year 400, the presence of a bishop named Isaac is attested in that diocese. The diocese covered the Chablais, Faucigny, and Genevois, i.e., to use current designations: the Swiss canton of Geneva, the French department of Haute-Savoie as far as Mont Blanc and Lake Bourget to the south, and, extending northward, a large area including the right bank of the Rhône, hence, in Swiss territory, that of Lake Geneva as far as the Aubonne.
The diocese had as its metropolitan the archbishop of Vienne in the Dauphiné. During the Middle Ages, the bishops had to contend with the counts of Geneva, who attempted to exercise sovereignty over the city of Geneva as they had in the past. But after they were absorbed by the counts of Savoy, the struggle continued against them, to the detriment of the diocese, which ended up becoming an appanage of the House of Savoy, which appointed either members of its family or its protégés to the see.
Among the bishops of Geneva are remembered: in the mid-5th century, Salonius, son of St. Eucherius (whom it was later mistakenly claimed was a bishop of Geneva named Solomon); Guido of Faucigny (1078-1120); Arducius of Faucigny (1135-85), one of the great bishops of the Middle Ages; Robert of Geneva (1276-87); Peter of Faucigny (1311-1342); Adhemar Fabri (1385-88); John of Brogne (1423-26), who died as Cardinal of Ostia; Amadeus of Savoy, the antipope Felix V, who governed the diocese from 1444 to 1451.
At the time of the Reformation, the bishop, Pierre de la Baume, was forced to abandon his episcopal city (1533). He had erred in relying almost exclusively on the Duke of Savoy, a Catholic prince to be sure, and having high sovereignty over Geneva, but disliked by the increasingly influential party in the city on the Rhône, which had formed ties of common citizenship with several Swiss cantons. The Chapter moved to Annecy. Pierre de la Baume became archbishop of Besançon. Even his two immediate successors died in Franche-Comté, and the third in Turin; thus, the former bishops of Geneva settled in Annecy. From there, Mons. Claude de Granier (1573-1602) took an interest in the conversion of the Chablais, an endeavor in which the provost of his Chapter, St. Francis de Sales, became especially renowned and who succeeded him in the episcopal see (1602-22).
The Diocese of Geneva was suppressed under the Concordat between Pius VII and Napoleon (1801) and was united to that of Chambéry. However, in order not to allow the name of a diocese made illustrious by St. Francis de Sales to fall into disuse, the title of Bishop of Geneva was added to that of the Bishop of Chambéry.
In 1814 the city of Geneva, which had become French in 1798, was declared independent and then incorporated into Switzerland in 1815. In 1815–16, however, 27 Savoyard and French communes were likewise united to the Confederation; this pointed out to the Holy See that it was illogical for a French bishop to exercise jurisdiction over a territory that had become Swiss and to bear the title of Bishop of Geneva, a Swiss city. The Holy See acceded to this request and in 1819 united the city on the banks of the Rhône with the surrounding localities to the Diocese of Lausanne, the nearest Swiss bishopric. It invited the Archbishop of Chambéry to transfer the title of Bishop of Geneva to the Bishop of Lausanne (1821).
The Diocese of Geneva had as its patron St. Peter. The principal patroness of the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg is the Blessed Virgin Mary under the invocation of the Nativity; secondary patrons are St. Nicholas of Myra and St. Francis de Sales.
MONUMENTS. — In Geneva, the Cathedral of St. Peter (now Protestant), built in the 12th century on the site of a small 4th-century church, replaced by a larger one in 515 and enlarged in the 10th century. In Lausanne, the Cathedral (also now Protestant), the finest Gothic building in all Switzerland, constructed between 1170 and the end of the 13th century on the ruins of an 11th-century Romanesque church. It was consecrated in 1275 by Pope Gregory X in the presence of Rudolph of Habsburg. In Fribourg, the Cathedral, begun toward the end of the 13th century on the site of a Romanesque church consecrated in 1182. Among the ancient abbatial churches are those of Haute-rive (Cistercian), 7 km from Fribourg (Cottineau, I, col. 1375), and in the canton of Vaud, those of Romainmôtier (ibid., II, cols. 2497–98) and Payerne (ibid., cols. 2239–40), once Cluniac monasteries (the first is now a Protestant temple, and the second is desacralized).
Fribourg possesses a Catholic University, founded in 1889; the new, modern buildings of the three Faculties of Theology, Law, and Letters were inaugurated in 1941. — See pl. CIX.
secondary, served by 8 diocesan priests and 2 religious, assisted by 2 female religious communities. It has two educational institutes. Charitable works (nurseries, orphanages, hospitals, etc.) are in the process of formation. The mission was initially attended to by some secular priests of the Diocese of Guayaquil, then by the Maryknoll Fathers (United States), and now by priests of the Spanish Institute for Foreign Missions (Burgos), to which the vicariate is entrusted.
Antonio Mazza
LOSE FROM ROME (Way from Rome). — The L. V. R. was a political, cultural, and anti-Roman religious movement that arose in Vienna in 1897 under the pretext that Catholicism was the principal impediment to achieving the union of all peoples of the German race. After 1870, the Catholic Church, because of the predominance of liberalism in Austrian political circles—a new form of old Josephinism—suffered numerous restrictions in Austria both in the cultural sphere and in the strictly religious sphere; and, although it did not experience a Kulturkampf (q.v.), the Austrian Church went through 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 representative figures of lay German culture who, by means of this religious separation from Rome, could unite all Germans so as to proceed together to the conquest of all branches of modern knowledge. German Protestantism strongly supported this movement with the aim of imposing on 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 by some students, who held a demonstration in front of the seat of the People’s Party with the cry of L. V. R. Leaders of the movement were G. V. Schönerer, V. Eisenkolb, and F. Meyer, one of the leaders 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 Eberburg, and Mitteilungen an die deutsche Tagespresse zur Förderung der L.
V. R
Bewegung. To these were added pamphlets of propaganda. The fundamental organ of the movement was Die Wartburg (from 1905). The results of the campaign were rather modest. With great difficulty, through sensational propaganda, it managed to gather 10,000 adherents (1900). The movement was checked by the zeal of the bishops, the clergy, and the religious orders, and by the organization of Catholic forces in the political sphere with the Christian-Social Party, which soon became the strongest party in the Cisleithanian parliament (q.V. Christian Social Doctrine).