SCHINDLER, FRANZ MARTIN. - Austrian sociologist, born at Motzdorf in Bohemia on 25 Jan. 1847, died at Vienna on 27 Oct. 1922. Ordained a priest in 1869, he was appointed professor of moral theology in his diocese of Litoměřice (1878-87) and subsequently (1887-1917) at the University of Vienna; an authority on social questions, he was one of the inspirers of the Catholic social movement.
Among the founders and, in the years 1892-1917, also secretary general of the Leogesellschaft, S. gathered around himself a circle of highly influential Catholic figures for the penetration of Christian principles into public social life (e.g., Lueger, Prince A. Liechtenstein, and others); he organized evening gatherings for academics (Akademische Abende) and gave university lectures on the Christian social order, very widely attended by students of all the Faculties. One of the founders and principal organizers of the Christian Social Party and president of the governing council of the Reichspost, the central organ of Vienna's Christian Socialists, S. was able to propagate and defend Christian-social principles even against the strong opposition of the conservatives.
He wrote: Ist der Staat zur Durchführung einer Zwangsversicherung berechtigt? (1883); Nazionalität und Christentum (1888); Der Lohnvertrag (1895); Aufgabe der Caritas (1895); Die Stellung der theol. Fakultät im Organismus der Universität (1904); Die soziale Frage der Gegenwart (1905, 4th ed. 1908); Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie (3 vols., 1907-11, 1913). He edited the Sozialwissenschaftlichen Vorträge (1895 ff.) and Das soziale Wirken der Kirche in Österreich (10 vols., 1896 ff.).