Abstract
Under The Influence of Enlightenment ideals of rational administration and cameralist notions of increasing the productivity and welfare of the populace, Joseph II and his ministers embarked on an aggressive program of reform for the Habsburg monarchy in the late eighteenth century. Their view as to what needed change was wide-ranging, but among their chief concerns was the desire to restructure the relationship between the Catholic church and Austrian society. As the largest and most powerful religious denomination in the Habsburg monarchy, the Catholic church possessed immense human and material resources, which could possibly be exploited to benefit the Austrian people and state. For Joseph II, the process whereby Catholicism could best be put to use in Austrian society necessarily involved seizing partial administrative control over the Catholic church. The Catholic church, he believed, did not distribute material and moral benefit to the Austrian people evenly, and changing this situation required the active intervention of the Austrian government.
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