Austria has adopted the Gallican ideas of national Catholic Churches espoused by Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, despite his submission to the pope.

The social and ecclesiastical reforms in the spirit of the Enlightenment which had been undertaken by Emperor Joseph II and his minister Kaunitz in Austria touches the supremacy of Rome so nearly that in the hope of staying them Pope Pius VI adopts the exceptional course of visiting Vienna in person.

He had left Rome on February 27, 1782 and, though magnificently received by the Emperor, his mission proved a fiasco; he is, however, able a few years later to curb those German archbishops who, in 1786 at the Congress of Ems, had shown a tendency towards independence.