Josip Juraj Strossmayer - Catholic Diplomacy

Catholic Diplomacy

Strossmayer supported the union of all south Slavic peoples under the aegis of the Habsburgs, and promoted religious unification through the use of the Slavonic rite both in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. He served as the papal nuncio for Serbia and visited that country seven times between 1852 and 1886, and he also helped establish the concordat between the Holy See and the state of Montenegro in 1866.

In 1869 and 1870 he attended the First Vatican Council in Rome. He made his mark as one of the vocal opponents of the unlimited power of the Pope as well as the doctrine of papal infallibility. He made a three hour speech, completely in Latin, deemed heretical by many at the time, and left the Council therewith. He later yielded on the issue of infallibility, and he also headed the Slavic deputations to Rome in 1881 and 1888 which succeeded in convincing Pope Leo XIII to allow the south Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia to retain Slavonic in the Roman Rite liturgy as well as in the Byzantine Rite.