When Pastor Gertraud Knoll rose to speak to the crowd in front of the Vienna Opera House last February, she knew her remarks could be hazardous to her career. A few weeks before, a coalition government had been formed that included Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, which pandered to voters’ xenophobia with such slogans as “Put a stop to too many foreigners” and “Stop asylum abuse.” Knoll, superintendent of the Lutheran Church in the eastern province of Burgenland, addressed the quarter-million people who gathered to protest against the Freedom Party’s role in the government.
