It is the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria, established as a formal body under public law in 1849.
Its members include the archbishops of Vienna and Salzburg, all diocesan and auxiliary bishops, as well as the abbot of immediate Wettingen-Mehrerau Abbey.
The current chairman of the Bishop's Conference is Franz Lackner, the Archbishop of Salzburg.
The Conference functions in accordance with the Documents of the Second Vatican Council, in particular the Christus Dominus Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops (37/38), the 1983 Code of Canon Law (Cann.
Its legal position as a formal corporation under public law and representative body of a state-recognised religious community was confirmed by a 1933 concordat between the Holy See and the First Austrian Republic.