Sophie Ritter von Scherer (5 February 1817, Vienna - 29 May 1876, Graz) was an Austrian writer.

[2] In the autumn of the year 1848, in the context of the recently granted freedom of the press, in an open letter dated 17 November 1848, she made an appeal "in the interest of the Catholic faith" at the first German bishops' conference in Würzburg.

As a devout Catholic loyal to Rome, she opposed this emerging group of German Catholics and presented her ecclesiastical reform considerations, such as the worship simplification by omitting litanies and prayers not directly related to the Catholic faith, the introduction of the vernacular German in worship or the abolition of celibacy in order to overcome the gap between the priests and laity.

Her brother, the Catholic Viennese painter Theodor Sockl, attacked her in a subsequent open letter, accusing her of Protestant convictions.

[1][2] Sophie von Scherer is considered a remarkable woman, ahead of her times, who acknowledged and advocated the necessity of a legal framework for social security and state family support about 100 years before their introduction.