He worked as Pro-assessor for the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office from 1859.

He was later named qualifier (1964) and commissary for matrimonial causes (1966) in the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

Frühwirth then served as a consultor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office from 19 December 1906.

This body was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1904 by Pope Saint Pius X.

The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1904 was given the new name of "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office".

Pope Leo appointed him as Secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on 5 August 1896, a post he held until his death.

Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, sent a letter which became known as the Crimen sollicitationis.

However, Benedict XV appointed Merry del Val as secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on 14 October 1914.

Forty years after Stockham's death in 1912, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued a moratorium, citing an express mandate of Pope Pius XII.

He was also appointed to the office of Secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, guarding the orthodoxy of Church doctrine from 1884 until his death.

He became Assessor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on January 11, 1902, and a canon of St. Peter's Basilica on the following February 1.

The department formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office became on 7 December 1965 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, clearly indicating its field of competence.

In 1908, the congregation was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and in 1965 it was renamed again and is now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

After becoming Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and Regulars on April 28, 1902, he was made counselor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on the following August 27.

Then serving as Assessor of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, he became Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Council (predecessor of today's Congregation for the Clergy) in 1919.

A New York Times article published on 1 July 2010 said, as is mentioned above, that the 1962 instruction was a restatement of that of 1922, giving the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office authority to prosecute clergy accused of sexual abuse.

He knows this: the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, had-for many centuries prior to that-been known as the Sacred Congregation of Universal Inquisition.

The distance of dioceses from Rome, together with peculiar local conditions, rendered the granting of these general faculties a matter of necessity, and in 1637 certain new grants or lists of faculties were drawn up by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

He later became Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, in the section of Oriental rites, on 16 November 1880 and Assessor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on 20 March 1889.

Upon being elected pope, he was also formally the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and prefect of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation.