Carl von Reisach

Carl von Reisach

Born at Roth, Bavaria, 7 July, 1800; died in the Redemptorist monastery of Contamine, France, 22 December, 1869. On the completion of his secular studies in Neuburg on the Danube, he studied philosophy at Munich (1816), and jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Göttingen, and Landshut, securing at the last (1821) the Degree of Doctor Juris Utriusque. Devoting himself a little later to the study of theology, he received minor orders at Innsbruck in 1824, was ordained in 1828 after philosophical and theological studies in the German College at Rome, and in the following year graduated Doctor of Theology. Pius VII soon appointed him rector of studies at the College of the Propaganda, an office which brought him into close relations with the succeeding pope, Gregory XVI. Urged by this pontiff to devote special attention to the affairs of the Catholic Church in Germany, he attacked the current anti-ecclesiastical views and tendencies, especially with regard to mixed marriages, in his work "Was haben wir von den Reformatoren und Stimmführen des katholischen Deutschland unserer Tage zu halten?", which appeared at Mainz in 1835 under the pseudonym Athanasius Sincerus Philalethes. In 1836 he became Bishop of Eichstatt (Bavaria) and, by the foundation of the boys' seminary (1838) and the erection of the lyceum (1843), rendered the greatest services to the ecclesiastical life of the diocese. As delegate of the pope and the Kings of Prussia and Bavaria, he mediated in the Prussian ecclesiastical dispute, and the rapid settlement of the "Cologne muddle" (Kölner Wirren) was due primarily to him. In recognition of his services, he was named in 1841 Coadjutor, and in 1847 Archbishop of Munich-Freising. His zeal on behalf of the Church having rendered him unpleasing to the Government, he was, at the request of King Maximilian II of Bavaria, summoned to Rome by Pius IX as cardinal-priest, with the title of St. Anastasia. He conducted the concordat negotiations with Würtemberg and Baden, took a prominent part in the preparations for the council, became in 1867 President of the Congregation of Ecclesiastico-political Affairs, in 1869 first legate of the council, was consultor of the Congregation for the Index, for the publication of the ecclesiastical canons of the Eastern Churches, for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, for the Examination of Bishop, member of the Congregation of the Propaganda and of Sacred Rites, Minister of Education for the Papal States, and in 1868 Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia.

Katholik, I (Mainz, 1870), 129 sqq.; MOLITOR, Cardinal Reisach (Wurzburg, 1874); Allgem. deutsche Biogr., XXVIII (Leipzig, 1889), 114.

PATRICIUS SCHLAGER