Andreas Räß

Bishop Andreas Räß of Strasbourg, lithograph around 1850

Bishop Andreas Räß with the papal order of Pius and the cross of the French Legion of Honor , painting around 1860

Epitaph in the Strasbourg cathedral

Lenten pastoral letter from Bishop Andreas Räß 1863 with his bishop's coat of arms.

Andreas Räß ( French André Raess ; born April 6, 1794 in Sigolsheim , Haut-Rhin department , † November 17, 1887 in Strasbourg ) was Bishop of Strasbourg .

Life

After attending secondary schools in Schlettstadt and Nancy , Räss studied philosophy and theology at the seminary of the diocese of Mainz with Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann, among others . After his ordination in 1816 he was appointed teacher at the boys' seminary in Mainz , of which he became head from 1825 and professor of dogmatics at the Mainz seminary , from 1824 to 1829 he was the seminary rain (head) as Liebermann's successor. At his request, he went to Strasbourg in the same capacity in 1829, was appointed cathedral capitular there in 1836, on December 14, 1840, with simultaneous appointment as titular bishop of Rhodiapolis, he was appointed coadjutor of the bishop of Strasbourg and on February 14, 1841 Jacques- Marie-Adrien-Césaire Mathieu the episcopal ordination . After the death of the Strasbourg shepherd Johann Franz Lepape von Trevern , he succeeded him on August 27, 1842.

Together with the later Bishop of Speyer , Nikolaus von Weis , he founded the monthly Der Katholik in 1821 , in which, together with Joseph Ludwig Colmar in the Mainz district, they spoke out against the Enlightenment , the state church and Protestantism , but also against Catholic currents such as Hermesianism . They therefore also rejected the theological faculties at state universities and instead demanded a closed seminary education in Germany. They pioneered so-called ultramontane Catholicism .

As Bishop of Strasbourg, he campaigned for an improvement in the formation of priests and supported forms of piety such as pilgrimages and devotions. As a participant in the First Vatican Council , he was one of the staunch supporters of the dogma of infallibility .

His popularity suffered when he recognized the terms of the Peace Treaty of Frankfurt with the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine in a speech in the German Reichstag in 1874 . From 1874 to 1877 Räß was a member of the Reichstag . As a member of parliament, he represented the constituency of Alsace-Lorraine 6 (Schlettstadt). As an independent clerical, he did not join any parliamentary group in the Reichstag .

literature

• Ludwig Lenhart : The Mainz seminary as a bridge from the old to the new Mainz university. Mainz 1947.
• Ludwig Lenhart: The first Mainz theological school 1805/1830. Mainz 1956, pp. 54-75.
• Erwin Gatz (ed.): The bishops of the German-speaking countries 1785/1803 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-428-05447-4 .
• Ursula Olschewski:  Räss, Andreas. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 1098-100.
• Manfred Weitlauff :  Räß, Andreas. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 107 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Johann Friedrich:  Räß, Andreas . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 326-331.

Web links

Commons : Andreas Räß  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Andreas (André) Räß (Raess) on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on December 13, 2016.
• Literature by and about Andreas Räß in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Andreas Räß  in the German Digital Library
• Andreas Räß in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd edition, Verlag Carl Heymann, Berlin 1904, p. 299