Eduard O'Rourke

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Bishop Eduard O'Rourke

Eduard Graf O'Rourke (born October 26, 1876 in Basin (today in Minsk ), † June 27, 1943 in Rome ) was bishop of Riga and then the first bishop of Danzig .

Life

Origin and education

The O'Rourkes family, who immigrated from Ireland , belonged to the nobility of the Russian Empire . Eduard was the son of Michael Graf O'Rourke and the Baltic German Angelika von Bochwitz. The young Eduard was brought up transnationally, benefiting from his ancestry and the multi-ethnic population structure of what was then Belarus .

Even in his youth, O'Rourke learned more than half a dozen languages: German , English , Russian , French , Polish , Latin and Greek . He first attended the Jesuit grammar school in Bąkowice (today: Chyriw ), from 1890 the state grammar schools in Vilnius and Riga . In the Latvian capital he passed his school leaving examination in 1898.

At the local university graduated O'Rourke studies in economics and business studies, he in 1903 by a study visit in 1903 in Friborg (Switzerland) and Innsbruck interrupted and successfully completed the following year. Presumably influenced by the bishop of Vilnius, Eduard Freiherr von der Ropp , O'Rourke went to the theological faculty of the Jesuits in Innsbruck in May 1904 . Before graduating in autumn 1908, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Žemaitien in October 1907 in Vilnius .

Activity in Russia

After completing his studies, O'Rourke became a professor of church history and of German and French at the seminary of the Mohilev Archdiocese in Saint Petersburg . After a short activity as archiepiscopal secretary, the five-language parish of St. Stanislaus in St. Petersburg was transferred to him during the First World War. There he experienced the Russian Revolution in 1917 , the experience of which determined his attitude towards communism and Bolshevism throughout his life. When the Russian government under Kerensky decided in 1917 to rebuild the Minsk diocese, the Archbishop of Vilnius, Jan Feliks Cieplak , appointed him diocesan administrator. Pope Benedict XV appointed him temporary head of the Russian Catholic Church based in Minsk.

Bishop of Riga

Coat of arms of the Bishop of Riga

By declaring Latvia's state independence in November 1918, the Holy See saw itself compelled to re-establish the diocese of Riga as a Catholic diocese. O'Rourke was appointed Bishop of Riga on September 29, 1918, and was ordained episcopal on December 15, 1918 by Jurgis Matulaitis , Bishop of Vilnius , co- consecrators were Pranciškus Karevičius , Bishop of Žemaičiai, and Zygmunt Konstanty Antoni Łoziński , Bishop of Minsk . The newly consecrated bishop was only able to get to his episcopal city in the spring of 1919. In the midst of political turmoil and warlike entanglements (German troops were still standing in the country and fighting against the Bolsheviks), the bishop set about establishing somewhat orderly conditions in Catholic pastoral care.

With the approval of the Latvian authorities, he brought foreign religious into the country, as he had hardly any priests available for half a million Catholics . Most of the clergy had fled to Germany or Poland. He also tried to build a priesthood of Latvian nationality. On O'Rourke's advice, the Holy See expanded the Diocese of Riga to include the Province of Courland, which belongs to the Diocese of Kaunas . The church borders now coincided with those of the Latvian state. At the same time, O'Rourke conducted concordat negotiations , which were accompanied by the Apostolic Nuncio in Warsaw, Achille Ratti .

O'Rourke did not live to see the conclusion of the Concordat and the elevation of Riga to an archdiocese on May 30, 1922 in Latvia. Because the Latvian government led by Kārlis Ulmanis asked for a bishop who spoke Latvian . Therefore O'Rourke offered the Holy See his resignation. Instead, he was named Titular Bishop of Canea and Apostolic Delegate for the Baltic States on April 10, 1920 . With Ratti he endeavored to realize the concordat policy of the Holy See there.

Bishop of Danzig

Coat of arms of the Bishop of Gdansk
Memorial plaque in Gdansk Cathedral

On behalf of the Holy See, O'Rourke traveled three times to Gdansk between May and December 1921 for information purposes . The diocese boundaries had to be adjusted for the city that was separated from the German Empire. In April 1922, O'Rourke became shepherd of the newly established Apostolic Administration for Danzig.

In November 1921, the Pope assigned him the pastoral care of refugees for the Russians who had fled from Russia in Danzig and East Prussia. In the second half of the 1920s, welfare for emigrants in Germany was reorganized. The Pontifical Relief Organization for Russians in Germany, founded in 1928, was under the supervision of O'Rourke.

On January 2, 1926, Eduard O'Rourke was appointed the first bishop of the new diocese of Danzig . Thereupon the Senate of the Free City of Gdansk granted him Gdansk citizenship. As a bishop, O'Rourke tried whenever possible to do justice to the Polish minority. On September 1, 1924, he established a Polish curate as a personal parish . In Danzig, as he had done before in Riga, he first tried to establish a diocese that was not divided along national and linguistic lines. His vicar general Anton Sawatzki took over a large part of the internal administration for him. O'Rourke's relationship with the German authorities was good at first, but worsened from 1933 under the National Socialist regime, to which he was too indulgent towards the Poles.

A diocesan synod was held under his leadership in December 1935 . In the following two years the position of the bishop, who was very friendly to the Poles, became increasingly difficult. As he was exposed to increasing political pressure from the Danzig Senate, which had been dominated by National Socialists since June 1933 (and the German government in the background), O'Rourke announced his resignation as Bishop of Danzig on June 13, 1938. Pope Pius XI appointed him titular bishop of Sophene on the same date . After his resignation, he stated in December 1938 that, due to the political circumstances, he was holding a sad record of holding the fifth title of bishop.

Exile and death

Having lost his Gdansk citizenship as a result of his resignation in 1938, O'Rourke took on Polish citizenship and the office of cathedral capitular in Gnesen / Posen in 1939 . After the outbreak of World War II, he moved to Rome, where he died on June 27, 1943.

Eduard O'Rourke was buried in the Campo Verano cemetery. In 1972 his remains were transferred to the bishop's crypt in the cathedral in Danzig-Oliva.

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Stefan Samerski: Eduard Graf O'Rourke (1876-1943) . In the S. (Ed.): The diocese of Danzig in life pictures. Ordinaries, auxiliary bishops, vicars general, apostolic visitators 1922/25 to 2000 . Lit, Münster 2003, pp. 39–52, here p. 41.
  2. ↑ Stefan Samerski: Eduard Graf O'Rourke (1876-1943) . In the S. (Ed.): The diocese of Danzig in life pictures. Ordinaries, auxiliary bishops, vicars general, apostolic visitators 1922/25 to 2000 . Lit, Münster 2003, pp. 39–52, here p. 44.
  3. ↑ The Arms and the Title of the Counts O'Rourke , accessed April 9, 2018.
  4. ↑ Stefan Samerski: Eduard Graf O'Rourke (from 1876 to 1943) . In the S. (Ed.): The diocese of Danzig in life pictures. Ordinaries, auxiliary bishops, vicars general, apostolic visitators 1922/25 to 2000 . Lit, Münster 2003, pp. 39–52, here p. 50.
  5. ↑ Stefan Samerski: Eduard Graf O'Rourke (1876-1943) . In the S. (Ed.): The diocese of Danzig in life pictures. Ordinaries, auxiliary bishops, vicars general, apostolic visitators 1922/25 to 2000 . Lit, Münster 2003, pp. 39–52, here p. 51.
predecessor Office successor
no immediate predecessor Bishop of Riga
1918–1920 		Antonijs Springovičs
predecessor Office successor
no immediate predecessor Bishop of Danzig
1926–1938 		Carl Maria Splett
personal data
SURNAME O'Rourke, Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Rourke, Eduard Graf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic bishop of Riga and Gdansk
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Basin (now part of Minsk )
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1943
Place of death Rome