Franz Hirschwälder

Franz Hirschwälder (born September 7, 1843 in Habelschwerdt , district of Habelschwerdt , † February 4, 1886 in Bern ) was a German Roman Catholic theologian from the County of Glatz (Lower Silesia), who turned to the Old Catholic Church from 1871 , university professor and honorary doctor of the University of Bern .

The son of a civil servant and a mother who was directly descended from Martin Luther , initially devoted himself to studying philology and theology in Breslau . In 1868 he received the ordination and sought from the following year at the University of Munich under Ignaz von Dollinger and Carl Adolf Cornelius the Promotion of. Since he became more involved in the Old Catholic movement from 1871 on, he gave up this project again.

Along with other Catholic Christians who refused to accept the dogmas of the First Vatican Council (1870), he was excommunicated in 1872 .

On behalf of the Old Catholic Committees in Cologne and Munich, Franz Hirschwälder began his work in Munich in the same year, where the movement began, as editor of the organ for the Catholic reform movement Deutscher Merkur , which he exercised until 1874, the year of his appointment as Professor at the recently founded Catholic theological faculty (Old Catholic or Christian Catholic tendency) in Bern.

There he taught moral theology (from 1874) and dogmatics (from 1875), at times also liturgy .

Franz Hirschwälder died in Bern in 1886 at the age of 42.

Awards

• 1884: Honorary doctorate from the University of Bern

Web links

• Ewald Kessler: Franz Hirschwälder. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Remarks

1. ↑ German Mercury. Organ for the Catholic reform movement on behalf of the Comités in Cologne and Munich. Edited by F. Hirschwälder, world priest.