Hans Kirchsteiger

Hans Kirchsteiger (born October 21, 1852 in Eberschwang , Upper Austria ; † May 5, 1932 in Aigen (Salzburg) ) was an Austrian priest and writer .

Life

Hans Kirchsteiger came from a humble background; his father was a carpenter . Hans Kirchsteiger visited the school in Linz and started after passing the Matura , a study of philosophy at the University of Vienna . He switched to Catholic theology and was ordained a priest in Linz in 1877 . In the following two decades he worked as a chaplain in various Austrian parishes, including five years in Waldneukirchen . Although Kirchsteiger was very popular in the communities he looked after, his superior, the Linz Bishop Doppelbauer , refused to give him his own pastoral position . The situation came to a head in 1898 when Kirchsteiger had to answer before the Vienna Regional Court for allegedly repeated sexual abuse committed against school girls ("desecration"). Kirchsteiger was medically examined in a prison hospital and declared to be chronically insane ; the diagnosis was delusions of persecution and megalomania . In August 1898, at the instigation of the church administration, he was sent to the Niedernhart state insane asylum, from which, however, he managed to escape in November. He went to Germany, where his mental health was certified by experts.

Hans Kirchsteiger was later able to return to Austria. He was suspended from his position as a priest by the Catholic Church and lived as a freelance writer in Salzburg . At this time Kirchsteiger turned into a supporter of the Austrian " Los-von-Rom-Movement " and sympathized with the Old Catholic Church , but also with the anti-clericalism of the social democracy . He became particularly well known for the instrument he created, the " Salzburg (God's) marriage ", a blessing of the marriage vows when divorced Catholics were remarried , which he personally performed in numerous cases and which the official church disapproved of .

Since Kirchsteiger could not live on the pension that the Catholic Church - to which he belonged until his death - as a former chaplain , he tried to make a living by writing literary works. With his novels critical of the church he achieved some success with the readership; 35 editions of his first work, The Confession Seal , were published by 1924 .

Works

• The confession seal , Vienna [u. a.]
  • 1 (1905)
  • 2 (1905)
• The catacombs of Salzburg , Salzburg
  • 1 (1906)
  • 2 (1906)
• The school festival , Salzburg 1906
• World priest , Vienna [u. a.] 1906
• The Primate of Germany , Vienna 1908
• The confessor , Berlin 1910
• One day with God , Salzburg 1910
• What is the sixth commandment called? , Berlin 1912
• The dead devil , Leipzig [u. a.] 1920
• From hell , Vienna [u. a.] 1922
• The iron paragraph , Leipzig [u. a.] 1923
• The rotten confessional , Vienna 1928

literature

• Kirchsteiger, Hans (1852–1932), writer. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1965, p. 343.

Web links

• Hans Kirchsteiger Information in a lecture about the "Los-von-Rom-Movement" (PDF; 44 kB).
• Petrus A. Bayer: Hans Kirchsteiger - a dissident priest in Schlägl. In: New archive for the history of the Diocese of Linz. Volume 13, Linz 2000, pp. 103-104, online (PDF; 486 kB) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at.