Johann Michael Häusle

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Johann Michael Häusle (born July 28, 1809 in Satteins , † January 16, 1867 in Vienna ) was an Austrian Catholic theologian and court chaplain .

life and work

Origin and theological training

Häusle first attended a grammar school in Vorarlberg , and from 1825 the Lyceum in Innsbruck . In 1827 he began studying theology at the Brixen seminary , where he was influenced by Regens Michael Feichter (1766-1832). After completing his studies in 1831, he was too young to be ordained a priest and temporarily worked as an educator in the family of Count Trapp in Innsbruck, where he befriended the painter Gebhard Flatz . After his ordination in 1832, Prince-Bishop Bernhard Galura placed him in 1833 for an in-depth study of theology at the Frintaneum in Vienna, from which he was appointed to the Bressanone seminary in 1836 as a teacher of canon law and church history.

Court chaplain and liberal intellectual before and during the March Revolution

As early as 1838, on the recommendation of Bishop Galura, Häusle became director of studies of the Frintaneum and court chaplain in the Kuk court and castle parish . Franz Joseph Rudigier , later Bishop of Linz, was one of his students . In the Viennese discussion circles of the Vormärz , Häusle joined the churchly liberal direction of Anton Günther , and when the revolution broke out on March 13, 1848 , he campaigned against Josephinism and for the freedom of the Church and responded to the Josephinian Archbishop Vincenz Eduard Milde raised demand on the clergy not to interfere in political affairs with a branding (published under the pseudonym Dr. J. Fehr) with the title “Questions to the Prince Archbishop of Vienna. Written down in the name of his mouth-dead clergy on March 19, 1848. At the same time a mark for all Austrian bishops ”.

Reformers' spokesman

The abolition of censorship and the introduction of freedom of the press on March 14, 1848 encouraged parts of the lower clergy, in particular, to revolt against the Josephinian state church, in which the spiritual authority of the church was entirely in the service of the monarchy and relations with Rome were forbidden. On the other hand, they called for the separation of church and state, reforms in priestly training and regular priestly meetings to discuss a contemporary church system. Spokesmen were the Güntherians Johann Emanuel Veith , Sebastian Brunner and Häusle. 150 clergy signed a petition formulated by Häusle to Bishop Milde, who was staying at Castle Kranichberg , for approval of a “reading and discussion association” for the clergy. When Milde rejected such pastoral conferences on June 10th with reference to the "dangerousness" of an open discussion and prescribed the observation of the existing diocesan regulations, Häusle responded to him on August 24th in the Vienna church newspaper for faith, knowledge, (founded on April 15th) Freedom and law in the Catholic Church (today Der Sonntag ) in a sarcastic way.

Further opposition to Bishop Milde. Election to the local council

When the “Constitutional Catholic Association for Faith, Freedom and Morality” was founded on May 15, 1848, following the example of the German Pius Associations in Vienna, Häusle was one of the two spiritual consultants. The association was ignored by Bishop Milde. The association organ "Upward", which was founded on Häusle's request, appeared in 30 issues until it was abolished in October. In another initiative, in July 1848, Häusle wrote an address to Bishop Milde (received ungraciously) with the request to return from Kranichberg to Vienna in order to intervene vigorously for the rights of the Church and the defenseless clergy. On October 5, he allowed himself to be elected to the municipal council in Vienna's 2nd district as a candidate who had been nominated without his knowledge (office held until 1850).

The publicist

In May 1848, Häusle published the article “Tame questions considering a reform of theological studies” in the Vienna church newspaper, in which he opposed the 75-year-old Josephinian curriculum by Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch , “a spiritless mixture of Jansenism and rationalism” (according to the later Cardinal Anton Josef Gruscha ). On January 29, 1849 he published the essay “A frank word for the reform of theological studies in Austria”, in which he called for the reform of the Frintaneum and the theological doctorate. To support such endeavors, in 1850, together with Josef Scheiner, he founded the magazine for the entire Catholic theology , the publication of which was discontinued in the year 1858 because the Roman indexing of Günther's writings in 1857 removed the basis.

The end of the spiritual career

From 1849 his energetic commitment to reform as a revolt against the Church's authority and pacts it has been designed with the revolution, and he fell at Kaiser I. Franz Joseph in disgrace. Although he remained court chaplain and was appointed senior court chaplain in 1860, he had to painfully experience three times that his career hit a glass ceiling at the age of 40. On December 16, 1849, he lost his position as director of studies at the Frintaneum. On January 6, 1852, the censorship authority refused to allow him to continue his position as editor of the Österreichischer Volksfreund , the press organ of the Catholic Association, which had since been renamed the Severinus Association . As a result, he rejected the election as general secretary of the association on March 30, 1853. On October 7, 1854 (Bishop Milde had died in the meantime) he applied in confidence to his friend Bishop Rudigier for a vacant canon in Linz. Rudigier assured him of his friendship, but also wrote: "I do not consider you suitable for the position in question".

The university member

In May 1848 Häusle received his doctorate in theology. In accordance with the medieval constitution of the University of Vienna, Häusle became a member of the so-called doctoral college, which, like the professorial college, belonged to the faculty, functioned as a kind of doctoral committee and elected its own dean. In 1855 Häusle was elected dean and in 1860 permanent notary of the doctoral college. As such, he justified the character of the Vienna University as exclusively Catholic in a memorandum of 160 pages.

The encyclopedist

Häusle wrote numerous articles for the church lexicon or encyclopedia of Catholic theology and its auxiliary sciences published by Benedikt Welte and Heinrich Joseph Wetzer (12 volumes. Freiburg im Breisgau 1847–1860), especially the extensive article "Vienna, Archdiocese and University" ( Vol. 11, pp. 963-1078; Vol. 12, pp. 1257-1307).

Sickness and death. Honors

Häusle, who had always been in poor health, was close to death in 1852 because of a nervous fever. Although he recovered, he increasingly withdrew from public life. A niece ran the household for him from 1860. After a stroke in 1866, he died in January 1867 at the age of 57. He had been an honorary citizen of the City of Vienna since 1850 .

Works

  • “Anyone who doesn't believe has already been judged.” Sermon at the patronage festival of the Sickness Institute for Action Commis in Vienna. Whit Monday, June 12, 1848 . Vienna 1848. ( Google Books )
  • The majority in the present Viennese municipal council . Vienna 1849.
  • A frank word for the reform of theological studies in Austria . Vienna 1849.
  • (with Franz Joseph von Buß ) Tyrol and Protestantism . Freiburg 1860.
  • (anonymous) The Catholic character of the Vienna University. A memorandum of the Theological Faculty . Vienna 1863.
  • Can the Vienna University have parity? After a preliminary examination of the so-called public opinion on this subject, answered in a hundred short concluding sentences . Vienna 1865, 2016.
  • (with Alban Stolz ) Johannes Ronge in Vienna or: The so-called Teutsch-Katholicismus . Vienna 1868.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Häusle, Johann Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Catholic theologian and court chaplain
DATE OF BIRTH July 28, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Satteins
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1867
Place of death Vienna