Karl August von Reisach

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the publicist of the same name, see Karl August von Reisach (publicist) (1774–1846).

Cardinal Karl August von Reisach

Pastoral letter from the Bishop of Eichstatt from February 25, 1842

Karl August Graf von Reisach (born July 6, 1800 in Roth near Nuremberg; † December 22, 1869 in Contamine-sur-Arve , Haute-Savoie , France) was Bishop of Eichstätt from 1836 to 1846, Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1846 to 1856 and finally Cardinal to the Curia .

Life

Karl August von Reisach was a son from the marriage of the district judge and royal Bavarian chamberlain Johann Adam Graf von Reisach (1765-1820) and Therese Freiin von Gumppenberg . The grandfather, Franz Christoph von Reisach-Steinberg († 1797), was raised to the rank of imperial count in 1790. The father, who had embezzled money from the state treasury to finance his lavish lifestyle, evaded prosecution in 1820 by suicide . Hardly shaken by this event, Karl August von Reisach made the decision to restore the family honor. After graduating from high school in 1816 at what is now the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich , he began studying philosophy in Munich at the age of 16 and then studied law in Heidelberg, Göttingen and Landshut, where he received his doctorate in both rights in 1821. In the autumn of 1824 he entered the Collegium Germanicum in Rome. After studying philosophy and theology , he was ordained a priest in Rome on August 10, 1828, and was awarded a doctorate in theology.

In the following year Pius VIII appointed him rector of the College of Propaganda . On April 19, 1836, at the insistence of King Ludwig I, he was appointed Bishop of Eichstätt . With the support of his friend, Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Karl von Abel (1837–1847), he pursued an ultramontane -oriented church policy. In 1841 he became coadjutor of the Archbishopric of Munich and Freising against the will of the Archbishop of Munich Lothar Anselm Freiherr von Gebsattel . In 1844 Karl August von Reisach was invested in the order of knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem .

After Gebsattel's death on October 1, 1846, he assumed the office of Archbishop of Munich and Freising. In 1848 von Reisach, who was as anti-modern as he was inclined to mystical and supernatural phenomena, came under the influence of the seer Louise Beck . After disputes with King Ludwig I, the Bavarian government tried to get Reisachs transferred to the Curia in Rome. Relations with the Bavarian state deteriorated further when the archbishop refused to hold the funeral ceremonies when the Protestant Queen Therese died in 1854 . On December 17, 1855 he was promoted to cardinal and shortly thereafter cardinal priest of the titular church Sant'Anastasia , which he kept until his death. From 1861 to 1868 he also held the titular church of Santa Cecilia . In connection with his ascension as cardinal, Reisach was called to Rome in 1855. He therefore resigned from the office of Archbishop of Munich and Freising on June 19, 1856. In 1862 he was appointed Prefect of the Study Congregation . In 1868 he became Cardinal Bishop of Sabina . That on November 27, 1869 by Pius IX. He was no longer able to take up the post of President of the First Vatican Council for health reasons.

He died on December 22, 1869 in the Redemptorist monastery of Contamine-sur-Arve and was buried in his Roman titular church, Sant'Anastasia .

family

His mother's brothers were General Joseph von Gumppenberg (1798–1855) and Anton von Gumppenberg (1787–1855), Bavarian Minister of War, court master and confidante of King Ludwig I.

literature

• Theresa Hüther: The story of the poisoning of the Princess von Hohen-Zollern, in which the Jesuit P. Kleutgen was involved. A scandal in Rome and its journalistic aftermath during the Kulturkampf
• Alois Knöpfler:  Reisach, Karl August Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 114-117.
• Wilhelm Molitor : Cardinal Reisach , in: "Germany's Episcopate in Life Pictures", Vol. II, Volume 4. 1874.
• Manfred Weitlauff :  Reisach, Karl August Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 382 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hubert Wolf : The nuns of Sant'Ambrogio. A true story. CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-64522-8 .
• Raimund Lachner :  Reisach, Karl August Graf von. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 1567-1571.

Web links

Commons : Karl August von Reisach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Reisach, Karl August von. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed June 24, 2017.
• Entry on Karl August von Reisach on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on June 24, 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max Leitschuh: The matriculations of the upper classes of the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich , 4 vol., Munich 1970–1976; Vol. 3, p. 243.
2. ↑ Hans Jürgen Brandt: Jerusalem has friends. Munich and the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher , EOS 2010, p. 46 f.
3. ↑ Theresa Hüther: The story of the poisoning of the Princess of Hohen-Zollern, in which the Jesuit P. Kleutgen was involved. A scandal in Rome and its journalistic aftermath during the Kulturkampf , Alt-Katholisches Seminar der Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, annual issue 2018, 26-43, available online

predecessor	Office	successor
Johann Martin Manl	Bishop of Eichstätt 1836 - 1846	Georg von Oettl
Lothar Anselm Freiherr von Gebsattel	Archbishop of Munich-Freising 1846 - 1856	Gregor von Scherr
Girolamo d'Andrea	Cardinal Bishops of Sabina 1868 - 1869	Giuseppe Milesi Pironi Ferretti