Katharina von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
Katharina von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (born January 19, 1817 in Stuttgart , † February 15, 1893 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was born as Katharina Wilhelmine Maria Josepha zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst . She was the founder and co-founder of the Beuron Monastery after its secularization .
Life
She was the daughter of Prince Karl Albrecht III. zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst and the mother Leopoldine (born zu Fürstenberg ). After the actual separation of her parents, she lived with her mother in Donaueschingen with the von Fürstenberg family. Her upbringing was liberal and not very religious.
She traveled to Rome with her mother in 1834. Under the influence of Karl August Graf von Reisach , she became a strict Catholic. This also became her confessor of many years and exerted great influence on her. Already at this point she expressed her wish to enter a monastery, which Reisach talked her out of.
She married Count Erwin von Ingelheim in 1838. He died in 1845. In 1848 she married Prince Karl von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen . He was much older than Katharina and died in 1853. Both marriages remained childless. As a widow's residence, she received the Bistritz estate in Bohemia , a considerable annual pension and a payment of 100,000 guilders from her husband's family. She planned to use the money to found a monastery.
In 1853 she joined a community of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sacré-Cœur) in Kintzheim . These were dedicated to bringing up girls. Katharina, however, was not up to the demands and resigned in 1855, also on the advice of her confessor Reisach, who was now Archbishop of Munich and Freising .
From 1857 she lived in Rome on his advice . On various occasions she was by Pope Pius IX. receive. In 1858, on the advice of her confessor, she entered the monastery of Sant'Ambrogio della Massima on a trial basis . This was a monastery of the regulated Franciscan Sisters of the Third Order. About six months later she was dressed as a novice there . She soon became involved in intrigues within the monastery. Apparently poison attacks were carried out on them.
At her request, she got her cousin, Archbishop Gustav Adolf zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , out of the monastery. She confided her experiences to her new confessor, the Benedictine Maurus Wolter . In these conversations she made the decision to report the abuses in the monastery. She therefore initiated an inquisition process . In her complaint, she accused the community of continuing to venerate the founder of the monastery, Maria Agnese Firrao , as a saint in addition to the attacks on her life, sexual debauchery and despite the corresponding papal ban ; In particular, the novice master accused her of committed murders, sexual abuse of novices and a prohibited relationship with the confessor of the monastery, Joseph Peters (a pseudonym of the later council theologian Joseph Kleutgen ), and the arrogance of holiness.
After she temporarily had an apartment in the Quirinal Palace , she went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with her confessor, his brother Placidus Wolter and another Benedictine. Together with the Wolter brothers and the support of the Pope, she planned to found a Benedictine monastery in Germany. With her money she became the new founder of the Beuron monastery. In 1863 she acquired the monastery, which had been secularized in 1803, from her stepson Karl Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and handed it over to the Benedictines. Initially only a priory, it was elevated to an abbey in 1868.
During the culture war , the monks had to leave the monastery from 1875 to 1887. During this time the princess administered the monastery and its property. Possibly because of disagreements with the returned monks, she left Beuron in 1890 and moved to Freiburg im Breisgau. After her death she was buried in the royal crypt in Sigmaringen.
Hubert Wolf describes the inquisition case she triggered in his book The Nonnen von Sant 'Ambrogio .
literature
- Hubert Wolf: The nuns of Sant 'Ambrogio. A true story . Munich, 2013 ( ISBN 978-3-406-64522-8 )
- 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
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ The review of the Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 17, 2013 offers a good insight
- ↑ 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
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Katharina von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Katharina zu |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German noblewoman, founder of Beuron Abbey |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 19, 1817 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 15, 1893 |
| Place of death | Freiburg in Breisgau |