Ludwig Sebastian

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Bishop Ludwig Sebastian, 1917

Ludwig Sebastian (born October 6, 1862 in Frankenstein ; † May 20, 1943 in Speyer ) was bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Speyer from 1917 to 1943 . He led the diocese during the difficult interwar period .

biography

Life up to episcopal ordination

Ludwig Sebastian as a young priest, around 1890

Ludwig Sebastian was born in Frankenstein in the Palatinate and graduated from high school in Kaiserslautern in 1883 . Then he entered the seminary in Bamberg and received on August 7, 1887 in Bamberg, the ordination . Then he was chaplain in Bamberg , Forchheim and Ansbach . His first pastorate he had from 1892 to 1900 in Hohenmirsberg held, after which he was pastor of St. Louis Ansbach. In addition to his pastoral work, he was also the district school inspector. In 1914, Sebastian became a member of the cathedral chapter in Bamberg.

Bishop of Speyer

On May 28, 1917 he was by the Bavarian King Ludwig III. called Bishop of Speyer. After confirmation by Pope Benedict XV. Ludwig Sebastian received his episcopal ordination from Johann Jakob von Hauck in Speyer Cathedral on September 23, 1917 .

In 1918 he received his doctorate in Christian theology from the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . Because of the collapse of the monarchy , the regular elevation of the personal nobility for Bavarian bishops was no longer carried out.

Ludwig Sebastian certainly remained connected to the traditional ruling house of Wittelsbach - whose last monarch had appointed him bishop - throughout his life. However, he was far-sighted enough not to shut himself off from the new republican form of government and also to support it. In this sense he already issued his own pastoral letter on November 16, 1918, which clearly states this; long before the Bavarian bishops issued a joint statement on January 5, 1919. The Speyer bishop writes:

“For many it may not be an easy thing to immediately provide the new government with all the workforce after the unexpected complete state upheaval. Certainly it would not be right before God and the world if we were to forget the many good things that the grace of our ruling house, the Palatinate Gau, has turned to our diocese. ... We always want to remain loyal to those who have done us good. However, this will not prevent us, the new government, which promises the protection of people and property and wants to keep order, in view of the great need of our time, to make our work available. So everyone does their duty, no one leaves the job assigned to them! "

- Pastoral letter from Bishop Sebastian dated November 16, 1918

Otherwise the shepherd hardly made any political promises; he was a man of pastoral care and Caritas.

He got into the political headlines when the leader of the Palatinate separatists , Franz Josef Heinz , was murdered on January 9, 1924 in Speyer, when he refused to give him a church burial because of his acts of violence and his unchristian way of life, even though he was supported by the "government" of the Autonomous Palatinate and the French occupying power was harassed in this regard.

To put an end to the separatist tyranny, on January 11, 1924, Sebastian and the church president of the Protestant Church of the Palatinate, Karl Heinrich Fleischmann (1867–1954), officially spoke out against recognition of the "Autonomous Palatinate". The British government then sent its consul general Robert Henry Clive (1877–1948) from Munich to the Palatinate from January 14 to 18, 1924, in order to get an idea of ​​the situation. Clive stated that the majority of the population reject the separatist government, that it has no government experience and that it can only survive with French help. In response to Clive's report, Great Britain managed to set up a committee of inquiry from the Inter-Allied Rhineland Commission , which negotiated the Speyer Agreement with the Palatinate District Committee from February 14th to 16th . This agreement regulates the withdrawal of the separatists and the transfer of administration to the legitimate Bavarian district government. This was one of the very few times that Sebastian intervened directly in politics.

Sebastian had already consecrated his Speyer seminar rain to Ludwig Maria Hugo as the new bishop of Mainz in 1921 , led the neighboring bishops Georg Heinrich Maria Kirstein from Mainz and Michael Felix Korum from Trier to their last rest and attended the funeral of the last Bavarian royal couple in the Church of Our Lady in Munich.

Edith Stein , a Jewish convert, lived in Speyer under the care of her spiritual leader, Prelate Joseph Schwind , and was confirmed by Sebastian in his house chapel on February 2, 1922 .

In the holy year 1925, Sebastian took part in the first Palatinate pilgrimage to Rome, which he personally met Pope Pius XI. introduced.

In 1926 Sebastian went to Chicago for the World Eucharistic Congress .

In October 1928, the Apostolic Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli (from 1939 Pope Pius XII) visited Speyer on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the St. Magdalena Monastery .

Sebastian founded a second cathedral building association in November 1928 to finance the renovation of the Speyer Cathedral. He also initiated the construction of the Maria Schutz church in Kaiserslautern, promised by his predecessor Michael von Faulhaber , which created a new and popular pilgrimage site in the diocese. The church was consecrated on October 20, 1929, the Minorites took care of it . It was created in fulfillment of the Faulhaber's vow in the event that the Diocese of Speyer would be saved from major damage during the First World War. The high altar bears a relief of the bishops Michael von Faulhaber and Ludwig Sebastian on the right and left.

He also promoted the pilgrimage in Blieskastel by settling Capuchins from Bavaria to look after them. He also strongly promoted the construction of the St. Josef Hospital in Ludwigshafen am Rhein as well as many churches and the establishment of Caritas offices in his diocese.

In December 1929 the bishop again led a pilgrimage to Rome.

Bishop Ludwig Sebastian von Speyer, portrait from the memory book for the cathedral anniversary, 1930

On July 13, 1930, the cathedral festival took place in memory of the 900th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the cathedral. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and Archduke Eugen of Austria , as well as numerous ministers, Catholic leaders and clerical dignitaries celebrated the feast day together with Sebastian and around 60,000 pilgrims. Shortly afterwards, President Paul von Hindenburg came to visit and was received by the bishop. On July 6th, the new pilgrimage Madonna "Patrona Spirensis" was received as a personal gift from Pope Pius XI. been brought to the cathedral for the anniversary of the cathedral.

In 1932, Sebastian acquired the synagogue building in his home town of Frankenstein from the Jewish community, which by then had almost completely gone into exile . He had it repaired at his own expense and donated it to the Catholic community as a church building. In 1933 he also personally consecrated the church and bells .

In 1933 Sebastian held ministry and sermon in front of 30,000 believers on the occasion of the exhibition of the Holy Skirt in Trier Cathedral .

Opposition to the Nazi state

Sebastian expressed himself rather cautiously against National Socialism , but despite his advanced age he was ready to offer energetic resistance. In 1933 he refused to sign an election call prepared by the Gauleitung, which the Reich Chancellery strongly resented. In March of the same year he demonstratively visited Catholic prisoners in the Neustadt concentration camp and personally supported the papal nuncio on behalf of officials who had been dismissed from civil service because of their Jewish descent. He also refused, until the Reichsflagverordnung of 1935 - when this behavior was expressly made a punishable offense - to flag church buildings with swastika flags (state flag) on ​​public holidays. Until there was nothing else to do, Sebastian only let the yellow and white church flags and the old black, white and red imperial banners hoist.

First page of the encyclical With burning concern , with the intent of Ludwig Sebastian, printed in the Jägerschen Druckerei Speyer , which was therefore expropriated.

In 1937 he made sure that the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge was read out in the congregations and even issued a resolution of his own for the apostolic letter in which he again warned that the encyclical “despite all possible difficulties, effectively for the knowledge of the faithful "And expressly ordered that the circular" read out in full under all circumstances ... and, if possible, distributed among the parishioners. "Sebastian also took an unequivocal position against the Nazi ideology in his pastoral letter of February 11, 1938:

“Just read the holy Gospels ... and you will immediately see how wrong those notions are that are so widely spread today. Instead of personal, eternal and omnipotent God, they want to praise us a product of their own reflection, to open up a substitute religion. Some want to stamp this eternal God as the 'God of Jews', who is alien to us. For this the universe and nature are raised as God ... God is not the people either ... "

- Pastoral letter from Bishop Ludwig Sebastian dated February 11, 1938

Already on March 19, 1937, the Gauleiter Josef Bürckel in Kaiserslautern had sharply attacked the head shepherd in a radio-broadcast speech to the Nazi teachers ' association and dubbed him an "enemy of the state" and a "traitor", as he had reported slanderous information about Germany to a hostile foreign country " have sent. The background was a report by the bishop on the ecclesiastical oppressions to Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII. which the Gestapo had intercepted, opened and photographed in 1935. On the occasion of a trial against Dean Joseph Schröder before the district court in Frankenthal in 1937, the matter was exploited for propaganda purposes and huge, public notices appeared throughout the Reich with the text:

" Slogan of the week - official party newspaper from July 14, 1937. The old bishop of Speyer, Dr. Sebastian, as the Frankenthal trial clearly showed, made defamatory reports to a foreign power about our new state ... "

- Nazi slogan of the week, July 14, 1937

Among other things, the bishop's window panes were thrown in at his Speyer palace by an unknown hand. Six diocesan priests came to the Dachau concentration camp .

For his golden jubilee as a priest on August 15, 1937, the NSDAP had around 40,000 SA men come to Speyer to stage a riot-like march there. However, the bishop had left secretly and celebrated his special day quietly in the Neuburg Abbey near Heidelberg. The SA men had appeared in vain.

In 1941 the Pope placed an episcopal coadjutor at the side of the aged bishop in the person of Joseph Wendel , who, after Sebastian's death on May 20, 1943, was also to become his successor as Speyer. Sebastian consecrated him personally on June 29, 1941 as bishop.

Shortly before his death, on the occasion of his 80th birthday and his silver bishop's anniversary, he analyzed the existing ecclesiastical situation in the Nazi state again.

“Who would deny that a struggle is being waged against Christ at present such as history hardly knows it with such sharpness. The Divine Savior has so firmly declared, 'You cannot do anything without me.' Joh 15,5. And yet he should become more and more unknown. Even the previous norm of counting the years of world history according to one's birth is to be abolished and another, meaningless replacement term introduced. His teaching, which he wants to have proclaimed to all peoples, should be dismissed as alien, his world-transforming victory on the cross, his glorious resurrection, as a sign of weakness ... "

- Pastoral letter from Bishop Ludwig Sebastian from July 10, 1942

The special feature of his pontificate is the building and consecration of 110 churches - a number that is unprecedented in the history of the bishopric. The pastoral bishop also held 860 seats, since 1941 also in the diocese of Metz, consecrated 170 bells, 35 organs, 1107 chalices and godparents, 110 altar stones and 45 altars as well as 90 emergency churches, house chapels, war memorials, kindergartens and sister houses.

Epitaph

The following words were engraved on his grave slab in front of the royal choir in Speyer Cathedral:

"Ludovicus Sebastian Epps Spirensis. Natus VI. Octobris MDCCCLXII. Obiit XX. May MCMXLIII. Aedibus Sacris Caritatis operibus insignis in patriam redux. Requiescat in pace. ”

“ Ludwig Sebastian, Bishop of Speyer, b. on October 6th, 1862, died on May 20th, 1943. The building of sanctuaries and works of love were his signs, [he] returned to his homeland. Rest in peace."

This epitaph contains an allusion to his episcopal motto "In Patriam Redux" - "Returned to his homeland", since he was born in the diocese of Speyer, was ordained a priest in the archdiocese of Bamberg and was active as a pastor, but returned to his home diocese of Speyer as a bishop returned.

The grave slab was removed in the course of the redesign of the cathedral and can now be found in the Catholic branch church of the Holy Trinity in Frankenstein / Palatinate, the birthplace of Ludwig Sebastian.

literature

  • Karl Speckner: Guardians of the Church - A book from the German episcopate ; Munich: Kösel & Pustet, 1934; Pages 78-85.
  • Dr. Ludwig Sebastian, Bishop of Speyer for 25 years, 1917–1942 ; Supplement to the Oberhirtlichen Ordinance Gazette of the Diocese of Speyer, No. 11, dated June 12, 1942; Episcopal Ordinariate Speyer, without author.
  • How Bishop Ludwig had to celebrate his golden jubilee as a priest ; in: The Pilgrim No. 1 of November 4, 1945.
  • The good bishop Ludwig ; Multi-page main article in the pilgrimage calendar (yearbook of the diocese), Speyer, 1975.
  • Ludwig Sebastian, Bishop of Speyer (1917–1943). In: Hans Ammerich (Hrsg.): Life pictures of the bishops of Speyer since the re-establishment of the diocese of Speyer in 1817/21. Celebration for the 60th birthday of His Excellency Dr. Anton Schlembach, Bishop of Speyer. Writings of the Diocesan Archives Speyer, 15; Speyer 1992.
  • Manfred Weitlauff :  Sebastian, Ludwig. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 109 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On Karl Heinrich Fleischmann see Friedhelm Hans:  FLEISCHMANN, Karl Heinrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 31, Bautz, Nordhausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-88309-544-8 , Sp. 454-456.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  2. ^ Robert Henry Clive on thepeerage.com , accessed August 19, 2015.
predecessor Office successor
Michael von Faulhaber Bishop of Speyer
1917–1943 		Joseph Wendel
personal data
SURNAME Sebastian, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop of Speyer
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankenstein (Palatinate)
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1943
Place of death Speyer