Martin Marty

Bishop Martin Marty

Martin Marty OSB (born January 12, 1834 in Schwyz , † September 19, 1896 in St. Cloud , Minnesota ) was a Swiss Benedictine monk and missionary in North America. He was the first abbot of St. Meinrad Monastery in Indiana , the first Vicar Apostolic in the Dakota Territory, and the second bishop of the Diocese of Saint Cloud . Because of his missionary work, he was called the " Apostle of the Sioux ".

Life

In Switzerland

He was born as Alois Joseph Marty in 1834 in the canton of Schwyz . His father was a shoemaker and Sigrist . Before he was two years old, his mouth and face were badly burned when he drank sulfuric acid out of curiosity in his father's shop . The tongue and roof of the mouth were swollen so that he almost choked on the acid. The acid that was spat out left permanent scars on the face.

After attending the Jesuit- run grammar school in his hometown, he received a scholarship for the St. Michael College in Freiburg im Üechtland . After the Sonderbund War of 1847, the Jesuit order was banned from Switzerland and the Benedictine order was increasingly active in educational work. On December 21, 1847, Marty entered the Benedictine school at Einsiedeln Abbey .

Monk and priest

After graduating, he became a novice at the age of 20 and took his monastic vows on May 29, 1855. After his profession his name was Fr. Martin Marty. About a year later he was ordained a priest in 1856 . In 1859 he took over the chair for moral theology at the monastic school .

Trip to america

In 1860, Abbot Heinrich Schmid sent the 26-year-old priest to the indebted daughter house in St. Meinrad, Indiana. His stay was only supposed to last a year, but Martin Marty was successful in putting the monastery back on a solid financial footing by modernizing its farm operations so that the abbot saw it as God's will that his protégé should stay overseas should. Five years later he became the first prior of the monastery. On September 30, 1870, Saint Meinrad was made by a decree of Pope Pius IX. elevated to an independent abbey. In January of the following year, Father Martin Marty was elected its first abbot. The abbot's benediction in May 1871 was carried out by the Bishop of Vincennes , Indiana, and Abbot Boniface Wimmer of Latrobe , Pennsylvania.

In 1875 Abbot Martin made a change in the abbey's devotional practice when he replaced the Roman breviary with the Benedictine breviary . When this led to an uproar, the dispute came before the Congregation for Sacred Rites in Rome. On March 9, 1876, the abbot learned that the Congregation had decided against him and ordered him to reintroduce the traditional book of hours. Although Abbot Martin obeyed, he was convinced that he had suffered a temporary defeat in his dream of bringing the Benedictine order closer to the diocesan clergy. After the failure, he felt depressed in his life in St. Meinrad.

In Dakota

In July 1876, he traveled to the Standing Rock Indian reservation in the Dakota Territory , where he wanted to establish a Benedictine monastery to help proselytize the Indians. But even if after the death of Chief Sitting Bull numerous Indians converted to the Catholic faith, the comprehensive missionary work of the Sioux originally planned by Marty can ultimately be regarded as a failure.

Marty, South Dakota, is named after him.

literature

Ildefons Betschart: The Apostle of the Sioux Indians: Bishop Martinus Marty OSB 1834-1896. Benziger, Einsiedeln 1934.
Manuel Menrath: Mission Sitting Bull. The History of the Catholic Sioux. Ferdinand Schönigh, Paderborn 2016. ISBN 978-3-506-78379-0 .

Web links

Commons : Martin Marty - collection of images, videos and audio files

Franz Xaver Bishop: Marty, Martin. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Manuel Menrath: "Mission Sitting Bull". ndr.de, accessed on April 8, 2017 .

Individual evidence

^ Franz Xaver Bishop : Marty, Martin. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie , Volume 16 (1990), pp. 315-316.
^ ^A ^b John Gilmary Shea: The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States In: The Office of Catholic Publications. New York 1886, p. 396 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).
↑ Manuel Menrath: Struggle for the souls of the Sioux. In: Damals , No. 2 (2017), pp. 56–61, here p. 57.
↑ Manuel Menrath: Struggle for the souls of the Sioux. In: Damals , No. 2 (2017), pp. 56–61, here p. 61.
↑ Marty . In: Federal Writers' Project (Ed.): South Dakota place-names . tape 1 : State, County, and Town Names . University of South Dakota, Vermillion 1940, pp. 50 ( hathitrust.org ).

personal data
SURNAME	Marty, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss Benedictine monk and missionary in North America
DATE OF BIRTH	January 12, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH	Schwyz
DATE OF DEATH	September 19, 1896
Place of death	St. Cloud , Minnesota

[1] Franz Xaver Bishop : Marty, Martin. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie , Volume 16 (1990), pp. 315-316.

[shea-2] A ^b John Gilmary Shea: The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States In: The Office of Catholic Publications. New York 1886, p. 396 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).

[3] Manuel Menrath: Struggle for the souls of the Sioux. In: Damals , No. 2 (2017), pp. 56–61, here p. 57.

[4] Manuel Menrath: Struggle for the souls of the Sioux. In: Damals , No. 2 (2017), pp. 56–61, here p. 61.

[5] Marty . In: Federal Writers' Project (Ed.): South Dakota place-names . tape 1 : State, County, and Town Names . University of South Dakota, Vermillion 1940, pp. 50 ( hathitrust.org ).