Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
History
Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
§ 187.1. =Mystical-Irenical Tendencies.=--=J. M. Sailer=,
deprived in A.D. 1794 of his office at Dillingen (§ 165, 12), was
appointed in A.D. 1799 professor of moral and pastoral theology
at Ingolstadt, and was transferred to Landshut in A.D. 1800.
There for twenty years his mild and conciliatory as well as
profoundly pious mysticism powerfully influenced crowds of
students from South Germany and Switzerland. Though the pope
refused to confirm his nomination by Maximilian as Bishop of
Augsburg in A.D. 1820, he so far cleared himself of the suspicion
of mysticism, separatism, and crypto-calvinism, that in A.D. 1829
no opposition was made to his appointment as Bishop of Regensburg.
Sailer continued faithful to the Catholic dogmatic, and none
of his numerous writings have been put in the Index. Yet he lay
under suspicion till his death in A.D. 1832, and this seemed to
be justified by the intercourse which he and his disciples had
with Protestant pietists. His likeminded scholar, friend, and
vicar-general, the Suffragan-bishop =Wittmann=, was designated
his successor in Regensburg, but he died before receiving papal
confirmation. Of all his pupils the most distinguished was the
Westphalian Baron von =Diepenbrock=, over whose wild, intractable,
youthful nature Sailer exercised a magic influence. In A.D. 1823
he was ordained priest, became Sailer’s secretary, remaining his
confidential companion till his death, was made vicar-general
to Sailer’s successor in A.D. 1842, and in A.D. 1845 was
raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Breslau, where he joined
the ultramontanes, and entered with all his heart into the
ecclesiastico-political conflicts of the Würzburg episcopal
congress (§ 192, 4). His services were rewarded by a cardinal’s
hat from Pius IX. in A.D. 1850. His pastoral letters, however,
as well as his sermons and private correspondence, show that he
never altogether forgot the teaching of his spiritual father. He
delighted in the study of the mediæval mystics, and was specially
drawn to the writings of Suso.
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