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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > H > Johann Baptist von Hirscher


JOHANN BAPTIST VON HIRSCHER

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Born 20 January, 1788, at Alt-Ergarten, Ravensburg; died 4 September, 1865. He
studied at Weissenau monastery school, the lyceum of Constance, and the
University of Freiburg. Ordained priest in 1810, he was for two years curate at
Röhlingen; in 1812 he became a tutor in the theological faculty of Ellwangen;
and in 1814 assistant professor of philosophy at the Ellwangen lyceum. In 1817
he was elected to the chair of moral and pastoral theology in Tübingen
University, where he remained twenty years. In 1837 he became professor of moral
theology and catechetics at the University of Freiburg in the Breisgau, where,
for a quarter of a century, he exerted a very great influence. He was made a
canon in 1839, and dean of the chapter in 1850; after 1847 he was often sent as
delegate of the university to the First Chamber of the Grand Duchy of Baden. His
advanced age forced him to cease teaching in the summer of 1863.



Hirscher exerted a great influence in the domain of moral theology, homiletics,
and catechetics. His book on Christian morality, published in 1835, ran through
five editions. He defined Christian morality as the scientific doctrine of the
effective return of man to the Divine filiation through the merits of Christ. In
the earlier editions some of the expressions and opinions of Hirscher, owing to
the influence of the day, were deserving of censure; be corrected them by
degrees and Kleutgen admits that the last editions are perfectly orthodox. The
book marked a reaction against rationalistic morality. Hirscher, always eager to
dwell on religious truth, closely traced the moral act to a religious origin and
a religious end, and he detested virtue that did not proceed from faith. Though
not satisfactory from the point of view of confessors, Hirscher's work, as his
apologist Hettinger says, had a salutary effect, and Hettinger himself made use
of it to bring an unbeliever to the light of faith.

In homiletics, also, Hirscher's books marked a reaction against the
half-rationalistic books of meditation written by the Swiss Zschokke, which were
then widely read. Hirscher drew a distinction between false Aufklärung, which is
purely negative and confined to combating superstition, and true Aufklärung,
which is based on the Gospel. He published commentaries on the Gospels of Lent
(1829), on the Gospels of each Sunday (1837), and on the Epistles of each
Sunday. To this field of Hirscher's activity belong his "Geschichte Jesu
Christi, des Sohnes Gottes und Weitheilandes" (1839); his "Erörterungen über die
grossen religiösen Fragen der Gegenwart" (1846), which led to the development of
Hettinger's vocation as an apologist; his "Leben der seligsten Jungfrau und
Gottesmutter Maria" (1854); his "Hauptstücke des christlichen Glaubens" (1857).

His work on catechetics, published in 1840, was followed, in 1842, by a
catechism, which was introduced into the Diocese of Freiburg and gave rise to
lively discussions. To defend his catechism, Hirscher published "Zur
Verständigung über den von mir bearbeiteten und demnächst erscheinenden
Katechismus der christkatholischen Religion" (1842), and "Nachträge zur
Verständigung" (1843). When eighty years of age, he published a brochure
entitled "Besorgnisse hinsichtlich der Zweckmässigkeit unseres
Religionsunterrichtes" (1863). He regarded the catechism as the history of the
Kingdom of God. The first two books treat of God, the Creation, and the
Redemption; the next three, of the individualization of the Kingdom of God in
souls and of its coming within and without us, that is to say, of justification,
sanctification, and the Church; the sixth book treats of the Kingdom of God in
the other life. Kleutgen criticized Hirscher for insisting too exclusively on
the work of education that God works within us, and neglecting to emphasize the
gratuitous creation of the new man by grace. However, such as it was, Hirscher's
catechetical work, with Alban Stolz's commentaries on it, helped to advance the
teaching of religion in Germany.

Hirscher's ideas on the reform of the Church were more complex and open to
suspicion. As a young man he had written a work on the Mass entitled "De genuina
missæ notione", in which the idea of the sacrifice was relegated to the
background, and which was put on the Index. Later he was blamed for never having
formally retracted the book; he answered that at least he had held quite
orthodox theories concerning the Mass in his later writings. Nevertheless a
number of Catholics were not reassured, and when in 1842 and the following years
there was question of appointing Hirscher coadjutor of Freiburg, the historian
Hurter and his friend, Baron de Rinck, raised a cry of alarm. The
"Schweizerische Kirchenzeitung" and the "Revue Sion" accused Hirscher of being
an enemy of Rome and everything Roman, of dreaming of a German national Church,
of opposing celibacy, the Breviary, and ecclesiastical discipline with regard to
mixed marriages, of preventing the Freiburg theological review from attacking
his benefactor Wessenberg, of being the friend of the Baden Liberals. Hirscher
replied in the "Revue Sion" (30 November, 1842), and Schleyer, dean of the
University of Freiburg, defended him in his book "Hirscher und seine Ankläger".
But Rinck continued to write to the effect that if Hirscher were accepted as
bishop there would be a worse schism than that of Ronge, and when the Government
of Würtemberg wanted to have Hirscher appointed coadjutor to the aged Bishop
Keller, Rome refused. These suspicions were confirmed by the pamphlets Hirscher
published in 1849, on the social condition of the present day and the Church,
"Die socialen Zustände der Gegenwart", and on the present state of religion,
"Die kirchlichen Zustände der Gegenwart". These brochures created a profound
sensation, for in them Hirscher showed himself hostile to the Catholic
Associations' movement, which gave birth to the first general Congress of the
German Catholics at Mains, in 1848; he feared that the movement might lead to
imprudent demonstrations by the Catholics. He preferred lay associations to be
undenominational, and favoured a synodal organization in which the laity would
be represented, and which should be periodically convened by the bishops and
presided over by them.



Finally he showed himself opposed to the preaching of missions in villages.
Several of the bishops were aroused, and attention was drawn to the opinions in
Hirscher's pamphlets that had been condemned already by Pius VI in his
Constitution "Auctorem fidei". The canonist Phillips, the future Bishop Fessler,
and Fathers Amberger of Ratisbon and Heinrich of Mainz, refuted Hirscher. He was
condemned by the Congregation of the Index, and submitted with sincerity, for
which Hettinger praises him; but he defended himself against his adversaries in
another brochure. In 1854 Hirscher was hostile to the definition of the
Immaculate Conception, though he was not opposed to the dogma itself; in 1862
after collaborating with Döllinger in drawing up the programme of the famous
congress of Catholic scientists to be held at Munich, the following year, he
quietly withdrew, judging that the time was not ripe for such a meeting. In the
First Chamber of the Baden Diet Hirscher fought vigorously for the liberties of
the Church. In 1848 he proposed a motion that the grand duke should be asked to
employ "every means to preserve genuine Christianity, active and living, among
all classes of society, especially among the young". In 1850 he asked that the
grand duke should attend to the wants of the Church, and that he should grant
without delay the establishment of three or four petits séminaires, where future
clerics should be trained during the time of their gymnasium studies. In
November, 1853, he drew up the address by which the chapter of Freiburg allied
itself with Archbishop Vicari in his struggle against the bureaucracy of the
State, and defended Vicari in his brochure, "Zur Orientirung über den
derzeitigen Kirchenstreit" (1854).

Hirscher was an excellent priest whom many of his contemporaries, according to
the testimony of Canon Lennig, venerated as a patriarch, and for whom Mgr.
Orbin, who died Archbishop of Freiburg, had a real devotion. He aroused some to
enthusiasm: the celebrated publicist, Alban Stolz, who did so much towards the
Catholic revival in Germany, collaborated with Hirscher, with whom he spent an
evening each week, and on one occasion wrote a vehement letter to a bishop who
had forbidden his theologians to study at Freiburg, for fear of their falling
under the influence of Hirscher; he asserted even that at first he had placed
the writings of Hirscher above those of the Fathers. Hirscher's misfortune was
to have known too little of Christian antiquity and especially of the Middle
Ages. What he criticized under the name of Scholasticism in his pamphlet of
1823, on the relations of the Gospels with Scholastic theology, were formulæ of
a handbook more impregnated with the philosophy of Wolf than with that of St.
Thomas. Finally, the sometimes too bitter attacks of which he was the object
prevented the diffusion of certain of his ideas which would have been dangerous;
but, on the other hand, his zeal as a catechist, his exalted piety, his personal
influence, the purity of his intentions, the ardour he displayed in his defence
of Vicari, the part he played in the religious awakening in Baden, recognized by
the "Historisch-politische Blätter" in 1854, won for Hirscher the gratitude of
German Catholics.




SOURCES

LAUCHERT, Revue internationale de théologie (1894), 627-56; (1895), 260-80,
723-38; (1896) 151-74; ROLFUS, Preface to HIRSCHER'S Nachgelassene kleinere
Schriften (Freiburg, 1868); KOSSING in WEECH, Badische Biographieen, I
(Karlsruhe, 1881), 372-7; SCHLEYER, Hirscher und seine Ankläger (Augsburg,
1843); HEINRICH HURTER, Hurter und seine Zeit (2 vols., Graz, 1876); KLEUTGEN,
Theologie der Vorzeit (Paderborn, 1853); THALHOFER, Entwicklung des katholischen
Katechismus in Deutschland von Canisius bis Deharbe (Freiburg, 1899); STOLZ,
Nachtgebet meines Lebens (2nd ed., Freiburg im Br., 1908), 99; HETTINGER, Aus
Welt und Kirche, II (Freiburg im Br., 1885), 291-95; GOTAU, L'Allemagne
Reliqieuse, le Catholicisme, II, III, IV (Paris, 1905-8); HURTER, Nomenclator.


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Goyau, G. (1910). Johann Baptist von Hirscher. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07363b.htm

MLA citation. Goyau, Georges. "Johann Baptist von Hirscher." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07363b.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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