Andreas Räss

Andreas Räss ( André Raess; born April 6, 1794 in Sigolsheim in the department of Haut-Rhin, † November 17, 1887 in Strasbourg ) was a bishop of Strasbourg.

Life

After attending secondary school in Schlettstadt and Nancy Räss studied philosophy and theology at the seminary of the diocese of Mainz among others, Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann. After ordination in 1816 he was appointed teacher at the junior seminary in Mainz, of which he was also Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Mainz seminary in 1825, from 1824 to 1829 he was the seminar rain (head ) as the successor of Liebermann. At his request, he went in 1829 in the same function to Strasbourg, there was in 1836 canon, he was on 14 December 1840 determined with simultaneous appointment as Titular Bishop of Rhodiapolis Coadjutor Bishop of Strasbourg, on 14 February 1841 Jacques -Marie- Adrien- Césaire Mathieu ordained a bishop. After the death of the Strasbourg Pastor Johann Franz Lepape of Trevern he joined on August 27, 1842 its successor.

Together with the later Bishop of Speyer Nikolaus von Weis 1821 he founded the monthly magazine The Catholic, in which they appeared together with Joseph Ludwig Colmar in Mainz circle against the Enlightenment, the state church, Protestantism, but also against Catholic movements such as the Hermesianism. They therefore also rejected the theological faculties at state universities and calling instead for a closed seminar education in Germany. They were pioneers of the so-called ultramontane Catholicism.

Even as bishop of Strasbourg, he sat down for an improvement of the training of priests and supported forms of piety, such as pilgrimages and devotions. As a participant of the First Vatican Council, he was one of the staunch supporters of the dogma of infallibility.

However, his popularity suffered irreparable damage when he in 1874 accepted the conditions of the Treaty of Frankfurt with the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine in a speech in the German Reichstag. From 1874 to 1877 Räss was a member of the Reichstag. He represented the constituency as a Member of Alsace- Lorraine 6 ( Schlettstadt ). In the Reichstag, he joined as an independent clerical any fraction of.