Clemens August von Droste-Vischering
Called Clemens August Freiherr Droste zu Vischering also briefly Clemens August Droste- Vischering or Clemens August Droste zu Vischering ( born January 22, 1773 in Vorhelm in Ahlen, † October 19, 1845 in Münster, Germany), was from 1835 to 1845 as Clemens August II Droste Vischering Archbishop of Cologne.
Life
Clemens August came from the nobility of altwestfälischen barons Droste Vischering that Erbdrosten of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. He prepared himself in Münster as his two brothers Kaspar Maximilian (1770-1846) and Franz Otto (1771-1826) to a life in a spiritual level before.
From his brother Kaspar Maximilian, who became auxiliary bishop in 1795, he was ordained in Münster on 14 May 1798 and became a priest canon. On September 16, 1810, he became the Vicar General of the Diocese of Münster. Already at the beginning of his church career, he strictly contradicted any compromise with the Prussian government in the controversial question of the education of children of interfaith marriages. As this attitude brought him into open conflict with sensitivity to the balance ministers of the church, put Droste Vischering in the summer of 1820 his office as Vicar General and devoted himself in seclusion charitable work.
His brother Kaspar Maximilian, who had become Bishop of Münster in 1825, ordained him in 1827 as Titular Bishop of Calama in Numidia. In the following years he was now working as a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Münster. 1834 joined the Archbishop of Cologne, Ferdinand August von Spiegel with Prussia, the Berlin Convention, which should be a compromise scheme of mixed marriages question.
Despite his acting out in Münster the cathedral chapter elected him on December 1, 1835 - primarily at the request of the Prussian Crown Prince ( later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV ) - Archbishop of Cologne and successor mirror. His enthronement followed on 29 May 1836.
In the office of the new archbishop immediately began to pursue a ultramontanism related course, as evidenced especially in his first tough action against the Hermesianism among the priests of his archdiocese; However, he soon rejected the Berlin convention and negotiation offers the Prussian government. On September 17 and September 18, 1837, the Mayor of Dusseldorf and the Prussian envoy negotiated at the papal court with him personally. Both insisted on a recognition of the Convention of 1834, which Clemens August but declined.
On the evening of November 20, 1837, the Archbishop was arrested and put together with his secretary Eduard Michelis in Minden under house arrest. He lived in a rented house with constant guard in the house of Catholic businessman Vogeler. Pope Gregory XVI. raised loud protest against the arrest of the archbishop. Droste Vischering was as " Confessor Bishop " among German Catholics popular, which made him a figure crystallization of political Catholicism. The cathedral chapter under coadjutor John of flagellum continued the business of the detainees. On April 17, 1839, he was released after Darfeld because of his poor health from prison and lived then withdrawn in Münster. Negotiations between the Curia and the Archbishop with the Prussian state did the Cologne church dispute to an end in 1842.