Engelbert Sterckx

Engelbert ( Engelbertus ) Cardinal Sterckx ( born November 2, 1792 in Ophem in Brussels ( Brabant / Belgium); † December 4, 1867 in Mechelen) was Belgian Archbishop of Malines.

Life

Engelbert Sterckx began his studies in Vilvoorde and put it on the 1805-1807 humanistic university in Enghien continued. He attended secondary school in Louvain and joined the seminary in Mechelen. On February 18, 1815 Engelbert Sterckx was ordained a priest and took over in the seminary of Malines professor of philosophy and moral theology. This was followed by the use of a pastorate in Bouchout and then in Antwerp. In 1827 he was Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Mechelen. On April 8, 1832, he was consecrated in the Cathedral of Mechelen by Jean -Joseph Delplancq bishop. His motto was Pax vobis. After his appointment as Archbishop of Mechelen in 1832, he was appointed in 1838 in the College of Cardinals with the titular church of San Bartolomeo all'Isola. As Metropolitan, he reformed the entire Belgian church and led the Belgian bishops to act together.

Political unrest

On February 24, 1832, he was appointed archbishop of Mechelen and sat in these political, religious and revolutionary difficult times for the freedom of the Church in Belgium. King William I of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands ( Regent 1815-1830 ) was the attempt to transfer the training of priests in his powers. He closed diocesan seminaries and established a " philosophy program" that was to take over the training of priests and allowed regardless of the Archbishop nominate the teachers and professors.

Kingdom of Belgium

The socio-political unrest eventually led in 1830 to an independent Kingdom of Belgium under King Leopold I., a prince of the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The new kingdom was located with the assistance of Sterckx a liberal constitution in which the religion, teaching and freedom of the press was guaranteed. Sterckx is to represent this liberal attitude before the Holy See and he convinced Pope Gregory XVI succeeded. to submit to the Belgian Constitution. Under the episcopal line Sterckx ' received the Catholic Church great freedom and founded schools, convents and charitable institutions. 1834 in Mechelen a free Catholic university, the principal work of Archbishop Sterckx, founded in 1842, and the Catholic University of Louvain was reactivated. Belgium has been raised to an ecclesiastical province and the Archdiocese of Mechelen, the suffragan dioceses of Liege, Namur, Tournai, Bruges, Ghent and have been assigned.

Order by foundations episcopal rights

Archbishop Sterckx confirmed in 1834 the former religious community Zusters Dienstmaagden van Mary Episcopal Congregation law. On January 25, 1839, he transferred the management of the Congregation Brothers of Mercy of Mechelen to Brother Victor Scheppers and approved the rules of the order. On 22 June 1857 he gave the episcopal approbation to the Augustinessenstraße Zwartzusters van Hall as a congregation episcopal law.

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