Frederick Rese
Frederick Reese ( baptismal name Friedrich Johann Conrad Reese, born February 6, 1791 in Vienenburg, † December 27, 1871 in Hildesheim, Germany ) was a German pioneer mission in the United States, the first Catholic bishop German nationality of the country and the first Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Detroit.
Life and work
Frederick Reese - the later mostly enrolled Rese to avoid a false English pronunciation of his name - was the son of poor parents who died early. He learned a trade, served 1813/14 in the wars of liberation as Hannoveranischer trooper and took under Field Marshal Blücher in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo part. Then he struck a religious career, made a pilgrimage on foot to Rome, studied theology and received on 15 March 1823 ordination by the Roman Cardinal Vicar Giacinto Placido Zurla. He then worked in the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith ( Propaganda Congregation ). 1824 Bishop Edward Fenwick of Cincinnati traveled to Rome to solicit support its newly created large diocese, which included the present-day U.S. states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Pope Leo XII. asked him Friedrich Reese and a second priest of the Congregation of Propaganda as an employee of the page.
In the United States, Bishop Fenwick Reese appointed chaplain for the City of Cincinnati and the direct surroundings and soon made him his vicar-general. 1828 sent their Vicar General Friedrich Reese to Europe to raise money for the huge mission field. In Vienna, he succeeded in the establishment of the Mission Society of Leopoldinenstiftung. In Munich, he taught dated September 8, 1828 a memorandum to King Ludwig I, in which he asked for a similar association in Bavaria. However, the monarch granted just an ordinary nation-wide collection for the said purpose, without a solid missionary work. On 15 and 16 March 1829 Frederick Reese kept on at Bishop Johann Michael Sailer, the confidant of the king, in Regensburg, which it also failed to sway the regent.
1833, Pope Gregory XVI. the Diocese of Detroit and appointed Frederick Reese with date of 23 March for the first bishop. He received episcopal consecration on October 6, 1833 by Joseph Rosati, the first Pastor of St. Louis.
Purposefully built Reese on his young diocese. In 1838 he went to Europe again and looked in Munich - now as a bishop - King Ludwig I on to again ask for the establishment of a Bavarian mission work. This led finally to the target audience. The king called a foundation, took over the patronage and lent her his name; it was the Ludwig Missions Club.
Successfully returned to America Reese began around 1840 from a mental disorder to suffer. He fell into depression and finally could no longer perform his duties from 1841. On trips to Europe and Asia, the bishop sought relief. However, the disease worsened towards the end of his life he fell in addition to a state of dementia. Frederick Reese retired to the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of St.. Vincent de Paul back to Hildesheim, where he was cared for and died in 1871. The successor as the second Bishop of Detroit went to his Hanoverian compatriot, Borgess Caspar Heinrich ( 1824-1890 ).
Despite the tragic end, and its relatively short active episcopate Reese remains significant for the North American church history. Even more than his 15 -year-old grueling missionary activity weighs tapping into the sources of money through the creation of a German missionary societies Leopoldinenstiftung and Ludwig Missions Club. These were due to the personal commitment of the prelates and were of fundamental importance for the further development of the young Catholic Church of North America.
In Reese's birthplace Vienenburg the " Friedrich -Reese Road" is named after him.