Jean Baptiste Joseph Gobel

Life

Jean Baptiste Joseph Gobel (actually Göbel ) was brought to Rome in the Collegium Germanicum and consecrated in Basel on December 19, 1750 as a priest. He was a canon of Porrentruy ( Switzerland ) and was on 29 February 1772 Auxiliary Bishop of Basel and at the same time appointed Titular Bishop of Lydda. He received episcopal consecration by the Bishop of Lausanne, Joseph -Nicolas de Montenach. He was a representative of the Bishop of Basel for the French part of the diocese.

Gobel in 1789 was sent as a deputy of the clergy in Belfort to the States General and made ​​friends here soon so with the constitutional idea that the three new dioceses Paris, Upper Marne Upper Rhine and him were transmitted simultaneously by the National Assembly.

On November 7, 1793, he renounced with 14 of his vicars to the ministry, which was designed as a repudiation of Christianity. He explained this by saying that as the freedom and equality there is no more need for the happy outcome of the revolution for other national cult.

During the Revolution in France was trying to operate Maximilien de Robespierre in 1793 and 1794 to replace the traditional religion by the cult of an allegorical goddess of reason. The first celebrations an actress embodied this goddess in the Paris Notre Dame Cathedral. With the end of the reign of the Jacobins attempt failed an atheistic state cult.

As long as in the cathedral no longer the Christian god, but the goddess of reason was worshiped, is Gobel involved in this cult. Finally, the progress was even over him. Towards the end of the reign of terror of Robespierre atheism was suddenly a crime. Thus, the former archbishop was also arrested as an atheist with Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and April 13, 1794 guillotined.