ABEL, HEINRICH. - Jesuit, nephew of the famous minister of state K. Abel, b. at Passau on 15 Dec. 1843, d. at Vienna on 23 Nov. 1926. Having entered the Order in 1863 and completed his course of studies, he first taught literature and history for several years at the college of Kalksburg, then moved to Vienna, devoting himself to ministry among men. There he founded the first Marian Congregation (1890), that of the merchants, which was followed, during his lifetime, by 330 others, made up of people of every rank and condition, with 5 periodicals; he promoted men's pilgrimages to the shrine of Mariazell and men's courses of spiritual exercises. But the work that caused him to be proclaimed the apostle of Vienna were his courses of apologetic and social sermons, given to men. He had already preached there from the time when he was a professor at Kalksburg; but now, in the church of St. Augustine, he began a vibrant and unremitting preaching, popular and attractive in form, thoroughly pervaded by the concepts of Rerum novarum, which marked a splendid Catholic rebirth in the capital. In social action he stood alongside the mass movement led by Dr. Lueger. More than 10,000 men, of whom 300 were priests, took part in his funeral together with the cardinal of Vienna.
He wrote, among other things: Zurück zum praktischen Christentum, (4th ed., Vienna 1900); Der Katholische Mann, (Vienna 1923); and, to respond to the accusations of those who were stung by the truths proclaimed from the pulpit, the pamphlet: Wie ich Jesuit wurde, (Vienna 1926).
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