BURG, JOSEPH VITUS

BURG, JOSEPH VITUS. - Bishop, b. at Offenburg on 27 Aug. 1768, d. at Magonza on 22 May 1833. Having entered the Franciscan Order in 1787, he exercised the parish ministry. He was also entrusted with the commissarial administration of the parts of the dioceses of Strasburgo incorporated into the grand duchy of Baden. Having become doctor of theology at Friburgo after 1817, he was one of the most influential members of the Frankfurt conference for the restoration of ecclesiastical organization in the Upper Rhine; he accompanied Wessenberg, representative of the bishopric of Costanza, to Rome. Dean of the Cathedral and auxiliary bishop of Friburgo, then bishop of Magonza on 28 Sept. 1829, he proved to be the foremost representative of Josephinism and Febronianism, aiming to give the Catholic Church of Hesse-Darmstadt real independence; he therefore approved in 1830 the articles of the German princes and governments of the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine, condemned by Pius VIII in the brief Pervenerat of 30 June 1830.