DIERINGER, FRANZ XAVER. – Theologian, born at Rangendingen, near Hechingen, on 22 August 1811, died at Veringendorf (Hohenzollern) on 8 September 1876. He studied at Tübingen and Freiburg (ordained a priest in 1835). He taught in the seminaries of Freiburg and Speyer. The archbishop of Cologne, von Geissel, had him appointed in 1843 professor of dogmatic theology and homiletics at the University of Bonn, where it was necessary to confront the Hermesian and Güntherian currents that predominated there. With these aims D. published the Katholische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Kunst (Bonn 1844–49). In 1848 he was a deputy to the Frankfurt Parliament.
Although he had previously defended papal infallibility, he allowed himself to be led by his colleagues at Bonn to the contrary doctrine (articles in the Bonner Theol. Lit. Blatt [1866] against Reinerding, and against Kleutgen [1868], also published separately under the title: Die Theologie der Vor- und Jetztzeit, Bonn 1868). He was among the first to submit when Archbishop Melchers expressly requested this of all the professors at Bonn; in 1871 he abandoned his chair and retired to Veringendorf as parish priest. Among his principal writings, the following should also be mentioned: Kanzelvorträge an gebildete Katholiken (2 vols., Mainz 1846); Der hl. Karl Borromäus und die Kirchenverbesserung seiner Zeit (Cologne 1846); Lehrbuch der katholischen Dogmatik (2 vols., Mainz 1847); Dogmatische Erörterungen mit einem Güntherianer (there, 1853); Das Epistelbuch der katholischen Kirche (3 vols., there, 1863); Laienkathchismus über Religion, Offenbarung und Kirche (there, 1865).