HÄBERLIN, JOHANN BAPTIST IGNAZ. – Priest, born 27 July 1760 at Horb, died 15 March 1827 at Karlsruhe. Ordained in 1784, he subsequently served as parish priest of the church of St Martin in Freiburg and as episcopal commissioner in Brisgau. From 1810 he was ecclesiastical ministerial councillor in Karlsruhe.
A radical exponent of Josephinism, he acknowledged to civil authorities the right to administer and dispose of ecclesiastical goods without consulting the Supreme Pontiff. In 1812 he published an anonymous pamphlet (An die Souveräne der rheinischen Conföderation über das Recht ihren Staaten eigene Landesbischöfe und eine bischöfliche Diöcesaneinheitung nach Gutbefinden zu geben), in which he argued that the rapid reorganisation of the Catholic Church in the states of the Rhenish Confederation depended on the individual sovereigns, who were to proceed, without the aid of concordats or councils, to delimit the new diocesan boundaries and to appoint bishops.