INNSBRUCK. - Apostolic administration, established on 11 Dec. 1921 for the territories of the diocese of Bressanone that remained with Austria after 1918. According to the Austrian Concordat of 1934 it should be transformed into a diocese, but political difficulties have not yet permitted this to be carried out. It has annexed the "general vicariate of Feldkirch," which comprises the "Land" of Vorarlberg. This traces its origin to the fact that Vorarlberg depended on three different dioceses (Augsburg, Chur, Constance), so that Francis I obtained from Rome in 1818 the ecclesiastical unification of Vorarlberg as a separate diocese; but in 1819, instead of a diocese, a "general vicariate" was instituted with a titular bishop at its head, dependent on Bressanone. In 1921 it was aggregated to the new apostolic administration of I.
The apostolic administration of I. comprises North and East Tyrol (9662 sq. km.) and Vorarlberg (2602 sq. km.) with a total of 520,000 inhabitants, of whom 481,146 are Catholics. It has 394 parishes, 605 diocesan priests and 395 regulars, a minor and a major seminary, 38 male and 30 female religious communities (Annuario pontificio, 1951, p. 641).
Worthy of note: in I. itself the "Hofkirche," built in 1553-63, in Gothic-Renaissance style, with the grandiose cenotaph of Maximilian I, a work of art "sui generis," with 24 alabaster reliefs reproducing the events of Maximilian's life, and 28 enormous bronze statues of his ancestors, legendary and real, designed and cast by the best artists of the period; the Jesuit church (1627-40), a typical model of the "Jesuitenstil," with a dome; the present episcopal church, the "Stadtpfarrkirche," a grandiose late-Baroque construction; at Hall the enormous Gothic parish church, of various periods; that of Schwaz, Gothic, with four naves, of which, originally, two were intended for the townspeople and two for the miners, with two distinct choirs. Among the shrines to be noted: Absam near Hall, the greatest Marian center of Tyrol; Eben, a Gothic construction, with a Baroque marble altar (1740) of St. Notburga, a popular saint; Judenstein, near Rinn, where St. Andrew of Rinn is greatly venerated, a three-year-old child killed by the Jews on 12 July 1462; his cult was recognized by Benedict XIV (25 Dec. 1752). In East Tyrol, near Lienz, the ruins of Aguntum, an ancient episcopal see, until the 6th century, and the excavations on the Kirchbichl near Lavant, where seven churches have been found, one above the other or close together, from the 5th century down to the present Gothic church, which perpetuates a primitive Celtic sanctuary. The best-known shrine of Vorarlberg is Rankweil, already frequented in 1550.
THE UNIVERSITY
St. Peter Canisius obtained from Ferdinand I the erection of a Jesuit institute (1562), which, having developed rapidly, was elevated in 1677, by pontifical and imperial diplomas, to a University, of which at least eight chairs were permanently entrusted to the Society of Jesus. After the suppression of 1773 the University also declined, indeed, it was reduced to a lyceum. In 1826 Francis I re-established it, but without the Faculty of Theology. In 1832 the Jesuits returned to I. and in 1856 the Faculty of Theology was again instituted, entrusted entirely to the Society of Jesus. The Faculty, which had soon risen to international fame, was suppressed during the Nazi period. Among the principal professors mention should be made of the Jesuits H. Hurter, H. Grisar, N. Nilles, E. Michael, L. Fonck, H. Noldin, and among the laymen Baron L. von Pastor. The Jesuits have published the Zeitschrift f. kath. Theologie since 1877.
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Bibliography10 works
Giuseppe Löw
INSTITUTE "CANISIANUM". - The theological College of I., as a continuation of the old student boarding house Nikolaihaus, founded in 1569 and closed in 1783, was reopened for theologians in the year 1858 in the Sillgasse, and soon reached a notable flourishing. The insufficiency of space resulting from this counseled the construction of a new building, the Canisianum in the Tschurtschenthalerstrasse, which on 1 October 1911 was occupied by 276 students. After the closure of the College, following the laws of November 1938, it moved with a smaller number of students to Sion (Valais, Switzerland), where it remained until September 1945, and, after its return, it has begun to develop again in the same places in which it had previously flourished.
In the Canisianum students of theology from all the dioceses of the world may find a place, provided that they observe the conditions established in the statutes and that space permits. The students receive in the boarding house a solid religious instruction of a universal character. They attend, leaving the College, the lectures in philosophy and theology at the Faculty of Theology of the University of I., which, like the College itself, is governed by the Fathers and professors of the Society of Jesus. The rich Libraries of the University and of the College of the Society of Jesus are at the disposal of scholars. Physical hygiene is also much cared for by means of games, sports, mountain excursions and recreations. Many thousands of priests, several cardinals (among them Cardinal Count Preysing of Berlin, Cardinal Frings of Cologne, Cardinal Count Galen of Münster, and others), seventy bishops, many abbot generals of Orders, canons, scattered throughout the world, have received here in whole or in part their preparation. - See plate VII.
