Münster, Diocese of

MÜNSTER, Diocese of. - City and diocese in Westphalia (Germany).

The diocese has an area of 15,128 sq. km., with 3,606,669 inhabitants, of whom 2,075,795 are Catholics. It has 622 parishes, served by 1,466 secular priests and 84 regular priests, 14 male religious communities and 58 female ones (Annuario Pont., 1951, p. 280). The diocese is a suffragan of Cologne.

It was founded by Charlemagne during his wars in Saxony. The first bishop was St. Ludger, between 792 and 794, who founded a monastery in the locality of Mimigarderford, leading there a common life with the priests and clerics subject to him. From this monastery the city of M. took its name from 1100 onward. In addition to the administration of western Saxony, between the Ems and the Lippe, Ludger also had that of the Frisian territory on the lower Ems.

This territory remained annexed to the diocese of M. until the founding of the Dutch dioceses in 1559. From 798 the diocese is a suffragan of Cologne. In the 9th century the Chapter appears as a corporation in its own right, having dissolved the relationship of common life with the bishop. In the 10th century various notable collegiate foundations of canonesses arose, such as Freckenhorst, Nottuln, Wreden, Liesborn and Borghorst. A new cathedral was built by Bishop Dodo (969-93). In the Investiture Controversy the bishops of M. sided with Henry IV and his son. The energetic bishop Hermann II,

Count of Katzenellenbogen (1174-1203), an ally of Frederick Barbarossa against Alexander III, obtained, following the deposition of Henry the Lion and the dismemberment of the Duchy of Saxony, territorial sovereignty, later confirmed by Frederick II on 26 April 1220. He enlarged and restored the Cathedral, fortified the city and reorganized the parochial organization. The Cathedral Chapter, composed exclusively of nobles, had great influence on the political and religious life of the diocese. From 1203 it exercised the exclusive right of electing the bishop. Through the archdeacons, very frequently taken from among the canons, it also had a directing role over the parishes. Implicated in the struggles among the nobles (Münsterische Stiftsfelde, 1450-56) and in the critical conditions of the Empire, the diocese declined. Henry von Schwarzburg (1466-96) undertook the work of reforming the monasteries and the clergy. The Protestant doctrines, preached at M. by Bernt Rotmanns in all the parishes of the city, were then followed by the rule of the Anabaptists and, once this was suppressed in 1535, Catholic worship was restored. The bishop Franz von Waldeck (1532-53) favored Protestantism and attempted to transform the ecclesiastical principality into a hereditary principality; an attempt repeated, without success, also by his successor Wilhelm von Ketteler (1553-57). From 1643 M. was the seat of the congress for peace after the Thirty Years' War, concluded there with the treaty of 1648. Bishop Christoph Bernard von Galen (1650-78) was distinguished for his pastoral zeal. Bishop Ferdinand von Fürstenberg (1678-83) simultaneously administered also the diocese of Paderborn, to which he devoted his principal care. In 1803 the ecclesiastical principality was secularized. After the diocese was reorganized with the bull De salute animarum of 16 July 1821 and the remnants of the Enlightenment were overcome, a notable Catholic revival resumed in M. During the Kulturkampf the bishop Bernhard Brinkmann (1870-89) lived in exile for nine years. From 1933 to 1945 the diocese was governed by Clemens August Count von Galen (v.), formerly a parish priest in Berlin, an intrepid defender of the rights of the Church against the National Socialist regime and a tireless organizer of charitable works during the Second World War. He was created cardinal in February 1946.

The diocese comprises the Westphalian province of M., five Rhenish districts and the district of Oldenburg with the city of Wilhelmshaven and the island of Wangerooge.

Bruno Wüstenberg