Osnabrück

OSNABRÜCK. - City and diocese in Germany, suffragan of Cologne. Over an area of 45,797 sq km there is a population of 6,613,146 inhabitants, of whom 855,692 are Catholics distributed in 420 parishes, served by 690 diocesan priests and 24 regulars; it has 14 male religious communities and 226 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 304).

It was founded as a missionary station in 780 and erected as a diocese in 790. The first bishop is Wiho, a disciple of St. Boniface, who died in 804. The diocese is mentioned for the first time with certainty in a bull of Charlemagne in 803. In 834 the missionary station of Meppen was annexed to the diocese, in 855 that of Visbek, and in 860 the other one of Wiedenbrück. There followed very active bishops who founded vast ecclesiastical fiefs. The principal church of O. was transformed into a cathedral by Bishop Egilmar (d. 918), who was also the first historiographer of O. During his governance the disputes began between the monasteries of Corvey and Herford and the bishop of O. over tithes; they continued under one of the greatest bishops of O., namely Benno II (1068-88), known for his diplomatic negotiations with Gregory VII on behalf of Henry IV: he moreover built the western part of the cathedral of O. and the cathedrals of Speyer and Goslar. The disputes with the two abbeys came to an end under Bishop Philip von Katzenellnbogen (1141-73). Bruno von Isenburg (1250-58) laid the foundations of the church of St. John, finished in 1292 under Conrad II von Rietberg (1269-97).

He called the Augustinians and the Dominicans to O. and founded institutes for elderly ladies (Domschwesternhaus and St. Johannes-Schwesternhaus). Despite the flourishing religious life and the high culture manifested in the goldsmith works by the so-called master of O. and by others, the history of the diocese is full of disputes among the curia, the nobility and the neighboring bishops. During the governance of the 53rd bishop of O., Erich von Braunschweig (1508-32), Luther promulgated his theses in Wittenberg. The bishop, however, energetically rejected his doctrine. His successor, on the other hand, Francis of Waldeck (1533-53), had an "evangelical" ecclesiastical regulation compiled by the superintendent Bonnos of Lübeck, in which the Holy Mass was abolished. This regulation was mandatory in 1544 for the whole diocese. The secular clergy obeyed, but the Cathedral Chapter rejected this regulation. In 1547 the bishop joined the Schmalkaldic League, which had as a consequence the entry of the imperial troops into O. Paul III summoned the bishop to Rome, unfortunately without success, in order to reach a satisfactory solution. Of sincerely Catholic sentiments was the successor Johannes von Hoya (1553-74), advised by St. Peter Canisius: but the bishops who followed inclined toward Protestantism. A change occurred under Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern (1623-25). He called the Jesuits and removed the parish priests of Protestant sentiments. There followed the most celebrated bishop of O. of this era, Franz Wilh. von Wartenburg (1625-61), a cardinal from 1661. He continued the reforms by means of diocesan synods, brought the whole diocese back to Catholicism, and in 1631 founded a university in O. His work was hindered by the Swedish invasion (1633-50). With the Peace of Westphalia (1648) the bishops of O. obtained 30 parishes and the Protestants 20. The diocese lost the county of Lingen and Westervald in favor of the diocese of Deventer, and another part to the diocese of Münster. In 1802 the diocese underwent secularization, during which an apostolic administrator functioned in the person of Clemens von Gruben. In 1857 P. Melchers, already bishop of Münster, was elected bishop, and from 1866 archbishop of Cologne. From 1914 to the present (1951) the bishop of O. is Wilhelm Berning, president of the Union of St. Raphael (Emigration Assistance) and charged by the Holy See with the direction of the care of souls for German-speaking people in the countries overseas and in Eastern Europe.

Bruno Wüstenberg