POHLE, JOSEPH. - Theologian, b. at Niederspay (Coblenza) on 13 March 1852, d. at Breslavia on 21 February 1922.
He studied philosophy and theology at the Gregorian University. Prevented from receiving a post in his homeland by the Kulturkampf laws, which excluded Roman graduates, he taught in various seminaries in Europe, until in 1886 he took the chair of philosophy at the Seminary of Fulda, where, Gutberlet (v.), he founded the Philosophisches Jahrbuch (1888). In 1889, at the wish of Leo XIII, he accepted the chair of apologetics at the newly founded Catholic University of Washington. He subsequently taught dogmatic theology at the Universities of Münster and Breslavia. An admirer of Fr Angelo Secchi, he illustrated his life and work in various writings, and published several works on subjects at the boundary between the natural and philosophical sciences and theology. His principal work is the Lehrbuch der Dogmatik (3 vols., Fulda 1902–1905, repeatedly reissued and revised), of Molinist tendency.