REISACH, KARL AUGUST von. — Cardinal, b. 6 July 1800 at Roth (diocese of Eichstätt), d. 22 Dec. 1869 at the Redemptorists’ house in Contamine (Savoy). After taking a degree in jurisprudence, he entered the German College in Rome in 1824. Later he became rector of the College of Propaganda.
Together with P. Perrone and others, Reisach was entrusted with the task of carefully examining the Hermesian doctrines, which Gregory XVI then condemned in September 1835 by the brief
Dum acerbissimas.
Named bishop of Eichstätt in 1836, he founded the diocesan ecclesiastical seminary there and promoted popular missions. Transferred to the see of Munich-Freising, after the crisis of 1848 he demanded of the civil authorities that every legislative enactment contrary to the Concordat of 1817 be annulled. This demand, supported by the whole Bavarian episcopate and especially by the steadfastness he displayed in securing for the Church the rights stipulated in the Concordat, finally became irksome to Maximilian II, who sought to have the archbishop transferred, regarding him as responsible for the difficulties that had arisen in Church-State relations. The king vainly tried to persuade Archbishop Geissel to cede to Reisach the administration of the archdiocese of Cologne in exchange for that of Munich-Freising, and asked the Holy See to relieve Reisach of the government of his archdiocese. Pius IX, not wishing to exacerbate the conflict further, granted the king’s wish, created Reisach a cardinal on 17 Dec. 1855, and summoned him to serve in the Roman Curia. Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Studies, in 1867 he was appointed president of one of the preparatory commissions for the Vatican Council.