REUSCH, Franz Heinrich. - Catholic exegete who joined the "Old Catholics," born at Brilon in Westphalia on 4 Dec. 1825, died at Bonn on 3 March 1900. Ordained priest in 1849, he became a private lecturer in 1854 and in 1861 was appointed ordinary professor of exegesis at the University of Bonn.
He took part in the discussions on papal infallibility and, after the decision of the Vatican Council, refused to submit and was suspended (1871) and later excommunicated (1872). He played an active role in the formation of the Old Catholic Church and from 1872 served as vicar general to the schismatic bishop Reinkens, until in 1878, dissatisfied with the abolition of clerical celibacy, he separated from them as well. His scholarly output after the Vatican Council also differed from his earlier work in subject matter, as he devoted himself entirely to the ecclesiastical history of the centuries following the Reformation, with the aim of demonstrating the progressive "Romanization" of the Catholic Church. In these works, his old teacher Döllinger was often his inspiration, and Reusch also published several of Döllinger’s writings.
As a Catholic, before the Vatican Council, he wrote: *Erklärung des Buches Baruch* (Freiburg in Br. 1853); *Das Buch Tobia* (ibid. 1857); *Lehrbuch der Einleitung in das Alte Testament* (ibid. 1859); *Bibel und Natur* (ibid. 1862). As an "Old Catholic," after the Council, he wrote: *Index der Verbotenen Bücher* (2 vols., Bonn 1883–85); *Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten seit dem 16. Jahrhundert* (2 vols., Nordlingen 1889); *Bellarmins Selbstbiographie* (Bonn 1887); *Der Prozess Galilei und die Jesuiten* (ibid. 1879); *Döllingers Kleinere Schriften* (Stuttgart 1890); *Briefe an Bunsen von römischen Cardinallen und Prälaten* (n.p. 1897); and numerous articles, especially in the weekly of the Old Catholics, the *Deutscher Merkur*.