SPIEGEL, FERDINAND AUGUST. - Bishop, b. 25 Dec. 1764 in Canstein Castle (Westphalia), d. 2 Aug. 1835 in Cologne. A cadet of a baronial family, he embraced the ecclesiastical state and in 1799 became dean of the cathedral at Münster, upon the death of the prince-elector of Cologne Maximilian Francis Xavier Joseph of Habsburg, who was also bishop of Münster.
During the vacancy of the see S. opposed a Prussian attempt to postpone the election of the new bishop, but after the secularization he accepted the fait accompli of the Prussian occupation, collaborated with Stein, who had been charged with the administrative reorganization of the region, and formed a close friendship with him, which remained unaltered until his death. So great was the esteem and consideration in which Stein held S. that in 1807 he intended to propose his appointment to the direction of the Catholic section at the Ministry of Cults and in 1810, indeed in a letter to Hardenberg, he designated him as coadjutor of the archbishop of Breslau, Hohenlohe. After the annexation of Münster to the French Empire (1810), Napoleon appointed him bishop there on 14 Apr. 1813. This appointment did not receive the approval of Pius VII and S. limited himself to administering the diocese as capitular vicar, finding himself in grave difficulties because of the opposition of Clement Augustus Droste-Vischering, who had been elected administrator in 1808 and had left the office under pressure from the Emperor. After the fall of Napoleon he had to renounce the administration of Münster, but he succeeded in becoming the trusted man of the State Chancellor Hardenberg in religious questions. A supporter of a German national Church, like his friend Wessenberg, S. was called in 1817 to be a member of the Prussian Council of State. Appointed archbishop of Cologne in 1824, he occupied himself very actively with the reorganization of his diocese and of the Cathedral, as well as with the reestablishment of spiritual authority in the Rhenish and Westphalian bishoprics; he was unable to renounce the past, nourished as he had been from his youth on Enlightenment principles, which continued to influence his theological opinions in a decisive manner. Desirous of finding points of agreement between science and religion, between reason and faith, he was unable to perceive the dangers deriving to the Church from the doctrines of Hermes (v.). Likewise his episcopalist tendencies, aimed at eliminating as far as possible the direct interference of the Holy See in the government of his diocese, advised him very badly in the grave question of mixed marriages, where the diplomatic skill of Bunsen succeeded in understanding his good faith, leading him to adhere to the Convention of 19 June 1834, concluded by the archbishop with the Prussian government without the knowledge of the Pontiff and in direct contrast with the brief Literis altero abhinc anno of Pius VIII of 1830.