STOLBERG, FRIEDRICH LEOPOLD. — Poet, b. at Bramstedt (Holstein) on 7 Nov. 1750, d. at Sondermühle near Osnabrück on 5 Dec. 1819.
Together with his brother Christian (b. 1748), who shared his poetic passion, he studied at Halle and Göttingen, entering that circle of poets and scholars (Göttinger Hain) which began to struggle against the arid rationalism of the Enlightenment, inspired by Klopstock, and in the spirit of the Sturm und Drang. Having concluded his youthful poetic period with a journey together with Goethe (1776), he took up political duties which he abandoned after his conversion to Catholicism (1800). He then devoted himself to historical and religious studies, contributing, like a Sailer and a Schlegel, though within more modest limits, to the Catholic revival.
JOSEPH, his son, b. on 12 Aug. 1804 at Lütkenbeck near Münster, d. on 5 Apr. 1859 at Tournai, was a prominent representative of German Catholicism.
He entered the Society of Jesus in 1824, but alarmed at the responsibility of the priesthood, he renounced the ecclesiastical life in 1833. He became one of the leaders of the Catholic movement in northern Germany and presided over the third General Assembly of German Catholics at Regensburg in Oct. 1849. On that occasion Döllinger proposed the foundation of the St. Boniface Society, and S. was named its president. To ensure the success of the new association, he immediately displayed intense activity. In the same winter of 1849–50 he visited the German bishops to secure their collaboration, which was readily granted. He also promoted the establishment of diocesan associations dependent on the central seat at Paderborn. He likewise supported the popular missions of the Jesuits.