WESSENBERG, Ignaz Heinrich von. - Enlightenment thinker and Febronian, b. in Dresden on 4 Nov. 1774, d. in Constance on 9 Aug. 1860. Philosophy, theology, law and ecclesiastical history were the subjects to which he devoted the greatest interest; he had contacts with political and ecclesiastical figures and with circles of the state administration.
From 1798 financial difficulties, which had struck the family, forced him to settle in Constance, where he had long been a canon. Decisive was his meeting (1795) with the archbishop of Mainz and coadjutor of Constance, Karl Theodor von Dalberg, who immediately saw in W. the man suited to him and, when he obtained full governance of the diocese of Constance, chose him, barely twenty-seven years old and a subdeacon, as his vicar general. An intense activity of reform, dominated by Enlightenment criteria, characterizes W.'s pastoral action at Constance. Alongside praiseworthy efforts to improve the conditions of the clergy, with good initiatives for the renewal of parish life, this reform was animated by a radical rationalistic tendency, the cause of grave disorientation. Pilgrimages, processions and popular devotions were proscribed as superstitions. The Marian rosary and weekly Confession were viewed with open hostility. Confraternities and congregations were suppressed or turned to merely philanthropic purposes. In the functions and in the administration of the Sacraments, German formulas were adopted, to the point of the formation of a new ritual.
The arbitrariness with which W. introduced these innovations, going so far as to grant dispensations that exceeded the power of bishops, was founded on his Febronian conception, which, while admitting in theory the Roman Primacy, overvalued the divine and inviolable right of bishops and their independence from the Apostolic See, claiming that the dispositions of the Holy See had application in the various territories only after the acceptance of the bishops, assisted and helped by the state authorities. Of this attitude W. was one of the greatest exponents also in the broader sphere of the ecclesiastical history of Germany of his time, aiming at a national organization of the German Church under the aegis of a primate. He worked tirelessly to this end at the Congress of Vienna and at the Diet of Frankfurt. However, the idea of giving the German Church a unitary organic constitution, capable of guaranteeing a broad autonomy from Rome, failed definitively because of the opposition of certain Catholic States themselves.
After Dalberg's death in 1817, the Chapter of Constance appointed W. capitular vicar and administrator of the diocese. The Holy See rejected this appointment and imposed a new choice on the Chapter, but W., supported by the grand duke of Baden, retained the administration. A journey of his to Rome did not have the hoped-for effect of clarifying the situation. W., persuaded that by his conduct he had brought out the exorbitance of Roman claims, was received on his return with great demonstrations of enthusiasm. The revision of the diocesan boundaries of Germany gave the Holy See the opportunity to resolve the question finally. The ancient diocese of Constance, from which the Swiss territories had already been detached as early as 1814-15, was suppressed in 1821 with the bull Provida solersque, and the two new sees of Freiburg and Rottenburg were erected in compensation, constituting the new ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine. Although the clergy of the two new dioceses had elected W. as their bishop by a majority of votes, Rome refused confirmation, and since, after the death of Grand Duke Charles, not even the Baden regency supported him any longer, he was forced to retire (1827).
In the long years that W. still lived at Constance, in addition to travels abroad and scientific activity (publication of selected works [7 vols., 1834-35]), he carried on great activity in the political and social field. Irreproachable in morals, open to a sense of art, actively interested in raising up and helping every kind of person in need; brilliant as a writer or orator, he was, however, as a theologian superficial and rigid in asserting his ideas. The city of Constance still possesses today various cultural and charitable foundations that go back to him and preserves his rich library and his house.
Bibliography4 works
Igino Rogger