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Adam Franz Lennig (3 December 1803 – 22 November 1866) was an ultramontane German Catholic theologian. He was born and died in
Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...
.


Life

Lennig studied at Bruchsal under the private tutorship of the ex-Jesuit Laurentius Doller, and afterwards at the bishop's gymnasium at Mainz, his birthplace. Being too young for ordination, he went to Paris to study
Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...
under Sylvestre de Sacy, then to Rome for a higher course in theology. Here he was ordained priest, 22 September 1827, and then taught for a year at Mainz. Lennig was a strenuous defender of the rights of the Roman Catholic Church, and when on 30 January 1830, the Government of the
Grand Duchy of Hesse The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine () was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse (). It assumed the name ...
— which for quite a time had been trying to interfere in church matters — passed thirty-nine articles on ecclesiastical administration, he sent them to Rome. Rome sent back a protest, but, since the bishops remained silent, and since Joseph Vitus Burg, Bishop of Mainz, even defended the articles, Lennig left for Bonn, and attended the lectures of Johann Michael Sailer, Windischmann, and Klee. In June 1832, he accepted the pastorate of Gaulsheim, now part of Bingen am Rhein, declining to take the chair of theology and exegesis at Mainz. In 1839 he was made pastor at Seligenstadt. Petrus Leopold Kaiser, Bishop of Mainz, in 1845 promoted him to the cathedral chapter. As a mentor of the ultramontanism, he established in March 1848 the
Piusverein The Piusverein (Pius Association) was a Roman Catholic society, founded in 1848 in Germany, and named for Pope Pius IX. Its political direction was conservative and ultramontanist, and its purpose was to form a bridge between Catholics and the polit ...
(Pius Association). He organized the first Katholikentag (meeting of Catholic societies and of Catholics in general), held at Mainz, October 1848. In the same month he was present at the conference of the German Bishops at Würzburg, acting as representative of his bishop who was ill. About this time he founded at great expense the ''Mainzer Journal''. After the death of Bishop Kaiser (30 December 1848), troubles arose about the choice of a successor. Lennig was acknowledged by all as a leader of true Christian spirit and suffered much abuse from the Liberals. In 1852 he was made
vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vica ...
by Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, and in 1856 dean of the chapter. He zealously assisted his bishop in bringing the Capuchins and
Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
into the diocese. In 1854 he was in Rome at the definition of the
Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Mariology, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Debated by medieval theologians, it was not def ...
, and later visited Rome twice. In 1859 he wrote a protest against the spoliation of the
Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...
, and had it signed by 20,000 Catholics. He is buried at the Hauptfriedhof Mainz. His older brother, Friedrich Lennig, was a popular comic poet.


Works

Lennig published in 1849 his "Panegyric on Bishop Kaiser", and in 1862 his "Funeral Oration on the Archduchess Mathilde of Hesse". His meditations on the Passion and on the Our Father and Hail Mary were published 1867 and 1869 by his nephew, Christoph Moufang.


References

* Heinrich Brück, ''Adam Franz Lennig'', etc. (Mainz, 1870): *, XVIII, 261: *''Katholik'', 1867, I, 257; *Pfaff, ''Bischof von Ketteler'' (Mainz, 1899), passim; *May, ''Gesch. der Generalversamml. der Kath. Deutschl.'' (Cologne, 1904), 22, 26, 33. *Ludwig Lenhart: ''Der Mainzer Domherr A. F. Lennig an den Straßburger Bischof A. Raeß über die gescheiterte Mainzer Bischofskandidatur des Gießener Universitätsprofessors Dr. Leopold Schmid'', S. 264 *Christoph Stoll: ''Bischof Ketteler und die Römische Kurie 1854-1855. Die Behandlung der Mainz-Darmstädter Konvention von 1854 in Rom nach vatikanischen Dokumenten und Briefen Adam Franz Lennigs an seinen Neffen Christoph Moufang'', in: AmrhKG 29 (1977), S. 193-252


Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lennig, Adam Franz 1803 births 1866 deaths 19th-century German Catholic theologians 19th-century German Roman Catholic priests Writers from Mainz People from Rhenish Hesse 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German writers German male non-fiction writers