Michael Von Faulhaber - Life Until After The First World War

Life Until After The First World War

Michael Faulhaber was born as the third of seven children of the baker Michael Faulhaber (1831–1900) and his wife Margarete (1839–1911). In 1889 he entered the Catholic Seminary in Würzburg and was ordained on August 1, 1892. Faulhaber was a priest in Würzburg from 1892 until 1910, serving there for six years. His studies included a specialisation in the early Christian writer, Tertullian. In 1895 he graduated from his studies with a doctorate in theology, and in 1903 he became professor of theology at Strasbourg university. In 1910, Professor Faulhaber was appointed bishop of Speyer and invested as such on February 19, 1911. On March 1, 1913 he was appointed a Knight of the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown by Prince Regent Ludwig; in accordance with the statutes of this order, Faulhaber was ennobled with the style of "Ritter von Faulhaber". In 1916 he won the Iron Cross (as the first clergyman in the German Empire) at the Western Front for his frontline support of troops by acting as a military chaplain. In 1917, his appointment as Archbishop of Munich followed. In 1921 he became a Cardinal, with the title of Cardinal-Priest of Santa Anastasia, and at his death was the last surviving Cardinal appointed by Pope Benedict XV.

Like other German bishops, he felt little loyalty to the Weimar Republic. At the national Catholic conference (Katholiikentag) of 1922 in Munich, he declared that the Weimar Republic was a "perjury and betrayal", because it had arrived through the overthrow of the legitimate civil authorities, the monarchies, and had included in its constitution the separation of church and state. The declaration disturbed Catholics who were committed to the Weimar Republic. Faulhaber had praised the monarchy a few months earlier at the funeral of King Ludwig.

Faulhaber publicised, and supported by creating an institutional link for the association, the work of Amici Israël. He supported the group by distributing its writings, saying "we must ensure wide distribution of the writings of the Amici Israel" and admonishing preachers to steer clear of any statements that "might sound in any way anti-Semitic" - this even though, " he himself was somewhat tainted by anti-Semitic stereotypes that placed Jews in the same category as Freemasons and Socialists." Faulhaber was friends with the group's promoter, Sophie Francisca van Leer; its special aim was to seek changes to the Good Friday prayer and some of its Latin phrases like pro perfidis Judaeis (for the faithless Jews) and judaicam perfidiam(Jewish faithlessness) and sought the cessation of the deicide accusation against Jews. It was dissolved in March 1928 on the decree of the Vatican's Congregation of the Holy Office on the grounds that its perspectives were not in keeping with the spirit of the Church.