Kurt Koch
Kurt Koch is a Swiss prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been a cardinal since November 2010 and President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity since 1 July 2010, he was the bishop of Basel from 1996 until 2010. Koch was born in Emmenbrücke in the canton of Lucerne, he studied theology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and at the University of Lucerne, graduating in 1975 with a Doctor of Theology degree. He was ordained to the priesthood on 20 June 1982. Koch was appointed Bishop of Basel on December 6, 1995, he received episcopal consecration on 6 January 1996 from John Paul II himself, with Archbishops Giovanni Battista Re and Jorge María Mejía serving as co-consecrators. When a group of Swiss intellectuals and theologians called for John Paul's resignation on 20 May 2004, his 84th birthday, Koch described it as "disgusting and disloyal". In 2006, he supported Muslim's freedom to build minarets in Switzerland, but asked for greater religious freedom for Christians in Muslim countries.
On 27 June 2007, along with several other Catholic prelates, attended a briefing from the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, at the Apostolic Palace on Pope Benedict XVI's forthcoming allowing wider celebration of the Tridentine Mass. In July 2007, Koch defended the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church." He acknowledged that the document could appear hurtful to Protestants. He said the document's reception showed the difference between the ecumenical goals of Catholics and the Orthodox on the one hand and that of Protestants on the other. Koch was President of the Swiss Episcopal Conference from 2007 until 2010, he is a member of the Swiss Council of Religions. Pope Benedict XVI announced the appointment of Koch as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on 1 July 2010, taking over from Cardinal Walter Kasper. Koch was made archbishop as well, he commented: "The Holy Father told me in February, in a personal audience, his desire that I would begin to lead this council.
It is a great joy for me because ecumenism has always been in my heart since in my country, Protestants are close to us and I have had a particular interest in the Orthodox Churches."On 16 October 2010, Pope Benedict appointed Koch as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for a five-year renewable term. On 20 October 2010, Pope Benedict XVI made him Cardinal-Deacon of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore. On 29 December 2010, Koch was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Koch headed the Vatican's delegation to Istanbul, Turkey to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew I, for the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle on 30 November 2010, he co-presided over a meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in Vienna, Austria in September 2010 with Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon. On 4 May 2011 Pope Benedict appointed Koch a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
The five-year term will be renewed until his 80th birthday. In his role as president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Koch spoke to reporters on 16 May 2011, after delivering a speech on Catholic-Jewish relations in light of Vatican II's declaration Nostra aetate on the church's relations with non-Christian religions; the speech followed Koch's participation in a meeting of the doctrinal congregation to examine the latest progress in the Vatican's reconciliation talks with the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X. "There are questions to clarify in discussions with this community. I can't say more than that", he told reporters, echoing a Vatican statement saying the reconciliation talks are ongoing. Koch noted that "All the doctrinal decisions of the church are binding on a Catholic, including the Second Vatican Council and all its texts", Koch said when asked if the SSPX would be expected to accept all the teachings of Vatican II. "The Nostra aetate declaration of the Second Vatican Council is a clear decree and is important for every Catholic", he added.16 May 2012, Koch gave the Pope John Paul II Lecture on Interreligious Understanding at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Koch spoke on the theme of "Building on Nostra aetate: 50 Years of Christian-Jewish Dialogue". On 30 October 2012, Koch stated in an interview that, if Lutherans express a wish for an arrangement similar to the personal ordinariates for former Anglicans, the Catholic Church will have to reflect on it, but that the initiative must come from Lutherans, he was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis. On Saturday, 30 November 2013, Pope Francis named Cardinal Koch a Member of the Congregation for Catholic Education, he was appointed a member of the Congregation for Bishops. Cardinal Koch has been a strong opponent of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics receiving communion. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Tagespost, Koch compared Church leaders who wanted to change the Church's teaching on this issue to German Catholics who tried to adapt their faith to make it compatible with Nazism. "Koch Card. Kurt". Holy See Press Office.
Archived from the original on 13 November 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2017. Catholic-Hierarchy Diocese of Basel
Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach
Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach was the Prince-Bishop of Basel from 1782 to 1794. Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach was born in Zwingen on December 14, 1726, the son of Franz Josef Konrad von Roggenbach and his wife Maria Anna Eva Blarer von Wartensee, he was educated at the Jesuit gymnasium in Porrentruy. He became a canon of Basel Münster in 1742, became its capitulary in 1750. On November 25, 1782, the cathedral chapter of Basel Münster unanimously elected Roggenbach to be the new Prince-Bishop of Basel, with Pope Pius VI confirming his appointment on July 18, 1783, he was consecrated as a bishop by Raymond de Durfort, Archbishop of Besançon, on September 29, 1783. Shortly after Roggenbach's election, revolutionary activity began in the prince-bishopric, encouraged by Roggenbach's auxiliary bishop, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel, a supporter of the sans-culottes; the French Revolution spread into the prince-bishopric, following rioting in Porrentruy, Roggenbach fled the prince-bishopric on April 27, 1792, under the protection of Austrian troops, traveling first to Delémont to Biel, to Konstanz.
On December 17, 1792, the French First Republic incorporated the northern part of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel into a new client state known as the Rauracian Republic. Roggenbach died in Konstanz on March 9, 1794
Reformation
The Reformation was a movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Roman Catholic church – and papal authority in particular. Although the Reformation is considered to have started with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Martin Luther in 1517, there was no schism between the Catholics and the nascent Lutheran branch until the 1521 Edict of Worms; the edict condemned Luther and banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas. The end of the Reformation era is disputed: it could be considered to end with the enactment of the confessions of faith which began the Age of Orthodoxy. Other suggested ending years relate to the Counter-Reformation, the Peace of Westphalia, or that it never ended since there are still Protestants today. Movements had been made towards a Reformation prior to Luther, so some Protestants in the tradition of the Radical Reformation prefer to credit the start of the Reformation to reformers such as Arnold of Brescia, Peter Waldo, Jan Hus, Tomáš Štítný ze Štítného, John Wycliffe, Girolamo Savonarola.
Due to the reform efforts of Huss and others in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Utraquist Hussitism was acknowledged by both the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, although other movements were still subject to persecution, as were the including Lollards in England and Waldensians in Italy and France. Luther began by criticising the sale of indulgences, insisting that the Pope had no authority over purgatory and that the Treasury of Merit had no foundation in the Bible; the Reformation developed further to include a distinction between Law and Gospel, a complete reliance on Scripture as the only source of proper doctrine and the belief that faith in Jesus is the only way to receive God's pardon for sin rather than good works. Although this is considered a Protestant belief, a similar formulation was taught by Molinist and Jansenist Catholics; the priesthood of all believers downplayed the need for saints or priests to serve as mediators, mandatory clerical celibacy was ended. Simul justus et peccator implied that although people could improve, no one could become good enough to earn forgiveness from God.
Sacramental theology was simplified and attempts at imposing Aristotelian epistemology were resisted. Luther and his followers did not see these theological developments as changes; the 1530 Augsburg Confession concluded that "in doctrine and ceremonies nothing has been received on our part against Scripture or the Church Catholic", after the Council of Trent, Martin Chemnitz published the 1565–73 Examination of the Council of Trent in order to prove that Trent innovated on doctrine while the Lutherans were following in the footsteps of the Church Fathers and Apostles. The initial movement in Germany diversified, other reformers arose independently of Luther such as Zwingli in Zürich and Calvin in Geneva. Depending on the country, the Reformation had varying causes and different backgrounds, unfolded differently than in Germany; the spread of Gutenberg's printing press provided the means for the rapid dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. During Reformation-era confessionalization, Western Christianity adopted different confessions.
Radical Reformers, besides forming communities outside state sanction, sometimes employed more extreme doctrinal change, such as the rejection of the tenets of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon with the Unitarians of Transylvania. Anabaptist movements were persecuted following the German Peasants' War. Leaders within the Roman Catholic Church responded with the Counter-Reformation, initiated by the Confutatio Augustana in 1530, the Council of Trent in 1545, the Jesuits in 1540, the Defensio Tridentinæ fidei in 1578, a series of wars and expulsions of Protestants that continued until the 19th century. Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, came under the influence of Protestantism. Southern Europe remained predominantly Catholic apart from the much-persecuted Waldensians. Central Europe was the site of much of the Thirty Years' War and there were continued expulsions of Protestants in central Europe up to the 19th century. Following World War II, the removal of ethnic Germans to either East Germany or Siberia reduced Protestantism in the Warsaw Pact countries, although some remain today.
Absence of Protestants however, does not imply a failure of the Reformation. Although Protestants were excommunicated and ended up worshipping in communions separate from Catholics contrary to the original intention of the Reformers, they were suppressed and persecuted in most of Europe at one point; as a result, some of them lived as crypto-Protestants called Nicodemites, contrary to the urging of John Calvin who wanted them to live their faith openly. Some crypto-Protestants have been identified as late as the 19th century after immigrating to Latin America; as a result Reformation impulses continued to affect the Latin Church well past the end of what is considered the Reformation era. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, date their origins to Jan Hus in the early 15th century; as it was led by a Bohemian noble majority, recognised, for a time, by the Basel Compacts, the Hussite Reformation was Europe's first "Magisterial Reformation" because the ruling magistrates supported it, unlike the "Radical Reformation", which the state did not support.
Common factors that played a role during the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation included the rise of nationalism, the
Prince-Bishopric of Basel
The Prince-Bishopric of Basel was an ecclesiastical principality within the Holy Roman Empire, ruled from 1032 by Prince-Bishops with their seat at Basel, from 1528 until 1792 at Porrentruy, thereafter at Schliengen. The final dissolution of the state occurred in 1803 as part of the German Mediatisation; the Prince-Bishopric comprised territories now in the Swiss cantons of Basel-Landschaft, Jura and Bern, besides minor territories in nearby portions of southern Germany and eastern France. The city of Basel ceased to be part of the Prince-Bishopric after it joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1501; the city of Basel became. 740, continuing the 4th century diocese of Augusta Raurica. In 999, Rudolph III of Burgundy presented the bishop of Basel with the Abbey of Moutier-Grandval, establishing the bishopric as a secular vassal state of Burgundy with feudal authority over significant territories. After the death of Rudolph in 1032, the vassalage was converted to imperial immediacy, elevating the Bishop of Basel to the status of Prince-Bishop, ranking as an ecclesiastical Reichsfurst of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Prince-Bishopric reached the peak of its power during the late 12th to early 14th centuries. In the course of the 14th century, financial difficulties forced the bishops of Basel to sell parts of their territory. During the 15th century, however, a number of politically and militarily successful bishops managed to regain some of the lost territories and Basel began to align itself with the Old Swiss Confederacy as an "associated city". Basel became the focal point of western Christendom during the 15th century Council of Basel, including the 1439 election of antipope Felix V. In 1459 Pope Pius II endowed the University of Basel where such notables as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Paracelsus taught. Following the Imperial Reform of 1495, the prince-bishopric was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle of the Imperial Circle Estates. In the 16th century the city of Basel and its surrounding territory acceded to the Old Swiss Confederacy as the Canton of Basel, it soon joined the Swiss Reformation. The secular rule of the Prince-Bishops from this time was limited to territories west of Basel, more or less corresponding to the modern canton of Jura.
The Prince-Bishopric lost most of its remaining territories to the Rauracian Republic in 1792, retaining Schliengen as its sole dominion. Schliengen was made part of the Margraviate of Baden in the resolution of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, discontinuing the status of the bishops of Basel as secular rulers. By the 16th century, the Prince-Bishopric of Basel comprised: The Prince-Bishopric held the following territories, which were lost before 1527: Landgraviate of Buchsgau Landgraviate of Sisgau Barony of Valangin List of bishops of Basel History of Basel Prince-Bishopric of Basel in German and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
Franz Xaver von Neveu
Franz Xaver Freiherr von Neveu was the last Prince-Bishop of Basel, reigning from 1794 to 1803. After the Prince-Bishopric of Basel was mediatised to the Margraviate of Baden in 1803, Neveu remained Bishop of Basel, though without exercising temporal power, until his death in 1828. Franz Xaver von Neveu was born in Birseck Castle on February 26, 1749, the son of Franz Karl Ignaz Freiherr von Neveu and his wife Maria Sophia Reuttner von Weyl, he served as a page in the court of Simon Nikolaus Euseb von Montjoye-Hirsingen, Prince Bishop of Basel, at Porrentruy, spent 1762-69 studying at the Jesuit gymnasium in Porrentruy. In 1769, he began his studies at the University of Strasbourg. At Strasbourg, he was ordained as a priest on March 15, 1777. In 1789, he became a canon of Basel Münster, he became a member of the cathedral chapter on January 28, 1792. The French Revolution spread into the Prince-Bishopric of Basel, with French troops entering the prince-bishopric in April 1792. Neveu and the rest of the cathedral chapter fled to Arlesheim to Freiburg im Breisgau.
On June 2, 1794, the cathedral chapter elected Neveu to be the new Prince-Bishop of Basel, with Pope Pius VI confirming his appointment on September 12, 1794. At the time of his election, the northern portion of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel had been incorporated into the Rauracian Republic in December 1792; as such, Neveu's temporal authority only extended to Bellelay Abbey, Moutier-Grandval Abbey, Orvin, Biel, La Neuveville, Schliengen. The Treaty of Campo Formio awarded the French First Republic a free hand in Switzerland, on December 14, 1797, French troops occupied the remainder of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel. In 1803, this southern portion of the prince-bishopric was mediatised to the Margraviate of Baden, Neveu lost the last of his temporal power over the prince-bishopric, he remained Bishop of Basel until his death. He died in Offenburg on August 23, 1828
Canton of Aargau
The canton of Aargau is one of the more northerly cantons of Switzerland. It is situated by the lower course of the Aare, why the canton is called Aar-gau, it is one of the most densely populated regions of Switzerland. The area of Aargau and the surrounding areas were controlled by the Helvetians, a member of the Celts, as far back as 200 BC being occupied by the Romans and by the 6th century, the Franks; the Romans built. The reconstructed Old High German name of Aargau is Argowe, first unambiguously attested in 795; the term described a territory only loosely equivalent to that of the modern canton, including the region between Aare and Reuss, including Pilatus and Napf, i.e. including parts of the modern cantons of Berne, Basel-Landschaft, Lucerne and Nidwalden, but not the parts of the modern canton east of the Reuss, which were part of Zürichgau. Within the Frankish Empire, the area was a disputed border region between the duchies of Alamannia and Burgundy. A line of the von Wetterau intermittently held the countship of Aargau from 750 until about 1030, when they lost it.
This division became the ill-defined outer border of the early Holy Roman Empire at its formation in the second half of the 10th century. Most of the region came under the control of the ducal house of Zähringen and the comital houses of Habsburg and Kyburg by about 1200. In the second half of the 13th century, the territory became divided between the territories claimed by the imperial cities of Berne and Solothurn and the Swiss canton of Unterwalden; the remaining portion corresponding to the modern canton of Aargau, remained under the control of the Habsburgs until the "conquest of Aargau" by the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1415. Habsburg Castle itself, the original seat of the House of Habsburg, was taken by Berne in April 1415; the Habsburgs had founded a number of monasteries, the closing of which by the government in 1841 was a contributing factor to the outbreak of the Swiss civil war – the "Sonderbund War" – in 1847. When Frederick IV of Habsburg sided with Antipope John XXIII at the Council of Constance, Emperor Sigismund placed him under the Imperial ban.
In July 1414, the Pope visited Bern and received assurances from them, that they would move against the Habsburgs. A few months the Swiss Confederation denounced the Treaty of 1412. Shortly thereafter in 1415, Bern and the rest of the Swiss Confederation used the ban as a pretext to invade the Aargau; the Confederation was able to conquer the towns of Aarau, Lenzburg and Zofingen along with most of the Habsburg castles. Bern kept the southwest portion, northward to the confluence of the Reuss; the important city of Baden was taken by a united Swiss army and governed by all 8 members of the Confederation. Some districts, named the Freie Ämter – Mellingen, Muri and Bremgarten, with the countship of Baden – were governed as "subject lands" by all or some of the Confederates. Shortly after the conquest of the Aargau by the Swiss, Frederick humbled himself to the Pope; the Pope ordered all of the taken lands to be returned. The Swiss refused and years after no serious attempts at re-acquisition, the Duke relinquished rights to the Swiss.
Bern's portion of the Aargau came to be known as the Unteraargau, though can be called the Berner or Bernese Aargau. In 1514 Bern expanded north into the Jura and so came into possession of several strategically important mountain passes into the Austrian Fricktal; this land was directly ruled from Bern. It was divided into seven rural bailiwicks and four administrative cities, Zofingen and Brugg. While the Habsburgs were driven out, many of their minor nobles were allowed to keep their lands and offices, though over time they lost power to the Bernese government; the bailiwick administration was based on a small staff of officials made up of Bernese citizens, but with a few locals. When Bern converted during the Protestant Reformation in 1528, the Unteraargau converted. At the beginning of the 16th century a number of anabaptists migrated into the upper Wynen and Rueder valleys from Zürich. Despite pressure from the Bernese authorities in the 16th and 17th centuries anabaptism never disappeared from the Unteraargau.
Bern used the Aargau bailiwicks as a source of grain for the rest of the city-state. The administrative cities remained economically only of regional importance. However, in the 17th and 18th centuries Bern encouraged industrial development in Unteraargau and by the late 18th century it was the most industrialized region in the city-state; the high industrialization led to high population growth in the 18th century, for example between 1764 and 1798, the population grew by 35%, far more than in other parts of the canton. In 1870 the proportion of farmers in Aarau, Lenzburg and Zofingen districts was 34–40%, while in the other districts it was 46–57%; the rest of the Freie Ämter were collectively administered as subject territories by the rest of the Confederation. Muri Amt was assigned to Zürich, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Glarus, while the Ämter of Meienberg and Villmergen were first given to Lucerne alone; the final boundary was set in 14
Switzerland
