SPIEGEL, FERDINAND AUGUST

Archbishop of Cologne; b. Canstein, in Westphalia, Dec. 25, 1764; d. Cologne, Aug. 2, 1835. He was ordained and made dean of the cathedral in Münster (1799), became count of Desenberg (1816) and archbishop of co logne (1824) after Pius VII refused to confirm his nomination to the See of Münster (1813). Spiegel was the last German bishop molded by the Catholic enlightenment and was an intimate friend of wessenberg for a time. Despite this and despite his rearing in the tenets of fe bronianism and his lifelong adherence to moderate episcopalism, he conformed to the ecclesiastical restoration after the Napoleonic period. Spiegel circumspectly reorganized his archdiocese, severely damaged by the secularizations of 1803, and fostered clerical education, religious instruction of the faithful, and timely reforms. He had also a share in the reconstruction of other dioceses. Charges that he was oversubservient to Prussia have been exaggerated. In his dealings with this government his tenacity won many of the church's claims, and his tact avoided conflicts. Only late in life did he go to excess in placating the Protestant state when he made a secret arrangement, with the consent of his suffragans, dispensing with the requirement that Catholic parties in mixed marriages receive a guarantee that all their children would be educated as Catholics, as demanded by Pius VIII (1830). Thereby, he set the stage for the celebrated dispute under his successor, droste zu vischer ing (see cologne, mixed marriage dispute in). The archbishop's favoring of the teachings of hermes, condemned by Rome in 1835 soon after Spiegel's death, permitted these errors to become deeply rooted in Cologne.

Bibliography: h. bastgen, "Erzbischof Graf Spiegel von Köln und der Heilige Stuhl," Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte 39 (1931) 507–605, separately pub. (Freiburg 1932). w. lipgens, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ² 9:965–966.

[r. lill]