Johannes von Rönge

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Johannes von Rönge (16 October 1813, Bischofswalde, now Biskupnica - 26 October 1887, Vienna) was an early builder of the Christian denomination of New Catholics.

Johannes von Rönge was originally a Roman Catholic priest in Silesia and a member of the Frankfurt Parliament. He was outraged by the Bishop Arnoldi of Trier's use of his Cathedral's holy artifact (der heilige Rock, "the holy skirt", - the garment which Christ supposedly wore at the crucifixion) - to increase pilgrimage and likewise church revenues. The Bishop had proclaimed that the artifact had healing powers. In response, von Rönge helped form the New Catholics. The first congregation was in Breslau and within less than a year grew to over 8,000 members.

Von Rönge organized the New Catholics as a principally democratic organization. He ended the rule of celibacy for priests, excommunication, oral confessions, indulgences and other practices of the Catholic Church, and he married Berthe Mayer, sister of Carl Schurz's wife, Margarethe. Many churches followed his example and the New Catholics grew rapidly. von Rönge had also garnered support from Robert Blum, a newspaper publisher in Saxony. Blum published writings of the new movement.

Johannes was heavily involved in politics. He was a member of the parliament in Worms. With his view of "rational religion", von Rönge proclaimed "that the sole basis of Christian faith was to be in the Bible, interpreted by each for himself in the light of reason".

They were later forced to change their name from New Catholics to the German Catholics. A Protestant group analogous to the New Catholics was the Friends of the Light. In 1849, these two groups combined to form the Freireligiöse ("free-thinkers") communities.

After the failed revolts, many Freireligiöse went to the United States (where they were known as "Freethinkers") or moved to Canada and South Africa where they acted as missionaries. In 1852, Wisconsin had 32 congregations. Their influence lasted into the early part of the 20th century, but then began to falter. The influence and lasting effect of this German movement remains in the Midwest.

For his actions, von Rönge was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church and lived in exile in London.

While in London, Johannes von Rönge was subject to surveillance by The Police Union of German States. They were also interested in Bertha von Rönge who had returned to Germany in 1858 because her sister, Margarethe Meyer was married to Carl Schurz whom they described as "the keen emissary of the communist connection".

In 1852, Marx and Engels wrote an account of the "forty-eighters", refugees from the failed revolution in Germany, which they entitled, Heroes of the Exile. In it they lampooned and satirised von Rönge of whom they wrote, "he is banal, hackneyed, as insipid as water, luke-warm dish-water" and described him as an "ungainly, sallow, tedious village parson". When not satirising the internecine struggles of the German émigrés they chronicle the establishment of a 'provisional government' which included von Rönge, and their attempts to raise money to overthrow the governments of the German states.

In 1859, the von Rönges moved to Manchester where they opened a kindergarten at which they were joined by Maria Kraus Boelte who later founded with her husband the New York Seminary for Kindergartners. The von Rönge's stay in Manchester was short-lived as they soon encountered hostility from other supporters of the kindergarten who seem to have been hostile to Johannes' unorthodoxy in religious matters. In 1860 they handed over their kindergarten in Manchester to Mrs Fretwell, a Unitarian, and went to Leeds to open another kindergarten.

Ronge's Religion of Humanity described by Stewart and McCann was close to Unitarianism, a religion which appealed to many supporters of the kindergarten in England. He is listed in a biographical dictionary of Unitarians and Universalists.

In 1861, following the granting of an amnesty, Johannes von Rönge returned to Germany where he joined his wife who died in 1863.

The bold movement of the young Catholic priest of Prussian Silesia at one time seemed to promise greater political and religious liberty in Europe. That it failed was due partly to the faults of the reformer, but mainly to the disagreement of the Liberals of Germany upon a matter of dogma, which prevented them from unity of action.^{[citation needed]} von Rönge died in October, 1887.

[edit] Works in English

A practical guide to the English kindergarten with Berthe von Rönge (London 1875)
The autobiography and justification of Johannes von Rönge translated into English by John Lord and (London 1846)
The holy coat of Treves, and the new German-Catholic church (Edinburgh 1845)

[edit] Miscellanea

To Rönge by John Greenleaf Whittier (1846)

This poem was written after reading about Johannes von Rönge's protest against the "pious fraud" of the Bishop of Treves.

Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root
Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.
Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then
Put nerve into thy task. Let other men
Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit
The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal.
Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows
Fall heavy as the Suabian's iron hand,
On crown or crosier, which shall interpose
Between thee and the weal of Fatherland.
Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all,
Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall
Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk
Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk.
Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear
The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear
Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light
Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night.
Be faithful to both worlds; nor think to feed
Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed.
Servant of Him whose mission high and holy
Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the lowly,
Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere,
Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span;
Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here,
The New Jerusalem comes down to man
Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him,
When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb
The rusted chain of ages, help to bind
His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of the mind