Maria Theodor Ratisbonne

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Portrait of Theodore Ratisbonne

Maria Theodor Ratisbonne, born in Strasbourg, December 28, 1802 and died in Paris, January 10, 1884, was a Catholic priest, a distinguished preacher, and writer and the brother of Maria Alphonse Ratisbonne. Owing to the conversion of his friends Emile Dreyfus, Alfred Mayer, and Samson Liebermann, he endeavored to study the Bible and the history of the Church. After two years of study and the workings of grace, Theodore converted from Judaism, and was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1826. Theodore entered a seminary and was ordained in 1830. He became Director of the Arch-confraternity of Christian Mothers. Pope Gregory XVI decorated him a Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester, complimented him for his Life of St. Bernard (St. Bernard of Clairvaux), and granted his request to labor for the conversion of the Jews. He obtained permission from the Pope to work as a missionary around Jerusalem. Theodore established the Order of Our Lady of Sion for the Christian education of Jewish boys and girls. His chief works were an Essay on Moral Education (1828), a Life of Saint Bernard (1841), Meditations of Saint Bernard on the Present and Future (1853), a Manual for Christian Mothers (1860), Jewish Questions (1868), and other works. At his death, Marie Theodore Ratisbonne received the last Sacraments from the Archbishop of Paris, Joseph Hippolyte Guibert, and the final blessing from Pope Leo XIII.