Archbishop Gregor von Scherr (1804–77) of Munich.‘As a Christian, as a
theologian, as a historian, as a citizen’, he left no room for doubt,‘I cannot
accept this doctrine.’^14 This refusal soon led to his excommunication on 18
April 1871.^15
While many thereafter wanted to cast him as a new‘Luther’, Döllinger
refused to play the role, making clear in private correspondence that Dante
and Erasmus were instead the examples whom he desired to follow as
loyal critics of the church.^16 While the so-called German Old Catholic (alt-
katholische) movement (those who dissented from the papal decrees of
Vatican I) took inspiration from Döllinger, he refused officially to join their
ranks, but quietly accepted his excommunication, although feeling it was
unjust, a badge of shame to the church. For the remainder of his life, he devoted
himself to ecumenical concerns and quiet scholarly pursuits, meeting his end
in 1890.^17
‘UNIVERSITIES, THEN AND NOW’(1866):
IMMEDIATE CONTEXTIn 1866, Döllinger delivered his address‘Universities, Then and Now’at the
University of Munich. Several points about its immediate context merit
consideration.
First, this was a rectorial address (Rektoratsrede), a German academic
tradition whereby the chosen rector of the university gives a lecture on an
important topic, whether timely or timeless. The title‘Rector’was an addition
to Döllinger’s many other titles, which included Professor of Church History,
Provost (Stiftsprobst) of the Royal Church, and university librarian. In Rome,
both critics and friends called him informally the‘first doctor of Germany’
(primus doctor Germaniae)—an allusion to Philipp Melanchthon’s moniker as
1988), 23, and Hubert Wolf (ed.),Römische Bücherverbote: Edition der Bandi von Inquisition und
Indexkongregation, 1814– 1917 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2005), 353.(^14) Döllinger to Archbishop Gregor von Scherr (28 March 1871), in Döllinger (ed.),Briefe und
Erklärungen über die vaticanischen Decrete, 1869– 1887 (Munich, 1890), 91.
(^15) Bischof,Theologie und Geschichte, 233ff.
(^16) See, e.g., the cartoon (by Thomas Nast) of Döllinger as‘The Luther of the Nineteenth
Century’in the American journalHarper’s Weekly, 15 July 1871, 648. Döllinger is depicted as a
common priest with hammer in hand prepared to smite an image of the doctrine of Papal
Infallibility and the Jesuit order, which championed this doctrine at the time of the First Vatican
Council.
(^17) Bischof,Theologie und Geschichte, 306ff. On the German Old Catholics, see C. B. Moss,The
Old Catholic Movement: Its Origins and History, 2nd edn (London: SPCK, 1964) and Johann
Friedrich von Schulte,Der Altkatholicismus: Geschichte seiner Entwicklung, inneren Gestaltung
und rechtlichen Stellung in Deutschland aus den Akten und andern authentischen Quellen
dargestellt(Giessen: Verlag von Emil Roth, 1887).
Ignaz von Döllinger and the University 225