The Leopoldine Society, William Unterthiner, and the Tyrolean Friars in the United States

Abstract

Abstract At the invitation of Bishop John Baptist Purcell, Wilhelm Unterthiner, a Tyrolean Franciscan priest, came to Cincinnati in 1844 to minister to German-speaking Catholics. For eighteen months he worked with Francis Louis Huber, a Bavarian Franciscan priest, at Holy Trinity Parish in Cincinnati, aided financially by the recently established Leopoldine Society. Significant international tensions arose; they both had to deal with major opposition from the growing Nativist movement, fueled in part by émigrés from the failed revolutions of 1848. This article is based on letters exchanged between Unterthiner and Franciscan superiors in Tyrol. After Unterthiner successfully recruited more friars from Tyrol, a new form of Franciscan life emerged under changed circumstances. The issues of inculturation and becoming a world church will be addressed in this article.