Hohenlohe, Alexander Leopold Franz Emmerich

prince of a Hungarian Roman Catholic bishop, was born near Waldenburg Aug. 17,1794. His mother, baroness Judith de Reviczky, destined him for the clerical life, and after studying at the Academy of Berne, and the seminaries of Vienna, Tyrnau, and Elwangen, he was ordained priest in 1816. In the same year he made a journey to Rome, where he associated much with Jesuits, and finally joined their Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1819 he returned to Germany, and settled in Bavaria, where his birth and fortune soon procured for him a high position. His reputation is chiefly due to his pretended power to cure diseases in a miraculous way. He is said to have made cures in the hospitals of Würzburg and Bamberg. But the authorities at last interfered, and even the pope himself advised Hohenlohe to abstain from these pretensions, and the prince finally left Bavaria for Vienna. He next went to Hungary, and was made bishop in partibus of Sardica in 1844, and abbot of the convent of St. Michael of Gabojan. During the Revolution of 1848 he was driven from Hungary. and he went to Innspruck, where the emperor of Austria then resided. In Oct. 1849, he went to Vienna to visit his nephew, count Fries, who had just decided to become a priest. He died at his house Nov. 17,1849. The renown which Hohenlohe gained by his cures was not confined to his own country, but extended to England, Ireland, and even to our country, where the case of Mrs. Ann Mattingly, of Washington, D. C., who was said to have miraculously recovered of a tumor. March 10, 1824, in consequence of his prayers, caused considerable excitement. The prince ceased these practices many years before his death, at least publicly. Various theories have been propounded to account for the cures attributed to him: the most rational is that which assigns them to the power of the imagination over so called nervous disorders. His principal works are Der im Geiste der kathol. Kirche betende Christ (Bamberg, 1819; 3rd edit. Lpz. 1824): — Des katholischen Priesters Beruf Würde u. Pficht (Bamb. 1821): — Was ist d. Zeitgeist (Bamberg, 1821), an attempt to show that none but a good Roman Catholic can be a good and loyal citizen, addressed to Francis of Austria and Alexander of Russia: — Die Wanderschift einer Gött suchenzden Seele, etc. (Vienna, 1830): — Lictblicke und Ergebnisse aus d. Welt ut. dem Priesterleben (Ratisbon, 1836); a number of sermons, etc. His posthumous works were published by Brunner (Ratisbon, 1851). See Paulus, Wundercuren z. Würtzb. u. Bamb. unternommen durch. M. Michel u. d. Pr. 5. Hohenlohe (Lpz. 1822); Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte d. neuest. Zeit, p. 321; Real-Encyklop. f. d. Kathol. Deutschl. 5, 434 5 (gives a full account of his works); Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 19, 653 sq.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé 24, 914.