Venerable Franz-Josef Rudigier

Franz Josef Rudigier (7 April 1811 – 29 November 1884) was an Austrian Roman Catholic prelate and served as the Bishop of Linz from his appointment in 1853 until his death. Much of his local diocese grew due to his vigorous in promoting evangelic zeal and fundamental religious principles. He became the intellectual figurehead for Catholics in their struggle with liberalism. He promoted the Christian press and took a visible stand defending the 1855 concordat, when liberals annulled it without papal consultation in 1870. A beatification process for Rudigier was initiated under Pope Pius X in 1905 and he was titled as a Servant of God. The confirmation of his life of heroic virtue allowed for Pope Benedict XVI to name him as Venerable in 2009. Franz Joseph Rudigier was born in the Austrian Empire on 7 April 1811 as the last of eight children to Johann Christian Rudigier and Maria Josepha Tschofen. In 1823 he was sent to learn Latin under his brother Joseph - who had just been ordained as a priest - and then attended college at Innsbruck before deciding to start his studies to become a priest. In 1831 he commenced his studies to become a priest in Brixen and was elevated to the diaconate on 5 April 1835. Rudigier was ordained to the priesthood in Bressanone on 12 April 1835. The new priest was assigned as a pastor at Vandans and then from 1836 to Bürs until 1838 when he moved to the capital of Vienna for further studies at the Frintaneum; in 1839 he was made a professor of church history and canon law at Brixen when he returned there. Rudigier also served as a teacher of Emperor Franz Joseph I and his brother Maximilian I. In 1848 he was made the provost of San Candido and in 1850 the canon of Brixen.