SCHROEDER, PETER JOSEPH

Theologian; b. Beek, near Geilenkirchen in the Rhineland, April 26, 1849; d. Wuppertal, Germany, May 3, 1903. He studied at the Gregorian University and was ordained in Rome in 1873. During the kulturkampf, he left Germany to teach in the diocese of Liège, Belgium, first as professor in the minor seminary in St. Trond (1875–87) and then for a short time in the major seminary at Liège (1887). He was appointed (1888) to the seminary in Cologne, Germany, by Abp. Philip Krementz, who wished him to succeed Matthias J. scheeben, who died that year. He had taught at Cologne only one year when Bp. John J. keane, newly appointed rector of the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., invited him to occupy the chair of dogmatic theology there. As a member (1889–98) of the first faculty of Catholic University, Schroeder took an active interest in the German-American Catholic community and its problems. In the school controversy he was uncompromising in his opposition to his colleague T. J. Bouquillon and to Bps. Keane and John ireland (see bouquillon controversy). On resigning from Catholic University, he joined the theological faculty at Münster, Germany. When Münster was raised to university status (1902), he was appointed its first rector, serving in that capacity until shortly before his death. Among his writings are Sur la tolérance de l'Église (1879), Der Liberalismus in Theologie und Geschichte (1881), and Church and Republic (1891).

Bibliography: e. hegel, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 9:497. Chronik der Universität Münster 18 (1904 series). c. g. herbermann, "The Faculty of the Catholic University," American Catholic Quarterly Review 14 (1889) 701–715. h. hecker, Chronik der Regenten, Dozenten und Ökonomen im Priesterseminar des Erzbistums Köln 1615–1950 (Cologne 1952).

[j. p. whalen]