Background
He was born at Brilon, in Westphalia, studied general literature at Paderborn, and theology at Bonn, Tübingen and Munich.
university professor Church historian
He was born at Brilon, in Westphalia, studied general literature at Paderborn, and theology at Bonn, Tübingen and Munich.
University of Bonn.
The friend and pupil of Döllinger, he took his degree of Doctor in Theology at Munich. He was ordained a priest in 1849, and was immediately made chaplain at Cologne. In 1854 he became Privatdozent in the exegesis of the Old Testament in the Catholic Theological Faculty at Bonn.
In 1858 he was made extraordinary, and in 1861 ordinary, professor of theology in the same university.
From 1866 to 1877 he was editor of the Bonner Theologisches Literaturblatt. In 1872 Reusch was excommunicated.
He retired into lay communion, but continued to give lectures as usual in the Old Catholic Faculty of Theology in the University of Bonn, and to write on theological subjects. He was made rector of that university in 1873.
In 1874 and 1875 he was the official reporter of the memorable Reunion Conferences held at Bonn in those years and attended by many distinguished theologians of the Oriental and Anglican communions.
Reusch was a profound scholar and an untiring worker Among his many works were contributions to the Revue internationale de theologie, a review started at Bern at the instance of the Old Catholic Congress at Lucerne. His fame mainly rests on the works which he and Döllinger published jointly.
These consisted of a work on the Autobiography of Cardinal Bellarmine, the Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der Römisch-Katholischen Kirche seit dem XVI. Jahrhundert, and the Erörterungen über Leben und Schriften des hl.
Liguori. During the last few years of his life he was smitten with paralysis. He died in Bonn leaving behind him in manuscript a collection of letters to Bunsen about Roman cardinals and prelates, which has since been published.
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
