Frederick Rese was a German-born American Roman Catholic bishop.
Background
Frederick Rese was born on February 6, 1791 in Weinenburg, Hanover, of impoverished parents, John Gotfried Reese and Caroline (Alrutz). The German pronunciation of his father's name was ray-zay, and for some reason, in after life, Frederick, wishing to preserve the original sound, changed the spelling to Rese. He always wrote it with two grave accents, though contemporary documents from the Roman authorities omit them.
Education
He was left an orphan at an early age and was apprenticed to a tailor.
Career
He traveled from town to town, working at his trade.
In 1813 he joined a cavalry regiment and fought throughout the War of Liberation until Waterloo, where he served under Blucher. As a journeyman tailor he worked his way to Rome and here entered the Propaganda as a theological student. Among his intimate friends was count Mastai Ferretti, later Pius IX. Ordained a priest on Trinity Sunday 1822, he volunteered for the African missions. The climate proved detrimental to his health, and about 1824 he returned to Germany and soon answered the appeal of E. D. Fenwick, bishop of Cincinnati, for German priests. Accompanying the bishop to the United States, he became the first German priest in the Northwest.
He lived laborious days, ministering to the German Catholics in Cincinnati, attending German missions throughout the diocese, and engaging in controversies with bitter Lutheran divines. Going abroad in 1829 to enlist German priests for the Middle West, he aroused the interest of distinguished leaders of the Church and of the Austrian empire in the American missions and was instrumental in founding the famous Leopoldine Society of Vienna (named for Archduchess Leopoldine, later empress of Brazil), which contributed generously to the support of German parishes and schools in the United States. His appeal for aid at the Redemptorist monastery at Maria Stiegen encouraged the Redemptorist Fathers to extend their activities to the United States (1833), where the society grew rapidly and established German parishes and institutions in a score of dioceses.
As Fenwick's vicar-general for Michigan-Wisconsin, Rese attended the scattered Indian missions and white settlements as superior of such missionaries as Stephen Badin, Frederic Baraga, and Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli.
Because of his administrative experience and command of languages, he was named first bishop of Detroit and was consecrated by Bishop Joseph Rosati on October 6, 1833. During the next four years he established St. Philip's College at Hamtramck; introduced the Sisters of St. Clare, who temporarily maintained academies at Detroit and Green Bay; completed Gabriel Richard's Church of St. Anne, Green Bay; provided several Indian schools; built Holy Trinity Church in Detroit for English speaking Catholics; and bravely struggled with the growing racial rivalries and trusteeism.
A broken man with a failing mind, he offered to resign or accept a coadjutor in 1837, but the Third Provincial Council of Baltimore referred the matter to Rome. Not until 1841 was a bishop-administrator, Peter Paul Lefevere, appointed. Rese retained his title, however, although the remainder of his life was spent in the seclusion of a Roman monastery and in hospitals at Lappenburg and Hildesheim, Germany. In the latter town he died.