Peter Abbelen

Father Peter Matthias Abbelen (8 August 1843 – 24 August 1917) was the Roman Catholic vicar general of the Milwaukee Archdiocese and later the spiritual director for the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Milwaukee. Abbelen was born in Germany but moved to the United States.[1]

In 1886, Abbelen petitioned the Vatican to recognise German-speaking Catholic parishes in the United States in parallel to English-speaking parishes mostly filled with Irish immigrant Catholics. Abbelen sought this partly in order to allow for a slower integration into American life and in the belief that it would preserve the faith of German immigrants. The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith did not decide in his favour.[2][3][4]

References

  1. ^ Michael Walsh, ed. (2001). Dictionary of Christian Biography. Continuum. p. 1. ISBN 0-8264-5263-9.
  2. ^ Jay P. Dolan (7 September 2011). The American Catholic Experience. Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. p. 563. ISBN 978-0-307-55389-8.
  3. ^ James Buckley; Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt; Trent Pomplun (18 October 2010). The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism. John Wiley & Sons. p. 197. ISBN 978-1-4443-3732-7.
  4. ^ William Barnaby Faherty (1 January 1991). American Catholic Heritage: Stories of Growth. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-55612-417-4.