Alongside of the steady growth of ultramontanism from the time of the restoration of the papacy in A.D. 1814, there arose also a reactionary movement, partly of a mystical-irenical, evangelical- revival and liberal-scientific, and partly of a radical-liberalistic, character. But all the leaders in such movements sooner or later succumbed before the strictly administered discipline of the hierarchy. The Old Catholic reaction (§ 190), on the other hand, in spite of various disadvantages, still maintains a vigorous existence.
§ 187.1. =Mystical-Irenical Tendencies.=--=J. M. Sailer=, deprived in A.D. 1794 of his office at Dillingen (§ 165, 12), was appointed in A.D. 1799 professor of moral and pastoral theology at Ingolstadt, and was transferred to Landshut in A.D. 1800. There for twenty years his mild and conciliatory as well as profoundly pious mysticism powerfully influenced crowds of students from South Germany and Switzerland. Though the pope refused to confirm his nomination by Maximilian as Bishop of Augsburg in A.D. 1820, he so far cleared himself of the suspicion of mysticism, separatism, and crypto-calvinism, that in A.D. 1829 no opposition was made to his appointment as Bishop of Regensburg. Sailer continued faithful to the Catholic dogmatic, and none of his numerous writings have been put in the Index. Yet he lay under suspicion till his death in A.D. 1832, and this seemed to be justified by the intercourse which he and his disciples had with Protestant pietists. His likeminded scholar, friend, and vicar-general, the Suffragan-bishop =Wittmann=, was designated his successor in Regensburg, but he died before receiving papal confirmation. Of all his pupils the most distinguished was the Westphalian Baron von =Diepenbrock=, over whose wild, intractable, youthful nature Sailer exercised a magic influence. In A.D. 1823 he was ordained priest, became Sailer’s secretary, remaining his confidential companion till his death, was made vicar-general to Sailer’s successor in A.D. 1842, and in A.D. 1845 was raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Breslau, where he joined the ultramontanes, and entered with all his heart into the ecclesiastico-political conflicts of the Würzburg episcopal congress (§ 192, 4). His services were rewarded by a cardinal’s hat from Pius IX. in A.D. 1850. His pastoral letters, however, as well as his sermons and private correspondence, show that he never altogether forgot the teaching of his spiritual father. He delighted in the study of the mediæval mystics, and was specially drawn to the writings of Suso.