Francis Joseph Pabisch
Francis Joseph Pabisch [1]
an eminent Roman Catholic scholar and divine, was born at Zlabings, Moravia, March 30, 1825. In his fourteenth year he was sent to the grammar-school of Znaim, and from there to the high-school of Briinn; in 1843 entered the University of Vienna; and in 1847 the archiepiscopal seminary in the same city. In March 1850, he was ordained priest, and was given a chaplaincy near Vienna. In 1851, on the invitation of Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, he came to America, and was placed in charge of Whiteoak, seven miles from Cincinnati. In 1853 he began to give a few hours a week to teaching ecclesiastical history and German in the Seminary of Mount St. Mary's of the West. Later, he studied theology and canon law at the College of the Propaganda in Rome. He was appointed chaplain to the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and after four years of arduous study graduated doctor of theology and doctor of civil and canon law. From 1858 to 1860 he practiced as a jurist to the congregation of the Council of Trent. In 1861 Dr. Pabisch returned to the United States, and on his arrival at Cincinnati was given the chair of ecclesiastical history and canon law at the Seminary of Mount St. Mary's, and in 1863 succeeded to the rectorship. On the financial downfall of that institution, his intellect gave way, and he was taken to the Mount Hope Retreat, near Baltimore, where he died, October 2, 1879. In connection with Reverend Thomas S. Byrne, Dr. Pabisch translated Alzog's Universal Church History from the German (Cincinnati, 1874, 1876, 1878, 3 volumes 8vo), with additions on the history in England and America. See (N.Y.) Cath. Annual, 1881, page 93.
