Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim

Who was Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim?

Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim was an Austrian Catholic Bishop of Trent. Directly after his death he was honoured as a saint; his beatification took place in 1995.

His family had emigrated from the Grisons to the Tyrol in 1529; the Emperor Ferdinand III had given it a patent of nobility in 1620. Johann Nepomuk was ordained priest, 27 July, 1800, by Emmanuel Count von Thun, Bishop of Trent. After spending two years as an assistant priest, he went for further training to Rome, where he was appointed notary Apostolic.

After his return he took up pastoral work again in the German part of the Diocese of Trent, and was later professor of moral and pastoral theology at the episcopal seminary at Trent. In 1810 he became parish priest at Sarnthal, and in 1819 at Meran.

In 1826 Prince-Bishop Luschin appointed him cathedral canon and pro-vicar at Trent; in 1832 Prince-Bishop Galura of Brixen selected him as Bishop of Heliopolis and Vicar-General for Vorarlberg. In 1834 the Emperor Francis I nominated him Prince-Bishop of Trent and on 5 May, 1835, he entered upon his office.

He devoted a considerable part of his revenues to the building of churches, and to the purchase of good books for the parsonages and chaplains' houses. His charity to the poor and sick was carried so far that he was often left without a penny. He left his property to the institution for the deaf and dumb at Trent and to the seminary for students that he had founded, and that was named after him the Joanneum.