Martin Marty (bishop)

The Most Reverend Martin Marty OSB
Bishop of Saint Cloud
Orders
Ordination	1856
Personal details
Born	(1834-01-12)January 12, 1834 Schwyz, Switzerland
Died	September 19, 1896(1896-09-19) (aged 62) Saint Cloud, Minnesota
Nationality	Swiss
Denomination	Roman Catholic

Martin Marty OSB (Schwyz, Switzerland, January 12, 1834 – Saint Cloud, Minnesota, September 19, 1896) was a Swiss-born Benedictine missionary and bishop in the United States. He was the first Abbot of St. Meinrad Monastery in Indiana, the first Vicar Apostolic of Dakota Territory, where he ministered to the Lakota Sioux; and the second Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Cloud. His zeal for the Indian Missions earned him the title, "The Apostle of the Sioux".

Early life[]

James Joseph Alois Marty was born in the Canton Schwyz, Switzerland, on January 12, 1834,^[1] the son of a shoemaker and church sexton and his wife. Before the age of two, he severely burned his mouth and face in an accident when trying to drink from a bottle of acid in his father's shop. The acid caused swelling that nearly suffocated him; it left his face permanently disfigured.

After graduating from the Jesuit-run gymnasium in his hometown, Marty was granted a musical scholarship to the Jesuit college at Fribourg. There he heard about the work of Jesuit Father Pierre De Smet in western North America, and was inspired to work as a missionary among the American Indians. After the Sonderbund War of 1847, the Jesuit Order was expelled by Switzerland's Anti-Catholic government. The Benedictine Order worked to fill the ensuing educational vacuum. On December 21, 1847, young Marty was enrolled at the Benedictine school attached to Einsiedeln Abbey.^[2]

Monk and priest[]

After graduation, Marty entered the novitiate at the age of 20; he took his final vows on May 29, 1855, taking the name Brother Martin Marty. He was ordained to the priesthood about a year later in 1856.^[2] In 1859, he was assigned a professorship of moral theology.

United States of America[]

In 1860, Abbot Heinrich Schmid von Baar ordered the 26-year-old priest to take over responsibility for the Abbey's debt-ridden daughter house at St. Meinrad, Indiana. Although the assignment was intended to last only one year, Father Marty proved so adept at building up the formerly failing monastery that Abbot Schmid von Baar decided that it was God's will for his young protégé to remain in America. When the conventual priory was established five years later, Marty was selected as the first prior.^[2]

On September 30, 1870, Saint Meinrad was upgraded to an independent Abbey by decree of Pope Pius IX. In January of the following year, Father Martin Marty was elected as its first Abbot. The investiture ceremony the following May was conducted by Bishop de Saint Palais of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana and Abbot Boniface Wimmer of Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

In 1875, Abbot Martin instituted a change in the devotional practice of the St. Meinrad Abbey, substituting the Roman Breviary for the Benedictine Breviary. When this policy caused a major uproar, the dispute was referred to the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome. On March 9, 1876, word reached the Abbot that the Congregation had ruled against him and ordered him to reinstate the Traditional Breviary. Although Abbot Marty immediately obeyed, he would always feel that he had undergone a "temporary defeat" in his dream of drawing the Benedictine Order closer to diocesan clergy, who used the Roman Breviary. His failure would leave him disheartened with life at St. Meinrad and anxious to obtain a new pastorate.

During Marty's tenure as Abbot, he initiated an agreement with the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad (LR&FS), which offered the Order land in Arkansas to establish a monastery and school to serve the German Catholic population the railroad was attracting to the region. The railroad had control of thousands of acres through government subsidies. It granted St. Meinrad Abbey 640 acres (2.6 km²) to establish a Benedictine monastery for monks and an additional 100 acres (0.40 km²) to found a monastery for Benedictine nuns.^[3]

Marty is credited with the founding of St. Benedict's Priory in Arkansas in 1878, with three monks from St. Meinrad Archabbey. An additional monk and eight candidates for the monastery came from Switzerland the following year. This monastery became independent in 1886, as a , and in 1891 it was raised by the pope as an abbey, to be known as Subiaco Abbey.^[3]

Portrait of Bishop Martin Marty, circa 1880s

Dakota Territory[]

In July 1876, Marty departed Indiana by steamer for Standing Rock in Dakota Territory, along the upper Missouri River, where he intended to found a Benedictine monastery to assist the Indian Missions. In August 1879, Marty was appointed Vicar Apostolic of the Dakota Territory; after he was consecrated bishop on February 1, 1880, he resigned the abbacy. Fintan Mundwiler succeeded him as Abbot of St. Meinrad.^[1]

Marty worked among the Lakota Sioux living on the Standing Rock Reservation.^[4] The called him "Black Robe Lean Chief".^[5]

The area was first under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nebraska. As the Dakota Territory had only 12 Catholic priests, Marty actively recruited priests from the eastern U.S. and Europe. In 1880 Marty persuaded Benedictine sisters from Missouri to assist him in ministering at Fort Yates, a center of Yankton Lakota.^[6]

In 1884, he attended the Third Plenary council in Baltimore, Maryland. He served on the committee to establish the Catholic University of America, which was founded in Washington, DC, the capital. Marty was appointed president of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, which oversaw and encouraged efforts in the West.^[7]

Legacy and honors[]

• Marty, South Dakota is named after the bishop.^[8]
• Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota is also named for him.

In his early years in Indiana, Bishop Martin Marty was a pastor of St. Mark's Parish in Perry County. He had blessed what is still the current church building there, and a portrait of him hangs in the church. In 2013 the parish held its 150th anniversary celebration.^[9]

Bishop[]

In November 1889, he was installed as first bishop of the Diocese of Sioux Falls which, at that time, comprised all of the state of South Dakota.^[10] Upon his appointment to the Diocese of St. Cloud in 1895, Bishop Marty was already quite ill. He died the following year at the age of sixty-two.

Quote[]

• "Happy would I be if I could sacrifice for God what Custer threw away to the world."^[11]

References[]

External links[]

• Media related to Martin Marty (bishop) at Wikimedia Commons
• Bishop Martin Marty (in German)