{{short description|19th-century Catholic bishop}} {{Infobox Christian leader | honorific-prefix = | name = Peter Joseph Baltes | image = Peter Joseph Baltes.jpg | religion = Roman Catholic Church | title = Bishop of Alton | ended = | consecration = January 23, 1870 | predecessor = Henry Damian Juncker | successor = James Ryan | ordination = May 21, 1853 | birth_date = {{birth date|1827|4|7}} | birth_place = Ensheim, Rhenish Palatinate, Kingdom of Bavaria (now Germany) | death_date = {{death date and age|1886|2|15|1827|4|7}} | death_place = Alton, Illinois, USA | consecrated_by = John Luers | education = College of the Holy Cross<br>Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary<br>Grand Seminary of Montreal | type = Bishop | honorific_prefix = His Excellency, The Right Reverend | appointed = September 24, 1869 | diocese = Diocese of Alton | ordained_by = Ignace Bourget }}
'''Peter Joseph Baltes''' (April 7, 1827 – February 15, 1886) was a German-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as bishop of Alton in Illinois from 1870 until his death in 1886.
==Biography==
=== Early life === Peter Bates was born on April 7, 1827, in Ensheim, Rhenish Palatinate in the Kingdom of Bavaria (today a part of Germany). He was the fourth child of the carpenter and tinsmith Andreas Baltes and his wife Susanna née Walljan. In 1833, the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Oswego, New York.<ref name="catholic">{{cite news|work=Catholic Encyclopedia|title=Alton|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01367c.htm}}</ref>
After attending the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, to study classics, Baltes entered Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. He completed his studies for the priesthood at the Grand Seminary of Montreal in Montreal, Quebec.<ref name="catholic" />
=== Priesthood === Baltes was ordained to the priesthood in Montreal for the Diocese of Chicago on May 21, 1853.<ref name="hierarchy">{{cite news|work=Catholic-Hierarchy.org|title=Bishop Peter Joseph Baltes|url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbaltes.html}}</ref> After his ordination, Baltes returned to Chicago, where he received a pastoral assignment to a parish in Waterloo, Illinois.<ref name="catholic" />
In 1855, Baltes was incardinated, or transferred, to the Diocese of Quincy, with a pastoral assignment at a parish in Belleville, Illinois. While in Belleville, he placed both the local parochial school and the Young Ladies' Academy of the Immaculate Conception under the care of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, He also constructed St. Peter's Church in Belleville.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Clarke |first=Richard Henry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ndw-AAAAYAAJ&dq=Peter+Baltes+bishop&pg=PA190 |title=Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States |date=1888 |publisher=R. H. Clarke |language=en}}</ref> In a reorganization in 1857, Belleville became part of the new Diocese of Alton and Baltes was incardinated there.<ref name=":0" />
In 1866, Bishop Henry Juncker named Baltes as vicar general of Alton. He attended the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore that year with Juncker.<ref name="catholic" /> Following Juncker's death in October 1868, Baltes became apostolic administrator of the diocese. In 1868 or 1869, he persuaded the Illinois General Assembly to pass a law allowing Catholic congregations and institutions to incorporate.<ref name=":0" />
=== Bishop of Alton === On September 24, 1869, Baltes was named the second bishop of Alton by Pope Pius IX.<ref name="hierarchy" /> He received his episcopal consecration on January 23, 1870, from Bishop John Luers, assisted by Bishops Augustus Toebbe and Patrick Ryan as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's in Belleville, Illinois.<ref name="hierarchy" /> As bishop, Baltes quickly instituted a constitution that outline practices with all the parishes.<ref name=":0" />
In 1870, Baltes issued a pastoral letter criticizing the ''Freeman Journal'', a Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper that supported the rights of priests. He said that by allegedly supporting discord between priest and their bishops, the ''Journal'' editors and readers were opening themselves up to divine punishment. Baltes issued another pastoral letter in 1879 that banned Catholics in his diocese from reading newspapers or journals that criticized the Catholic Church. The ban on the ''Freeman Journal'' was rescinded a few years later.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McKenna |first=Kevin E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0g5Bcx6ikqUC&dq=Peter+Baltes+bishop&pg=PA63 |title=The Battle for Rights in the United States Catholic Church |date=2007 |publisher=Paulist Press |isbn=978-0-8091-4493-8 |language=en}}</ref>
Baltes held annual spiritual retreats with his clergy. Contemporary accounts described him as an enthusiastic teacher, a tough disciplinarian and a strong defended of church doctrine. He banned contemporary music from church services, replacing it with the Gregorian chant and Cecilian music.<ref name=":0" /> By the end of his tenure, the diocese included 109,000 Catholics, 177 priests, 126 parishes and 77 missions, 13 hospitals, three orphanages, two homes for the elderly, two men's colleges, a boys' high school, nine girls' academies, and 102 parochial schools with 11,000 students.<ref name="history">{{cite news|work=Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois|title=History of the Diocese of Springfield|url=http://www.dio.org/history-of-the-diocese-of-springfield.html#baltes|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090609080104/http://www.dio.org/history-of-the-diocese-of-springfield.html#baltes|archivedate=2009-06-09}}</ref><ref name=":0" />
In 1878, Baltes went to Germany to visit Ensheim. While there, he celebrated a mass in the Speyer Cathedral in Speyer, Germany.<ref>Jakob Bisson, ''"Sieben Speyerer Bischöfe und ihre Zeit"'', Pilger Publishers, Speyer, 1956. page 191, 192.</ref> In January 1884, 27 nuns died in a fire at the Convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame in Belleville. Baltes attended the funeral mass there, but was too sick to celebrate it.<ref>{{Cite web |title=THE CONVENT VICTIMS BURIED.; IMPRESSIVE FUNERAL SERVICES AND A LARGE CORTEGE OF MOURNERS. |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1884/01/11/106136513.html?pageNumber=5 |access-date=2022-06-14 |website=timesmachine.nytimes.com |language=en}}</ref> Long suffering from diseases of the kidneys, bladder, and liver, Baltes was also unable to attend the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884.<ref name=":0" />
=== Death === In the summer of 1885, Baltes traveled to a resort on the Atlantic coast at his doctor's recommendation. However, he soon became incapacitated and spent two months in hospitals in New York City and Montreal. In September 1885, Baltes was well enough to return to Alton, but then suffered a relapse. He recovered again, but on February 12, 1886, became very ill.<ref name=":0" />
Peter Baltes died from liver disease on February 15, 1886, in Alton at age 58.<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{wikiquote}} {{commonscat}}
* {{cite BDA1906 |wstitle= Baltes, Peter Joseph |volume= 1 |page= 201 |short=}} *[http://www.ensheim-saar.de/ehp_3623.htm Homepage Ensheim Saarland, with picture] *[http://www.datenmatrix.de/projekte/hdbg/biographien/frame_intern.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.datenmatrix.de%2Fcgi-local%2Fhdbg-biographien%2Fsuche.cgi%3Ftempl%3Ddetail%26action%3Ddetail%26id%3D823 House of Bavarian History, with picture (German)]
{{s-start}} {{s-rel|ca}} {{succession box | before=Henry Damian Juncker| title=Bishop of Alton | years=1876–1878 | after=James Ryan }} {{s-end}}
{{Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois}} {{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baltes, Peter Joseph}} Category:1827 births Category:1886 deaths Category:People from Saarbrücken Category:Emigrants from the Kingdom of Bavaria to the United States Category:People from the Palatinate (region) Category:19th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the United States Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Alton Category:College of the Holy Cross alumni