Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Blessed Adolph Kolping

Stand In The Gap With Us And Blessed Adolph Kolping 12/10/2023

(8 December 1813 — 4 December 1865) Blessed Adolph Kolping was a German Catholic priest and the founder of the Kolping Association. He led the movement for providing and promoting social support for workers in industrialized cities while also working to promote the dignities of workers in accordance with the social magisterium of the faith.

Adolph Kolping was a priest and before all a social reformer. With the foundation of workers' unions, he laid the foundation for the Kolping Society, today present and active in about 60 countries. The Kolping families are the local unions of this Catholic network - in South Tyrol there are about 16 of them.

The rise of the factory system in 19th-century Germany brought many single men into cities where they faced new challenges to their faith. Father Adolph Kolping began a ministry to them, hoping that they would not be lost to the Catholic faith, as was happening to workers elsewhere in industrialized Europe.

"The first thing that a person finds in life and the last to which he holds out his hand, and the most precious that he possess, even if he does not realize it, is family life."