John James Maximilian Oertel
John James Maximilian Oertel (April 27, 1811 – August 21, 1882) was a German‑American journalist and clergyman. He was born in Ansbach, Bavaria, and grew up Lutheran. He studied theology at the University of Erlangen and was ordained after five years. In 1837 he came to New York with the Evangelical Missionary Society of Barmen to promote irenic theology. Dissatisfied with the Lutherans in New York, he went to Missouri in 1839 to see Bishop Martin Stephan, but soon returned to New York. In 1840, under William Quarter’s guidance, he converted to Catholicism. He published a pamphlet in March 1840 describing his reasons for becoming Catholic, which attracted much attention.
After his conversion, he taught German at St. John's College, Fordham. He later moved to Cincinnati, where he edited the German Catholic weekly Wahrheitsfreund. In 1846 he went to Baltimore and founded the weekly Kirchenzeitung, the leading German Catholic publication in the United States. He moved the paper to New York in 1851. In 1869 he published Altes und Neues. In 1875 Pope Pius IX made him a Knight of St. Gregory for his service to the Church and Catholic literature. Oertel died in Jamaica, New York, in 1882.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:58 (CET).