Joseph (or Josef) Wilhelm Karl Kleutgen (9 April 1811 – 13 January 1883) was a German Jesuit theologian and philosopher. He was a member of the Society of Jesus, and contributed significantly to the establishment of Neo-scholasticism. Life Kleutgen was born in Dortmund, Westphalia. He began his studies with the intention of becoming a priest, but owing to the Protestant atmosphere of the school which he attended, his zeal for religion gradually cooled. From 28 April 1830, to 8 January 1831, he studied philology at the University of Munich. He was intensely interested in Plato's philosophy and the Greek tragic poets. As member of the fraternity Germania he came under prosecution after political revolts in Munich that were inspired by the July Revolution in France. He fled to Jena. In this state he was about to enter upon a secular career, but in Easter 1832 he entered the theological academy of Münster, indicating a decisive turn in his convictions. During the preceding years he had imbibed certain ideas from Lessing's and Herder's writings, which he could not reconcile with the Christian faith. After several weeks of internal conflict he betook himself to prayer, and to his astonishment many of his difficulties vanished at once; the remainder disappeared gradually. After two terms at Münster he went to the seminary at Paderborn, where he was ordained subdeacon on 22 February 1834. With the Prussian police attempting to arrest him due to his involvement in the 1830 revolts and also in order to evade military service, he went to Switzerland. On 28 April he entered the Society of Jesus at Brig, Switzerland, and, to avoid any trouble with the Prussian Government, he became a naturalized citizen in one of the Swiss cantons, and changed his name to "Peters". After his ordination to the priesthood in 1837 he was professor of ethics in Fribourg, Switzerland, for two years; he then taught rhetoric in Brig from 1840 till 1843. In 1843 he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the German College, Rome. In the political unrest of the 1848/49 Revolution in Rome, Jesuits were in danger, so Kleutgen alias Peters lived undercover. He later admitted to having had a sexual relationship with the woman with whom he had shared a flat, Alessandra Carli. Career During his residence in Rome and the vicinity (1843–74), besides pastoral work and the composition of his principal writings, he was