Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne

Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne (May 1, 1814, Strasbourg, France - May 6, 1884, Ein Karem, Jerusalem) was a French Jew who converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary. 
==Biography==
Alphonse Ratisbonne was born to Auguste and Adelaide (Cerfbeer) Ratisbonne, :: Ecce Homo Convent >> History ::a family of Jewish bankers in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine. His father was the president of the Consistoire of Alsace. Encyclopedia Judaica, Ratisbonne Brothers, Volume 13, pp.1570-1571, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972 Alphonse was the youngest of nine children. When his brother Theodore converted to Catholicism and was ostracized by the family, Alphonse renounced religion as a whole. Encyclopedia Judaica, Ratisbonne Brothers, Volume 13, pp.1570-1571, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972
==Religious conversion==
After studying law in Paris, Alphonse joined the family bank and announced his engagement to his 16-year old niece. In January 1842, before the marriage took place, he traveled to Rome for a pleasure trip. On January 20, eleven days after a powerful religious experience in which a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared before him at the Church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, he converted to Catholicism. Encyclopedia Judaica, Ratisbonne Brothers, Volume 13, pp.1570-1571, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972 At his baptism, he added Marie to his name. In June 1842, he entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained as a priest in 1848. 
==Missionary work== 
In 1850 he engaged in mission work among convicts in Brest. Two years later, with authorization of the Jesuit Superior General, Jan Philipp Roothaan, and the blessing of Pope Pius IX Mondésert, Claude, Les religieuses de Notre-Dame de Sion, Lyon, Lescuyer, 1956, p.21 he left the Society of Jesus to join his brother Théodore and the 'Pères de Sion' in Paris. In 1855, he moved to Palestine where he spent the rest of his life. Encyclopedia Judaica, Ratisbonne Brothers, Volume 13, pp.1570-1571, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972 In 1858, he established the Convent of Ecce Homo in the Old City of Jerusalem for the Sisters of Sion. Encyclopedia Judaica, Ratisbonne Brothers, Volume 13, pp.1570-1571, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972 In 1860, he built the Convent of St. John on a hilltop in Ein Karem, then a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. In 1874, he founded the Ratisbonne Monastery, now a Salesian study center in Jerusalem's Rehavia neighborhood.Ratisbonne Monastery Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne died in Ein Karem on May 6, 1884 and is buried in the cemetery of that convent.
==Published work==
*Monument à la gloire de Marie (1847) Encyclopedia Judaica, Ratisbonne Brothers, Volume 13, pp.1570-1571, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972 
==Bibliography==
* MONDESERT, Claude: Théodore et Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, (3 vol.), Paris, 1903-1904.
* MONDESERT, Claude: Les religieuses de Notre-Dame de Sion, Paris, 1923.
* EGAN, M.J.: Our Lady's Jew: Father Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, Dublin, 1953.
* GUITTON, Jean: La conversion de Ratisbonne, Paris, 1964.
==References==
==External links==
*The conversion of Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne
*Notre Dame de Sion in Ein Kerem (the convent of Saint John in Montana), Israel (multilingual)
*Catholic Encyclopedia: Maria Alphonse Ratisbonne
*New Catholic Dictionary
Category:1814 births
Category:1884 deaths
Category:French Jews
Category:Christian missionaries in Palestine
Category:French Roman Catholics
Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism
Category:Converts to Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism
Category:French Christian missionaries
Category:Former Jesuits
de:Alphonse Ratisbonne
eo:Alfonso Maria Ratisbona
fr:Alphonse Ratisbonne
it:Alphonse Marie Ratisbonne
he:אלפונס רטיסבון
ru:Ратисбон, Альфонс