Caspar Riffel was a historian. He studied under Heinrich Klee

Heinrich Klee

Heinrich Klee was a German theologian and Biblical exegete who argued against liberal and Rationalist currents in Catholic thought....

 at Mainz and Bonn and under Johann Adam Möhler

Johann Adam Möhler

Johann Adam Möhler was a German Roman Catholic theologian.He was born at Igersheim in Württemberg, and after studying philosophy and theology in the lyceum at Ellwangen, entered the University of Tübingen in 1817. Ordained to the priesthood in 1819, he was appointed to a curacy...

 at Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

. After his ordination to the priesthood (18 Dec., 1830) he was named assistant priest at Bingen. In 1835 he was appointed to a parish in Giessen, and to the chair of moral theology in the local theological faculty. His transfer to the professorship in Church history followed in 1837.

The publication of the first volume of his Church history in 1841 aroused a storm of indignation among Protestants, to whom his unflattering account of the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 was distasteful. The Hessian

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

 Government hastened to retire him (19 Nov., 1842). This measure caused intense indignation among the diocesan Catholic clergy, who denounced the Protestant atmosphere of the university. Riffel retired to Mainz, where in 1851 Bishop von Ketteler appointed him professor of Church history in his newly organized ecclesiastical seminary.

Publications

• Geschichtliche Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat (Historical representation of the relationship between Church and State), Mainz, 1836;
• Predigten auf alle Sonn- und Festtage des Jahres, Mainz, 1839–40, 3rd ed., 1854;
• Christliche Kirchengeschichte der neuesten Zeit (Recent history of the Christian Church), Mainz, 1841–46;
• Die Aufhebung des Jesuitenordens (The Rise of the Jesuits), 3rd ed., Mainz, 1855.