Princess Katharina of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst

Princess Katharina Wilhelmine Maria Josepha of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (19 January 1817 – 15 February 1893) was a member of the House of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst by birth and a member of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Princess consort of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen by marriage.

Early life Princess Katharina was the only daughter of Charles Albert III, Prince of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (1776–1843) by his second marriage to Princess Leopoldine zu Fürstenberg (1791–1844). After the separation of her parents she lived with her mother in Donaueschingen.

Marriages In 1838 she married Franz Erwin, Count von Ingelheim genannt Echter von und zu Mespelbrunn (1812-1845); the marriage was childless. After the death of her first husband, she married in 1848 Charles, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as his second wife. Charles was a widower of Princess Marie Antoinette Murat, niece of Joachim Murat, King of the Two Sicilies, by whom he already had four children. For Katharina, this second marriage was also childless.

Widowhood After Charles' death Katharina entered the convent of Sant'Ambrogio della Massima in Rome as a novice. She made complaint where a cult of personality had developed regarding one of the sisters. She then became seriously ill. Convinced she was being poisoned, she managed to get word to her cousin, Gustav Adolf, Cardinal Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, who immediately removed her from the convent and brought her to his estate, the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, to recover. There she was introduced to the Benedictine monk Maurus Wolter. The princess confided in the monk, who instructed her to report it to the Holy Office. This set in motion an investigation, during which a number of irregularities at the convent came to light.

In 1860 Von Hohenzollern asked the Maurus and his brother Ernst, also a Benedictine, to accompany her on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The princess became sympathetic to their views for the restoration of monastic life in Germany, and had the political and financial resources to assist. The following year, they received permission from their abbot at the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls to found a daughter house in Germany. In 1863, the Wolters established an abbey on the site of a former Augustinian monastery on Hohenzollern land in Beuron.