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.
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,[2] 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.
Her spiritual director, Cardinal Karl-August von Reisach, recommended that she join the Franciscan monastery of Sant’Ambrogio.
Maria Luisa claimed to receive messages from St. Mary, was performing rituals usually allowed only for priests, and slept with several of the novices.
[6] As the investigation proceeded it emerged that Peters alias Kleutgen who as the "spiritual father" of the nuns had been entitled to hear confession in the convent and administer the sacrament of Penance had entered into sexual relations with Maria Luisa, whom he regarded as a saintly person given to visions and divine revelations.
After the opening of the first Vatican council, at the urgent request of several bishops, especially Archbishop Steins, Apostolic Vicar of Calcutta, his Superior General, then Peter Beckx, recalled him to Rome to place his talents and learning at the disposal of the council, and Pope Pius IX removed all ecclesiastical censures.