Alois Wiesinger

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Alois Wiesinger O.Cist. (* June 3, 1885 in Pettenbach , Upper Austria ; † January 3, 1955 in Schlierbach , Upper Austria) was abbot of Schlierbach Abbey .

Alois Wiesinger shortly after his inauguration

Youth and early coinage

Alois Wiesinger was born not far from Schlierbach, in the Magdalenaberg parish . His father was a day laborer and died early. Poverty shaped his youth. After graduating from the Stiftsgymnasium Kremsmünster , he joined the Cistercian monastery in Schlierbach in 1905 . After studying theology for three years in Innsbruck, he was ordained a priest in 1909. He studied for three more years in Innsbruck and received his doctorate in 1912.

He became a cooperator in the Melk parish of Traiskirchen. In 1914 he took over the lectures in fundamental theology at the Institutum Theologicum of the order in Heiligenkreuz .

In the summer of 1914 he traveled to the Eucharistic Congress in Lourdes and was detained in France because of the outbreak of war. As a priest, he was allowed to spend the next nine months in French Trappist monasteries until April 1915. In these monasteries he personally got to know the monastic life of the Cistercians of the strict observance. He received the book L'ame de tout Apostolat from the Trappist abbot Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard von Sept-Fons , which then significantly influenced Wiesinger's spiritual direction. Wiesinger's German translation of Chautard's work was published in 1921 under the title Innerlichkeit, the secret of success in apostolic work. The German version is still published today.

Two years after his return - he had again become a theology professor in Heiligenkreuz and at the same time pastor in Gaaden - he was elected 14th Abbot of Schlierbach on July 24, 1917 after the death of Abbot Gerhard Haslroither . At 32 he was the youngest abbot in Austria and got to work dynamically.

The monastic life of the Trappists, as he had got to know it in France, was now a model for the young abbot in many ways, if not in everything. Abbot Alois expressly affirmed the external activities of a monastery. He led the monastery to its largest ever workforce (over 50); a total of 126 men entered between 1917 and 1955, 64 of them remained for life.

Reintroduction of lay brothers

Abbot Alois Wiesinger in the Schlierbach library

In 1925 there were 21 priests, 4 clerics and 2 lay brothers (also called conversations) in Schlierbach. In 1938 there were 27 priests, 12 clergy, 2 novices and 29 lay brothers. In the Austrian monasteries, the tradition of lay brothers was not very pronounced because the monks worked almost exclusively in pastoral care and therefore had to be priests. The start of a conversation institute came in 1921, when Wiesinger sent two novice lay brothers to Sankt Ottilien in Bavaria to visit the novitiate there. They soon multiplied. Other monasteries in Austria followed Schlierbach's example until the Second World War interrupted this development. The Schlierbach lay brothers were employed in the dairy, among other things, where a lay brother took care of the construction after the First World War . Brothers were sought-after contributors to missionary initiatives because they used their practical skills, replaced costly wage laborers, worked diligently, and emphasized the religious emphasis of the initiatives.

school

The founding of the school was accelerated by the transfer of the Trappist Father Sebastian Müller, who had started to teach some boys in Latin. On July 1, 1925, the Schlierbach Chapter decided to found a school. The Schlierbacher Gymnasium started with seven students on September 20, 1925. In October 1925 the General Chapter of the Order decided to promote missionary initiatives and so the school was continued with this concern and temporarily called the Sacred Heart Mission College . The initiator should be Müller, not Wiesinger. Once again, the Benedictines of St. Ottilien, who ran a successful school in the spirit of mission, served as a model. In 1932 the Schlierbach School was granted public rights. The first Matura was awarded to 20 graduates in 1934. Wiesinger remained director and professor until his death, although the school was closed during the Third Reich (from 1938 to 1947); he was in Brazil. More than 450 graduates have emerged from the school, of which 75 took up a spiritual profession.

mission

Wiesinger was known in the order for his missionary zeal and soon became General Procurator of the Cistercian Order for missionary affairs. In 1925 he brought the concept of mission to the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order. In 1928 Apolo was founded in Bolivia by Wilhering Abbey . In May 1928 Spring Bank in Milwaukee (USA) was bought. Wiesinger mediated between Abbot General and the Vietnamese monastic community of Phuoc-Son in 1929 , so that they could be incorporated into the order in 1933. It was not until 1938 that the Schlierbacher Konvent was founded: Wiesinger's confreres took over pastoral care in the Jacobina parish (Brazil) , which was as large as the province of Upper Austria .

Social question

Wiesinger's appeal to the workers, 1948

Abbot Alois Wiesinger was confronted with Catholic social teaching while studying at the University of Innsbruck . He received the decisive impetus for his social reform ideas in 1912 as a chaplain in the workers' parish in Traiskirchen . It was here that he met Anton Orel , the pioneer of the Christian working-class youth from Vienna. Orel's anti-capitalist theses and their justification convinced Wiesinger so much that from then on he dealt in detail with the social question. He published his criticism of capitalism in the Linzer Volksblatt as early as 1914 as Dr. Norikus . At that time he was a professor in Heiligenkreuz . He clearly rejected the materialistic orientation and the attempt of the socialists to solve the social question through the back door of common ownership of the means of production.

"Materialism and Christianity are incompatible" wrote Wiesinger in his work "Operism". After a thorough analysis of the economic systems of that time, capitalism and socialism, he developed a concept to solve the social question and published his thoughts in the manifesto: "1848 - 1948 workers of the fist and forehead unite! - An appeal to the workers of the world by Abbot Wiesinger "(Linz 1948); as well as in the monograph: "Der Operismus - An Exposition of the Principles of Christianity to Solve the Social Question" (Linz 1947).

Abbot Wiesinger called operism an economic and work system that is both Christian and socially oriented. This system ties in with the papal social encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo anno and contains ideas that John Paul II also formulated in his social encyclical Laborem exercens . Wiesinger sees his way of operism as a third way, which is neither capitalist nor socialist. Hence the red abbot label that was attached to him is misleading. Alois Wiesinger called for the economic system to be redesigned so that the focus is on the working person. He should have advantages from the economic process and above the matter, i. H. the neuter production factors. His concept of the working man knows no class antagonisms and no class struggle.

He was well aware that the social question could ultimately only be resolved politically. He therefore called for extensive legislation to protect working people as part of the state's regulatory policy. He also stated that the church's mandate to impart eternal salvation to people is only possible if the social question is taken up and resolved. The church is therefore obliged to continuously draw attention to unjust economic and social conditions and to demand solutions.

The social question accompanied Wiesinger through his whole life. He often wrote newspaper articles about it; In 1948 his comprehensive work Operism was published .

War-related departure and return to Schlierbach

Abbot Alois Wiesinger's prayer card on the occasion of 30 years of Abbot's consecration, 1947

On January 6, 1939, the abbot traveled to Brazil via Rome to work there as a missionary with his confreres. The departure was caused by his opposition to National Socialism, as he had to expect imprisonment soon.

He was suspected of espionage by the people who were agitated when Brazil entered the war, he was threatened with stoning and lynching, and on the journey from Jacobina to Jequitibá he was also thrown from the train.

When the war ended, he returned to Schlierbach in 1946. Jequitibá was able to develop further. In 1950 it was elevated to an abbey.

Stained glass

After the Second World War, Father Petrus Raukamp, ​​a former glass painter who had entered the monastery in 1926, began again with this handicraft in Schlierbach. Because of the bombing raids during the war, his brother had glass stocks moved from Linz to Schlierbach. Since Father Petrus' brother had no children, Abbot Alois took the opportunity to have Upper Austrian stained glass continued through the monastery, thereby creating a culturally and economically important business for the monastery.

Works

  • To Manila. Loose leaves from the trip to the Eucharistic Congress (Linz 1937).
  • Jean-Baptiste Chautard: Inwardness - The soul of all apostolates , edited by Abbot Dr. Alois Wiesinger SOCist, new edition Verlag Fassbaender 1997.
  • Memoirs . Transferred from R. Stieger. Manuscript in the Schlierbach Abbey Archive (they may be subject to the archive lock).
  • Operism (Linz 1947).
  • Workers of the fist and the forehead, unite. 1848-1948 , An appeal from Abbot Alois Wiesinger (Linz 1948).
  • On Plato's view today, in: Festschrift on the 400th anniversary of the Benedictine upper secondary school in Kremsmünster (Wels 1949).
  • How does the Catholic react to occult apparitions? , in: Neue Wissenschaft (1953).

literature

  • Frey, Nivard: Alois Wiesinger. Abbot, missionary, scientist. In: Upper Austria. Life pictures for the history of Upper Austria, Vol. 2 (Linz 1982) pp. 179–191.
  • Großl, Lothar: Church and social question. Wiesinger's contribution to Catholic social teaching. In. Cistercienser-Chronik 94th vol. (1987) pp. 164-176.
  • Keplinger, Ludwig: Abbot Dr. Alois Wiesinger, in: 49th Annual Report of the Schlierbach Abbey High School, 1985/86 (1986) pp. 5-9.
  • Keplinger, Ludwig: 50 years of Schlierbach high school (Schlierbach 1975).
  • Pleasants, Helene (ed.): Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.
  • Pranzl, Rudolf (Mag. Noricus): Notes on a lexicon article by Prof. Sauser (Trier) about Abbot Alois Wiesinger OCist (1885–1955), in: Cistercienser-Chronik, 106th year (1999) issue 3, p. 363– 369
  • Pranzl, Rudolf: The "resumption of missionary activity" in the Cistercian order. The suggestion by Abbot von Schlierbach, Alois Wiesinger and his contribution to the preparation. Diploma thesis at the Univ. Innsbruck 1992, typed.
  • Pranzl Rudolf, in: Lexicon for Theology and Church, Volume 10, Column 1163, 2001³
  • Pranzl, Rudolf: Abbot Dr. Alois Wiesinger OCist, monk and missionary, educator and scientist (1885–1955), in: Fascinating figures of the Church of Austria, ed. by Jan Mikrut, Vol. 10, Vienna 2003, pp. 377-412.
  • Resch, Andreas: Occult Phenomena: Parapsychological Studies of Abbot Alois Wiesinger, in: 49th Annual Report of the Schlierbach Abbey High School, 1985/86 (1986) pp. 10-14.
  • Stachelberger, Alfred: Abbot Dr. Alois Wiesinger OCist. Pioneer of a cultural, societal and social reform. Vienna 1983. 21 p., 2 sheets (Vienna Catholic Academy, Working Group for Church History and Vienna Diocesan History. Miscellanea NR 171).
  • Schachenmayr, Alkuin Volker , formative professors in the development of theological teaching in the Cistercian monastery Heiligenkreuz from 1802 to 2002, Langwaden 2004 (on Abbot Alois Wiesinger, see pp. 171–182).
  • Ekkart Sauser :  Wiesinger, Alois. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 13, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-072-7 , Sp. 1106-1108.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pranzl, Rudolf: The "resumption of missionary activity" in the Cistercian order, p. 90.
  2. ↑ Pranzl, Rudolf: The "resumption of missionary activity" in the Cistercian order, pp. 75–76.
  3. ↑ Kepplinger, Ludgwig: 50 Jahre Stiftsgymnasium, pp. 8-16.
  4. ↑ Pranzl, The "Resumption of Missionary Activities" in the Cistercian Order, pp. 92–122.
personal data
SURNAME Wiesinger, Alois
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian monk, abbot of Schlierbach Abbey
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Pettenbach (Upper Austria)
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1955
Place of death Schlierbach (Upper Austria)