Amandus Bahlmann

Amandus Bahlmann OFM ( religious name ; actually Johann August Engelbert) (* 8. May 1862 in Essen / Oldenburg ; † 5. March 1939 in Naples ) was a German religious priest , bishop and prelate of Santarém and Founder in Brazil , which as an innovator of the local religious life applies.

Origin and education

Bahlmann came from the Bartmannsholte peasantry and was the son of the teacher Heinrich Anton Bahlmann and his wife Anna Maria Catharina, nee. Meyer. His older brother Bernhard (1859–1916) became a Jesuit and later became better known as a popular missionary . August first received Latin lessons from the clergy in his home parish, then attended the Antonianum grammar school in Vechta , entered the Franciscan order in Harreveld monastery near Lichtenvoorde ( Netherlands ) in 1879 and was given the religious name Amandus . On 25 August 1880 he put his profession from, then studied in Rome philosophy and theology and received on 22 September 1888 in the Lateran Basilica , the ordination .

Act

After brief work in Germany, Bahlmann led the first German Franciscans to Brazil as missionaries in 1891. There he was soon responsible for the revitalization of the Brazilian Franciscan provinces of the German province of Saxonia . Because of his successful work, he was appointed general visitator of the Franciscan provinces in Argentina in 1905 and shortly afterwards also in Bolivia . In these functions his work remained limited, because already on 10 January 1907 he was appointed Pope Pius X to the prelates of Santarém and appointed him on July 10, 1908. Titular Bishop of Argos . On July 19, 1908, Bahlmann received the episcopal ordination in Rome by the prefect of the Congregation for Propaganda Fide , Cardinal Girolamo Maria Gotti ; Co- consecrators were Giovanni Maria Giuseppe Santarelli OFM, Archbishop of Urbino and Giacomo (Alexander) Ghezzi OFM, Bishop of Civita Castellana .

Founding of the order

To intensify pastoral care and social work, Bahlmann founded the Order of the Poor Missionary Poor Clares of the Immaculate in Brazil in 1910, together with the teacher Elisabeth Tombrock from Westphalia , who had been miraculously cured of pulmonary and bone tuberculosis in Lourdes the year before Conception ( Missionsklarissen ), whose first matron was Tombrock. The community's first German monastery was founded in Münster as early as 1915 ; another in 1928 in Wilkinghege near Münster.

Sickness and death

Although he had been ailing for a long time, Bahlmann set off by ship in 1939 for the prescribed ad limina visit to Rome, where Pope Pius XI. had died and the conclave was imminent. By the time the ship reached Naples, Bahlmann was so weakened that he had to be admitted to St. Elisabeth Hospital, where he died on March 5, 1939, three days after the election of the new Pope. His body was first buried in the Franciscan cemetery in Naples and transferred to the Cathedral of Santarém in 1952.

literature

• Clemens Heitmann: Father Amendus Bahlmann OFM (1862-1939). Prelate of Santarém in Brazil. In: The Catholic Clergy in the Oldenburger Land , ed. on behalf of the Bischöflich Münsterschen Officialate by Willi Baumann and Peter Sieve, Dialog-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-937961-32-1 , pp. 208-210.
• Karl Suso Frank : Immaculate Conception of Mary. V. Religious communities. In: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ³, Freiburg 2001, ISBN 3-451-22010-5 , Bd. 10, Sp. 380ff.
• Church handbook for Catholic Germany . Founded by Hermann Anton Krose SJ, Volume XVII: 1930–1931, Gilde-Verlag GmbH, Cologne 1931, p. 71.
• Bernward Willeke: Bahlmann, Amandus. In: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ², Freiburg 1957, ISBN 3-451-20756-7 , Bd. 1, Sp. 1192.

Web links

• Entry on Amandus Bahlmann on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on March 31, 2017.

predecessor	Office	successor
Frederico Benício de Souza e Costa	Prelate of Santarém 1907–1939	Anselmo Pietrulla