Bronislaw Dembowski

Bronislaw Dembowski

Bronisław Jan Maria Dembowski (born October 2, 1927 in Komorowo , Masovian Voivodeship , Poland ; † November 16, 2019 in Włocławek ) was a Polish clergyman , theologian and Roman Catholic bishop of Włocławek .

Life

Bronisław Dembowski was the youngest of five children. His father died at the age of ten; In 1942 his mother and one of the sisters were shot in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Dembowski joined the Polish Home Army and was a participant in the Warsaw Uprising . He then moved to Mościce near Tarnów , where he graduated from high school in 1946. From 1946 to 1950 he studied philosophy, among others with Władysław Tatarkiewicz , at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Warsaw. For a year he worked as a tutor at the Institute for the Blind in Laski.

In 1950 he joined the Warsaw seminary and received after his theological studies on August 23, 1953, the ordination by Stefan Wyszynski , the Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw . He was initially a chaplain in the Piastów parish . From autumn 1955 he studied at the Philosophical Faculty of the Catholic University of Lublin, where he received his doctorate in theoretical philosophy in 1961. From 1956 to 1992 he was rector of St. Martin's Church in Warsaw's old town and chaplain of the Franciscan Sisters who had a religious house there. He was one of the organizers of the national pastoral care for the blind and pastor of the blind in the Archdiocese of Warsaw until 1975.

From 1962 Bronisław Dembowski taught the history of philosophy at the Catholic Theological Academy (Akademia Teologii Katolickiej (ATK); since 1999 Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw ). He completed his habilitation in 1969 and was appointed assistant professor at the ATK a year later. In the same year he began to give lectures on the history of philosophy at the Warsaw seminary. In 1981 he became associate professor and in 1990 full professor. From 1982 he was dean of the Catholic Theological Academy, which in 1988 became the Papal Theological Faculty. In 1969/70 and 1975/76 he completed academic stays abroad in the USA. In 1988 Dembowski took part in the Polish Round Table as one of the observers from the church side and thus accompanied the transition phase from the communist regime to the democratic republic of Poland . During martial law in Poland from 1981 to 1983 , he supported numerous fellow citizens in the sanctuary of St. Martin's Church in Warsaw.

Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Włocławek on March 25, 1992. The Archbishop of Gniezno, Henryk Muszyński , donated him episcopal ordination on April 20 of the same year; Co- consecrators were Józef Cardinal Glemp , Archbishop of Warsaw, and Bohdan Bejze , Auxiliary Bishop in Łódź . His motto was Caritas et Veritas . On March 25, 2003, John Paul II accepted his resignation due to reasons of age.

He campaigned for theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Old Catholic Church of the Mariavites . Until 2014 he was the national chaplain and member of the International Services of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (ICCRS). In 1976 he founded one of the first renewal groups of the charismatic movement in Poland called “Maranatha” in Warsaw .

honors and awards

• Home Army Cross (1996)
• Partisan Cross (1996)
• Order of Polonia Restituta (Grand Officer) by Lech Kaczyński (2015)
• Komandoria Missio Reconciliationis for its commitment to international understanding

Web links

• Entry on Bronisław Dembowski on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ diecezja.wloclawek.pl: Zmarł biskup senior Bronisław Dembowski. November 16, 2019 (Polish)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Dominik Gołdyn: Biskup Bronisław Dembowski nie żyje. W ciężkim stanie trafił do szpitala on wiadomosci.radiozet.pl from November 16, 2019 (Polish)
3. ↑ ^{a b} Zmarł bp Bronisław Dembowski. Uroczystości pogrzebowe - 23 listopada on episkopat.pl from November 16, 2019 (Polish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Henryk Muszyński	Bishop of Włocławek 1992–2003	Wiesław Mering