Felix Genn

Bishop Felix Genn at a service on June 28, 2009 in the parish of St. Dionysius Recke

Felix Genn (born March 6, 1950 in Burgbrohl ) is Bishop of Münster . From 2003 to 2009 he was Bishop of Essen .

Life

Felix Genn grew up in Wassenach am Laacher See . After graduating from the Kurfürst-Salentin-Gymnasium in Andernach in 1969 , he entered the Trier seminary and studied Catholic theology in Trier and Regensburg until 1974 . On July 11, 1976, he was ordained a priest by the Trier Bishop Bernhard Stein in Trier , after which he was chaplain in Bad Kreuznach until 1978 . From 1978 to 1985 he was Subregens at the Episcopal Seminary in Trier. He was born on June 29, 1985 at the Trier Theological Faculty with a patrological dissertation entitled Understanding the Church Office in its Relation to the Theology of the Trinity with Augustine to Dr. theol. PhD . He was then a spiritual director at the same seminary until 1994 .

From 1994 to 1997 he was a permanent lecturer for Christian Spirituality at the Trier Theological Faculty . In parallel, he was by Bishop Hermann Josef hospital as a pilgrimage leader for the preparation and implementation of Trier Holy Robe - pilgrimage called the 1996th In 1997 he was appointed Regens at the St. Lambert Study House in Lantershofen Castle .

On 16 April 1999 appointed him Pope John Paul II. To the titular of uzalis and auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Trier . On May 30th of the same year, the Bishop of Trier Hermann Josef Spital donated him the episcopal ordination . Co- consecrators were Auxiliary Bishop Alfred Kleinermeilert from Trier and the Bishop of Osnabrück , Franz-Josef Bode . From then on, Genn was responsible for the Saarland visitation district.

Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Essen on April 4, 2003. On July 6, 2003, he was solemnly inducted into office on Burgplatz. In the course of the financial restructuring of the diocese , a future concept for the diocese was presented under Genn in 2005, according to which there should be only 43 parishes with 7,500 to 40,000 Catholics in the Ruhr diocese at the end of 2008; 96 churches are closed in this process. In addition, the vicariate general was reduced considerably and the entire “middle level” was dissolved.

On December 19, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him . after the election of the Münster cathedral chapter as successor to Bishop Reinhard Lettmann as Bishop of Münster; the ceremonial inauguration and canonical occupation took place on March 29, 2009. Until then he headed the diocese of Essen with the rights and duties of a diocesan administrator .

In his sermon at the plague and fire procession on July 7, 2013, Genn complained that the EKD's guidance on the family “put all forms of partnership on the same level without distinction”.

In 2013, Genn was appointed to the Congregation for Bishops in Rome as the only German (and the only one who does not have the rank of archbishop or cardinal) .

In December 2018, Genn called for the statute of limitations for sexual abuse to be abolished and perpetrators to be punished more severely. The background was the case of a priest in the diocese who had sexually harassed adults several times and relapsed, although expert assessments had forecast the opposite.

Motto and coat of arms

Coat of arms of Bishop Felix Genn as Bishop of Essen

Genn's motto is: Annuntiamus vobis vitam (“We proclaim life to you”) and comes from 1. John . ( 1 Joh 1,2 EU )

Coat of arms as the bishop of Essen

Blazon : "Split and divided at the back, in front in silver a red-armored, half black eagle at the gap, at the top in green a six-pointed golden star, below in gold a left-slanting, three-branched, green olive branch, everything covered with a blue, left-slanting wave bar."

The eagle, which is the symbol of the Evangelist Johannes , also refers to the coat of arms of Wassenach, Felix Genn's home parish: Bishop Genn is superior of the priestly branch of the Johannesgemeinschaft , a secular institute founded in 1945 by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar . Furthermore, the eagle is an iconographic saint attribute of St. Augustine , about which Bishop Genn wrote his dissertation in 1985 with the title "Trinity and Office with Augustine". The six-pointed gold star symbolizes an invocation of the Mother of God Mary as the star of the sea and refers to the diocese coat of arms of Essen, in which the star is also located. The blue wavy bar from the upper left quarter to the lower right half of the coat of arms represents the course of the Ruhr and refers to the popular name "Ruhrbistum". The green olive branch in gold refers to the bishop's motto “We proclaim life to you” and refers to the story of the Flood: The dove sent by Noah brings a green olive branch back to the ark as a sign of new life.

Coat of arms as the bishop of Munster

New coat of arms as the bishop of Münster

Blazon: "Square, in fields 1 and 4 in gold a red bar, in field 2 in blue a red-armored and red-tongued, silver eagle , in field 3 in green a seven-year golden sheaf." Marks : green priest's hat with 1/2/3 Tassels, a golden lecture cross behind the shield. Motto Annuntiamus vobis vitam

Declaration of coat of arms: The heraldic redesigned coat of arms shows the gold-red-gold Münster diocese coat of arms in fields 1 and 4, another field (2) shows a silver eagle on a blue background, on the one hand the heraldic animal of the Eifel community of Wassenach, on the other hand an attribute of the evangelist Johannes and symbol of the community of John to which the bishop belongs. A fourth field shows a golden bundle of ears of corn in green, which shows Genn's family roots in agriculture.

Both coats of arms are timbred (marked) with a green hat and on both sides six green tassels of a cord, which identify the bearer of the coat of arms as a bishop.

Memberships

Roman Curia

Congregation for Bishops (since 2013)

German Bishops' Conference

Commission for Spiritual Professions and Church Services (member since 2004; chair since 2008)

Honors

Honorary citizen of Wassenach in the Eifel (2010)
Dome of Honor Chapter of the High Cathedral of Trier
Dome of Honor at the cathedral church of the Ruhr Diocese of Essen
Dome of Honor at the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in Troyes, northeastern France

Fonts

Trinity and office according to Augustine , dissertation, Einsiedeln 1986
Construction and departure , Trier 1997
Because that's what I came to do , Trier 1997
Plain belief. A bishop poses unvarnished questions , Freiburg 2007
The world would be missing something. Pastoral impulses from the spirit of the retreat , Würzburg 2008
The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus: Spiritual impulses on the occasion of the International Year of Priests , Münster 2010