Francis Werner Hunold

Franz Werner Hunold SAC (born April 8, 1912 in Dittelstedt , † April 16, 2004 in Bangalore ) was a Roman Catholic clergyman, missionary and apostolic administrator .

Life

childhood and education

He was born on April 8, 1912 in Dittelstedt. Since his father was employed as a train driver for the Reichsbahn, the family moved to Erfurt . The father died in a low-flying attack in 1944.

He attended elementary school and then went to the Pallottines in Bruchsal . In St. Paulusheim he did his Abitur and then went to Untermerzbach to the novitiate. There he made his promises and studied philosophy. He went to Salzburg to study theology , where he was ordained a priest on July 11, 1937.

missionary

Because he wanted to become a missionary , he was sent to South Africa in 1938. With the confreres he worked first as a chaplain and then as a pastor in Swellendam . When the province wanted to take over a new mission area in India, he immediately made himself available. In 1949 he left Africa and returned to Germany.

On April 28, 1951, he began his second missionary trip, this time to India. After four weeks, on May 30, 1951, he and Father Lorenz Scheu set foot on Indian soil for the first time in Bombay. He learned Hindi and in 12 years expanded the Kutela mission station into a center of Christian life. His special care went to the indigenous people of India, the Adivasi .

Apostolic Delegate and Administrator

From 1965 to 1969 he headed the young Indian delegation . After his time as a delegate, he was vice delegate, consultor, novice master and rector of various houses. At the same time he was always active in pastoral care.

On September 8, 1975 he was appointed Apostolic Administrator of the newly established diocese of Raipur as successor to Msgr. Weidner . He founded new parishes for the steadily growing number of Catholics. In Raipur he built the St. Joseph Cathedral. On many pastoral trips, including to remote parishes, he strengthened people's faith and solidarity. In 1984 he gave up the leadership of the diocese of Raipur for health reasons.

Age

After a long visit to Germany, during which he a. had to have a pacemaker inserted, he returned to India. He loved the youth. So he stayed with the novices at Pallotti Nilaya in Bangalore . As long as his strength allowed, he took over the pastoral care of the people in the area and was valued as a confessor by many sister communities.

In old age he lived in the house of the Sisters of St. Camillus near the novitiate. Here too he was concerned about the mission and kept in touch with his supporters by letter. The sisters and the daily novices cared for him until he died on Friday April 16, 2004. On April 19, the feast day of St. Werner, his namesake, he was buried in the Pallotti Nilaya cemetery.

Web links

• Biography and pictures (pallottiner.org; PDF; 1.8 MB)