Franz Joseph Gebhardt

Cathedral dean Franz Joseph Gebhardt

Franz Joseph Gebhardt, Dombuch, 1930

Franz Joseph Gebhardt (born February 14, 1869 in Lambsheim , † March 20, 1945 in Speyer ) was a Catholic priest , cathedral capitular and cathedral dean of the diocese of Speyer , as well as papal house prelate . For the cathedral jubilee in 1930 he wrote a widespread book about the history of the Speyer bishop's church.

Origin and career

Franz Joseph Gebhardt Joseph was born in Lambsheim, in the Vorderpfalz, and attended the Progymnasium in Frankenthal . During his childhood and youth, the later Cardinal Franziskus von Bettinger worked as his local pastor in Lambsheim (1879-88). He shaped the boy religiously and it is from him that the inspiration for a spiritual profession came from. So Gebhardt came to the Episcopal Konvikt St. Joseph in Speyer and finally studied in Würzburg and Munich. On August 14, 1892, he was ordained a priest from Bishop Georg von Ehrler in Speyer.

From 1892 - 1894 the young priest officiated as chaplain in Zweibrücken , 1894 - 97 as Konviktprefekt in Speyer and from 1897-99 again as chaplain in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse .

From 1899 to 1909, as a prison curate in Zweibrücken, he looked after the prisoners in the prison there. The obituary states that he exercised this office with his own restless zeal and left no stone unturned to lead his protégés back on the “path to God and to return to human society” . Once Gebhardt even obtained the conversion of a death sentence into a prison sentence. At the special request of the prison chaplain, Bishop Ehrler personally visited the prisoners, and his “loving nature made an indelible impression” .

Out of his deep social awareness and his experience in prison chaplaincy, the clergyman also founded the Catholic youth welfare association of the Palatinate in 1905. Together with the priest and member of the state parliament, Jakob Reeb, who - like Gebhardt - had pastored prisoners for many years, he looked for new ways of looking after young people. Both priests knew the suffering of the young people in the penitentiary system of that time, who were not treated differently from the adults. They were convinced that these juveniles who had committed criminal offenses should be given particularly intensive care and that preventive care for young people at risk should avoid delinquency at all. To this end, on September 20, 1905, they invited to founding the Catholic youth welfare association of the Palatinate. He was supposed to create a welfare home to take in stranded young people and an umbrella organization to place young people in host families willing to take them. The initiators Jakob Reeb , Franz Joseph Gebhardt and the poet-priest Fritz Claus formed the board . Well-known personalities such as cathedral pastor Franz Bettinger (later cardinal) and state parliament member Dr. Josef Siben from Deidesheim. For decades, the association and the later-built welfare home in Landau-Queichheim had a very beneficial effect.

1909-13 Franz Joseph Gebhardt administered the labor-intensive city parish of Ludwigshafen- Mundenheim , and on May 1, 1913, he took over the office of prefect at the royal school teachers' college in Speyer. There he judged u. a. a house chapel, which existed until the removal in the 3rd Reich.

The priest became cathedral pastor and was appointed by King Ludwig III. on July 9, 1918 appointed cathedral capitular of the Diocese of Speyer. The obituary states: “The religious life in the cathedral parish took a mighty upswing under his leadership. He developed a tireless activity in all areas of pastoral care, in particular in Catholic club life and in Caritas. ” Franz Joseph Gebhardt remained cathedral pastor until 1927. He then worked in the administration of the diocese, a. a. in the school department. In 1932 Pope Pius XI appointed him . as papal house prelate , on January 4, 1933 as dean of the cathedral . From 1933 until his death, the canon also acted as the first chairman of the board of trustees of the St. Joseph educational home in Landau- Queichheim . The obituaries state that Prelate Gebhardt died on March 20, 1945, at 11 o'clock in the evening, while the battle for Speyer was raging outside, “after a long, severe suffering” , but well prepared.

The circumstances of his burial are tragic, because the corpse remained unburied in the morgue for 10 days as a result of the war events and the occupation of Speyer by American troops on March 24, before cathedral pastor Karl Hofen was finally able to lay him to rest. Domkapitular Hofen had already succeeded Gebhardt as cathedral pastor and he succeeded him in August 1945 in the office of cathedral dean. The pilgrim wrote about the deceased: "A tireless worker, a true priest with a heart full of love and holy zeal, a true son of the Palatinate, in his lively temperament ..."

Franz Joseph Gebhardt (seated far left) in the Holy Land 1904. Group photo with other participants from the Diocese of Speyer.

Special

In 1904 Franz Joseph Gebhardt took part in the “1. Bavarian People's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land ” . In the official memorial book “To the Holy Land from the Isar Beach” there is a photo of participants on page 128, on which Gebhardt can also be seen.

In 1917 he went to Munich for the funeral of his former village pastor, Cardinal Franziskus von Bettinger .

For the cathedral anniversary in 1930, Gebhardt wrote and published a widespread book about Speyer Cathedral. It bears the title: "The Imperial Cathedral of Speyer - Its history, its fate and its meaning, by Cathedral Capitular F. Gebhardt"

Works

• "The Imperial Cathedral of Speyer - Its history, its fate and its meaning, by Domkapitular F. Gebhardt" , Pilger-Verlag, Speyer, 1930

literature

• “The St. Joseph State Education Home in Landau-Queichheim” , Nikolaus Moll, St. Josefs Verlag, Landau-Queichheim, 1935
• “Oberhirtliches Verordnungsblatt” , Speyer, Bischöfliches Ordinariat, No. 3, from May 4, 1945: Obituary .
• The Pilgrim , No. 1, November 4, 1945: Obituary
• "History of the Speyer Teacher Training Institute, 1839-1937" , Fritz Steegmüller, Pilger-Verlag Speyer, 1978, page 91
• “The canons since the re-establishment of the Speyer diocese, in 1817” , Guido Nonn, Speyer Diocesan Archive, 1981, pages 43/44