Franz Weiß (pastor)

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Franz Weiß (born July 30, 1892 in Schnaitheim , Oberamt Heidenheim ; † November 2, 1985 on the Liebfrauenhöhe in Ergenzingen ) was a Catholic pastor and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Franz Weiß was the second of a total of nine children in a forest ranger family. He attended the Latin school in Rottenburg , the Konvikt Ehingen and studied Catholic theology in Tübingen . He was a participant in the First World War and was deployed in the foot artillery regiment No. 13 off Verdun from August 9, 1914 . There he was seriously wounded in 1916 by shrapnel and a bullet . But he returned to the front and received several awards. In addition to both classes of the Iron Cross , he received the Bavarian Order of Military Merit . White ended the war with the rank of lieutenant . This and his awards saved him for a long time from being attacked by the Secret State Police during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship .

After the war he returned to the Rottenburg seminary . On July 11, 1920 he was ordained a priest in the local cathedral. Vicar positions followed in Herrlingen-Ehrenstein, Oberndorf am Neckar, Ulm (St. Georg) , and Göllsdorf. On May 2, 1926, Franz Weiß received his first parish in Wäschenbeuren . The focus of his activity as a pastor was the expansion of Caritas, the problems of women workers, youth pastoral care and the liturgical movement. On July 3, 1932, he became pastor in Assumption of Mary in Söflingen .

He planned to set up a secret organization called "acies ordinata" . It was to consist of the approximately 3,000 priests who had participated in the First World War as theology students or clergy. The ulterior motive was that priests with this résumé were temporarily spared from the Nazi regime and could therefore move around more undisturbed. For this purpose he established contacts with Cardinal Michael Faulhaber , Bishop Joannes Baptista Sproll , Clemens August Graf von Galen and other bishops in Germany. He also initiated the apostolic nuncio Eugenio Pacelli , who later became Pope Pius XII, into his plan.

In May 1936, the Württemberg Ministry of Culture withdrew his permission to give religious instruction. On February 22, 1939, the Secret State Police issued an expulsion order from Württemberg, Bavaria and Hohenzollern, among other things for sermons against the racial standpoint of the regime. On June 22, 1939, a trial against Weiß took place before the special court in Stuttgart in Ulm . He was charged with sermons critical of the regime. He was sentenced to one year in prison for violating the pulpit paragraph and the treachery law . When the war broke out, Weiss asked for a graceful suspension of his sentence so that he could serve at the front. On April 12, 1940, he was paroled and expelled. He resigned his priestly service on July 5, 1940 and spent a long time at Lake Constance and in Tyrol. There Father Josef Kentenich asked him to work for the Schoenstatt Movement .

From 1945 to 1951 he was pastor in Illerrieden . From 1951 to 1957 he was the parish priest in St. Georg (Ulm) and later a hospital chaplain in Ulm until 1962. He spent his old age as a chaplain at the Liebfrauenhöhe of the Schoenstatt Sisters in Ergenzingen .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Südwest Presse Ulm: Söflinger Pastor Franz Weiß: Resistance fighters on the pulpit . In: swp.de . July 26, 2017 ( swp.de [accessed July 26, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME White, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES White, Franz Borgias Reinhold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic pastor and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Schnaitheim , Heidenheim District Office
DATE OF DEATH 2nd November 1985
Place of death Ergenzingen