German Rovira

Germán Rovira Tarazona (born April 25, 1931 in Lleida , Spain ) is a Spanish Roman Catholic priest and theologian . He was one of the first Opus Dei members to be sent to Austria and Germany by the founder of the organization to spread his work in German-speaking countries, and he had a particular impact on the structure of Opus Dei in the pilgrimage site of Kevelaer in the diocese of Münster .

Life

After graduating from high school, he attended the military academy of the Spanish Army in Saragossa , where Opus Dei recruited, which he joined at the age of 19. After three years of military service, he was appointed priesthood by Josemaría Escrivá , ended his military career as a first lieutenant and studied philosophy and theology in Saragossa, Toledo , Barcelona and Rome . In 1957 he was awarded a Dr. theol. PhD ; Ordained a priest in Madrid in 1958 .

He was then sent by Escrivá to Austria and worked as a priest and Spanish teacher in Vienna and Graz . In 1961 he came to Germany, where he lived mainly in Opus Dei houses in Cologne , Bonn and Freiburg , worked for a time as a student pastor and taught religion at secondary schools in Homburg , Cologne, Essen and Gelsenkirchen . Since the end of the 1950s he was connected to the priest Richard Schulte-Staade , who was active in the diocese of Münster , who became director of pilgrimages in Kevelaer in 1975 and who arranged for Opus Dei under the Münster bishop Reinhard Lettmann to start the pilgrimage there. Rovira's international contacts made it possible for Pope John Paul II to visit Kevelaer on April 25, 1987 during his second visit to Germany and to host a World Congress of Mariology in Kevelaer in September 1987, in which Mother Teresa and Cardinal Ratzinger , among others, took part and as its General Secretary German Rovira acted.

As co-founder (with Richard Schulte-Staade) and long-time chairman (now: honorary chairman) of the International Mariological Working Group in Kevelaer (IMAK, since 1980 eV ), an institution of Opus Dei, established in 1977, he was co-editor (with Johannes Stöhr ) the Mariological yearbook and issued also by the Mario logical operation circuit periodical Mario Logical (a regular supplement to the journal Theological ) and directed together with Jutta Burggrafenstraße the editorship of IMAK Supplement Josef studies .

Rovira is a member of the International Marian Pontifical Academy . He dealt theologically particularly with the figure of St. Joseph and is therefore sometimes referred to as a " Joseph theologian ". He is the chairman of the IMAK working group for Joseph Studies, which until 2015 published the multi-page devotional sheet Joseph Studies once a year on St. Joseph's Day on March 19, which was enclosed in the newspaper Die Tagespost , which is closely linked to Opus Dei . Until a few years ago he led the annual IMAK meetings, held monthly retreats in Kevelaer and organized and accompanied many pilgrimages to Spain, Italy and the Holy Land .

German Rovira lives in an Opus Dei house in Cologne. He celebrated his 60th anniversary as a priest in 2018 in the inner city parish of St. Pantaleon in Cologne, led by priests of the prelature ; the celebratory sermon was held by the Opus Dei priest and Monsignor Cesar Martinez from Cologne .

family

His parents were Ana María Tarazona Miró and the politician Joan Rovira i Roure , a member of the Catalan Parliament and from 1935 mayor of Lérida . The staunch Catholic and Catalanist belonged to the Catalan right-wing party alliance Front Català d'Ordre , which is affiliated with the CEDA , and was irregularly executed by a people's tribunal in the run-up to the February elections in 1936 , six months before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war , for having carried out a traditional Christmas ride , which was seen as a political demonstration against the left Popular Front (or its Catalan offshoot, the "Catalan Left Front" Front d'Esquerres de Catalunya ). A beatification process as a martyr with victims of the civil war has not been completed.

Germán Rovira grew up with two brothers and an adoptive sister. The brother Juan Rovira Tarazona (1930–1990) also belonged to Opus Dei and worked during the Franco era as a high ministerial official in the Spanish Ministry of Finance; he joined the UCD during the transition period and was Spanish Minister of Health under Adolfo Suárez until 1980 .

Publications

Own writings

• The elevation of man to God. Christian image of God and Christian image of man. Pustet, Salzburg 1979, ISBN 3-7025-0159-2
• The personal right to work. Trinitarian constitution and personal calling. Pustet, Salzburg 1978, ISBN 3-7025-0151-7
• with Joseph Schumacher and Johannes Stöhr: Maria in the mystery of Christ and the Church. A book of faith. With a foreword by Bishop Franz Hengsbach . Naumann, Würzburg 1987, ISBN 3-88567-055-0

Numerous individual publications by German Rovira have been self-published as brochures or paperbacks by the International Mariological Working Group in Kevelaer.

Editorships

• The mother of beautiful love. The devotion to Mary in the life of the Church and Christians. Naumann, Würzburg 1982, ISBN 3-88567-036-4
  (with essays by Anton Ziegenaus , Leo Scheffczyk , Ekkart Sauser , Leo Elders , Franz Courth , Ernesto Corripio , Josef Stimpfle and others)
• The reflection of the Eternal Light. Marian apparitions and images of grace as signs of the power of God. Butzon and Bercker, Kevelaer 1984, ISBN 978-3-76669-342-6
  (with contributions by Remigius Bäumer , Hortense von Gelmini , Laurentino María Herrán, Johannes B. Torelló , Josef Scharbert , Joseph Schumacher and others)
• Maria. Obedience and freedom in the archetype of the Church. Verlag Ursula Zöller, Aschaffenburg 1994, ISBN 978-3-92873602-2 (with contributions by Manfred Hauke , Kurt Krenn and others)
• Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Joachim Cardinal Meisner , Leo Cardinal Scheffczyk: Immaculata. Thoughts on the Immaculate Conception. Fe Medienverlag, Kißlegg 2004, ISBN 3-92892-970-4
• with Richard Schulte-Staade: Joseph von Nazareth. The man in the background. Sankt Ulrich Verlag, Augsburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-86744-001-1

Further anthologies edited by German Rovira have appeared in the series Marianische Schriften of the International Mariological Working Group Kevelaer (Ludgerus Verlag, Essen).

Web links

• Literature by and about German Rovira in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Diamond Jubilee of Dr. German Rovira. In: Kevelaerer Blatt , September 6, 2018, accessed on June 9, 2020.
2. ^ Ulli Tückmantel: Pope John Paul II visits Kevelaer. In: Rheinische Post , September 9, 2013, accessed on August 22, 2019.
3. ^ ^{A b} Martin Willing : John Paul II and Mother Teresa (2). In: same with Delia Evers: Kevelaerer Enzyklopädie , online project, completed in 2014.
4. ^ Peter Hertel : Creeping takeover. The Opus Dei under Pope Benedict XVI. Publik-Forum Verlag, Oberursel 2007, ISBN 978-3-88095-161-7 , p. 120.
5. ↑ Joseph Studies No. 9 (March 2005) (PDF; 625 KB), imprint p. 6.
6. ↑ Information about the publisher on Rovira's book St. Joseph. Father and husband. IMAK, Kevelaer 2005, ISBN 3-928929-75-5 .
7. ↑ Joseph Studies March 2015 (PDF; 2.7 MB), imprint p. 2.
8. ↑ Working group for Joseph studies on the IMAK homepage , accessed on August 22, 2019.
9. ^ Joan Rovira i Roure, el alcalde de Lérida fusilado por organizar la Cabalgata de Reyes in 1936 . In: La Razón , January 6, 2018, accessed June 2020 (Spanish).
10. ↑ Klaus Limburg: Review of: German ROVIRA (dir.), The mother of beautiful love. The devotion to Mary in the life of the Church and Christians. Würzburg, Verlag Johann Wilhelm Naumann, 1982, 221 pp. In: Scripta Theologica 15 (1983), pp. 353-356.