Ivo pointer

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Ivo Zeiger SJ (born July 29, 1898 in Mömbris , Bavaria , † December 24, 1952 in Munich ) was a Roman Catholic theologian and Jesuit .

Live and act

Ivo Aloysius Zeiger was born as the son of the married couple Karl and Adelheid Zeiger (née Fischer) on July 29, 1898 in Mömbris, Lower Franconia, in house no. His godfather was his mother's brother, Ivo Fischer , who later served as cathedral chapter in the Würzburg diocese.

School time, military service, novitiate, study and ordination

From 1905 to 1910 he attended elementary school in Mömbris, from September 1910 to 1916 the humanistic high school in Aschaffenburg and the new high school in Würzburg. When transferring to high school, he skipped two grades and entered the third grade straight away. In November 1916 he was drafted into military service and in the summer of 1917, already serving in the army, received his Matura.

During the First World War he took part in the Western Front as an infantry soldier (machine gun division) and was wounded twice and honored. In October 1918, just under three weeks before the armistice, he was taken prisoner of war, from which he returned in February 1920. After returning home, he took part in some civil war battles as a free corps fighter and initially studied law for two semesters at the University of Würzburg . There he became an active member of the K.St.V. Normannia Wuerzburg.

On April 5, 1921, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, the order of the Jesuits , in the Upper German province of Feldkirch . From October 1922 he studied philosophy and immediately afterwards theology in Innsbruck. On July 29, 1928, he was ordained a priest by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber in Pullach near Munich. After completing his studies in theology in autumn 1929, he completed a two-year study of canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In July 1931 he received his doctorate in canon law (Dr. iur. Can.) And in the same month as a doctor of theology (Dr. theol.) At the State University of Innsbruck . At the same time he was appointed professor at the newly established chair for legal history of the Gregorian.

Professor and Rector

From July 1931, Father Zeiger was Professor of the History of Canon Law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome , where he lectured and published scholarly publications. He also had a teaching position at the Jesuit Ignatius College in Valkenburg in the Netherlands (today: St. Georgen University of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt am Main). On August 15, 1938, he made his solemn vows in the house chapel of the Ignatius College in Valkenburg. In November 1939, Father General Wladimir Ledóchowski entrusted him with the leadership of the renowned seminary Pontificium Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum . From November 1939 to May 1944 he organized the construction of the new college building in Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino. As rector of the Germanicum, Zeiger u. a. the task of introducing future priests to questions of modern pastoral care in pastoral lectures and at moral theological conferences.

Papal special envoy

After the conquest of Rome by the Allies in the summer of 1944, Pope Pius XII. In his role as Cardinal Secretary of State Ivo Zeiger , who had already got to know personally Ivo Zeiger as an expert on questions of concordat and as an able canon lawyer, had already known Nuncio Archbishop Antonio Riberi to look after German prisoners of war and civilian prisoners in Italy and provided him with Ivo Zeiger as interpreter, negotiator and organizer to the side. Thanks to his diplomatic skills, Zeiger was able to help thousands of prisoners during his trips to the Allied camps in southern Italy in the winter of 1944/45 and to have them released immediately. This remained from Pope Pius XII. did not go unnoticed and confirmed his confidence in the capabilities of Zeiger.

After the end of the war, Pope Pius XII. Ivo Zeiger in September 1945 on a special assignment for a reconnaissance trip to all the bishops of Germany and Austria, in order to establish contact and to report to the Vatican on the situation of the Catholics after the unconditional surrender in both countries. However, Pointer was only able to move relatively freely in the American and French zones. He was granted access to Cologne, in the British zone, for only one day. The Soviet Union refused entry into their zone entirely. One result of the trip was that Zeiger recommended the Pope to install a post in Germany so that he could negotiate directly with the Americans on site.

The Pope immediately followed this advice and so the Vatican Mission was established in Kronberg im Taunus. The Americans had assigned the seized Villa Grosch in Kronberg to the delegation from the Vatican. The castle town had the great advantage that it was not far from the American headquarters in today's Poelzig building in Frankfurt. The Pope called the American bishop of German descent Aloysius Muench as papal visitor to head, because the Americans wanted a compatriot as a contact person. From now on, however, Ivo Zeiger did the majority of the work in the background, such as looking after prisoners, tracing, refugee issues and referring to the occupying powers. Zeiger, because he was very familiar with the sometimes complicated conditions in the Vatican, quickly developed into the most important employee of Muench, whose official task was to take care of the concerns of the Catholic "displaced persons". This is how the Americans used to describe all forced laborers who were deported to Germany by the Nazis and who were unable to return to their home countries directly after the end of the war. But the papal office in Kronberg quickly took care of important concerns of the German Catholics and developed into a central contact point between the German bishops and the Vatican. In addition, constitutions were now drafted in the later German federal states, for whose design bishops and members of parliament asked law professor Zeiger for expert advice. To this end, he drove through all four zones of occupation to countless meetings, discussions and negotiations. The drafting of the legal reports and the extensive correspondence often went well into the night. Furthermore, papal aid deliveries were organized in Villa Grosch for the needy population: from summer 1946 to summer 1949 950 freight wagons, each weighing 17 tons, were sent to Germany with food, clothing, laundry and household items. It was probably u. a. these aid deliveries which prompted Cardinal Josef Frings to describe Ivo Zeiger as the "great benefactor of the German people".

Speech at the Katholikentag 1948 and editor of the "Voices of the Time"

Ivo Zeiger became widely known for his sensational speech on the occasion of the 72nd Catholic Day (the first after the Nazi regime) in Mainz in September 1948. There he put forward the provocative thesis: "Germany is a mission country" in order to refer to the then to point out the difficult situation of the German Catholics.

When the apostolic visitor, Bishop Aloysius Münch, was accredited as a nuncio in 1951 and the Vatican Mission, now elevated to a nunciature , was relocated to Bad Godesberg, Zeiger asked for his dismissal in May 1951 due to his bad health, which the Vatican granted him.

After only ten months, the superiors of the Jesuit order entrusted him with another task that was to be his last. On March 19, 1952, he became editor of the " Voices of Time ", a monthly magazine of the Jesuit order, in Munich . He was only able to fulfill this task for nine months.

Father Ivo Zeiger died in Munich on Christmas Eve 1952.

Immense workload

Not least because of his immense workload, Zeiger suffered a serious heart attack as early as 1951, which forced him to quit his job in Kronberg.

After a heart crisis, Ivo Zeiger died on December 24, 1952 in Munich. His lifeless body was found in the hallway outside his study.

On December 27, 1952, his friend, federal brother and former student at the Gregoriana and in the Germanicum, the Bishop of Würzburg Julius Döpfner, with the assistance of the Archbishop of Munich and Freising Joseph Cardinal Wendel , gave him the Requiem in Munich . Father Ivo Zeiger was buried in the cemetery of the Berchmann College in Pullach near Munich. Although they would have liked to bury him in his birthplace Mömbris, this wish remained unfulfilled for the Mömbris people. In his home community Mömbris, Father Ivo Zeiger was commemorated by naming the elementary school (Ivo-Zeiger-Schule) and the Catholic community center (Ivo-Zeiger-Haus) after him.

Obituaries for the Jesuit Father Ivo Zeiger (selection)

  • Gratefulness of the Holy See for the spiritually valuable, energetic service that you have rendered to the representation of the Holy See there, always guided by enlightened wisdom and full of generous devotion . (Prostate Secretary Montini, later Pope Paul VI. )
  • The great benefactor of the German people . ( Josef Cardinal Frings )
  • The smartest man in the Vatican. (Former Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, letters and talks 1934 to 1945, Stuttgart 1974, p. 122.)
  • He is considered a father, the founder of the Society of Catholic Publicists in Germany . (Jesuit Father Albert Keller , Munich)
  • Probably the greatest son of the market town of Mömbris . (Home nurse Emil Griebel, Gunzenbach)

Fonts (selection)

  • Spiritual becoming and first work of the retreat . Marianischer Verlag, Innsbruck 1925.
  • Cultural change and catholic worldview . Verlag Gerhard Schulte-Bulmke, Frankfurt am Main 1946.
  • The religious and moral situation and the task of the German Catholics . General Secretariat of the German Catholic Days, Paderborn 1948.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Father Ivo Zeiger SJ: His life, told by himself (autobiographical notes 1950) . In: Markt- und Pfarrgemeinde Mömbris (ed.): Father Ivo Zeiger SJ 1898–1952, on the return of the 25th anniversary of his death on December 24, 1977.
  2. ↑ P. Ludwig Volk SJ: Between origin and distance . In: Markt- und Pfarrgemeinde Mömbris (ed.): Father Ivo Zeiger SJ 1898–1952, on the 25th anniversary of his death on December 24, 1977.
  3. ↑ See Theodor Kramer: P. Ivo Zeiger SJ 1898-1952 . In: Würzburger Diözesan-Geschichtsblätter (Ed.): Special print . tape 40 . Würzburg 1978, p. 173-174 .
  4. ↑ P. Franz Hillig SJ: Priests in today's time . In: Markt- und Pfarrgemeinde Mömbris (ed.): Father Ivo Zeiger SJ 1898–1952, on the 25th anniversary of his death on December 24, 1977.
  5. ↑ P. Ludwig Volk SJ: Between origin and distance . In: Markt- und Pfarrgemeinde Mömbris (ed.): Father Ivo Zeiger SJ 1898–1952, on the 25th anniversary of his death on December 24, 1977.
  6. ↑ P. Franz Hillig SJ: Priests in today's time . In: Markt- und Pfarrgemeinde Mömbris (ed.): Father Ivo Zeiger SJ 1898–1952, on the 25th anniversary of his death on December 24, 1977.
personal data
SURNAME Pointer, Ivo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic theologian
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Mömbris , Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1952
Place of death Munich