Johann Kilian Bächtiger

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Johann Kilian Bächtiger (* 23. June 1850 in Mosnang ; † 25. August 1922 in St. Iddaburg in Kirchberg ) was a Swiss priest , the healings were rumored.

biography

education

Bächtiger attended secondary school in Bütschwil and then transferred to the St. Georgen Episcopal Boys' Seminar in St. Gallen to attend high school . He then studied at the College "Maria Hilf" in Schwyz philosophy and from the winter semester 1872/73 at the Bishop's Lyceum Eichstaett theology . In Eichstätt he joined the Swiss Student Association . From autumn 1876 he stayed in the seminary of St. Georgen in St. Gallen and received on 17 March 1877 in St. Gallen, the ordination .

Pastoral activity

In the year of his ordination he became vicar in Hemberg , but in the same year he moved to Bruggen as chaplain , where he remained until 1879. In the fall of 1879 he returned to Hemberg as a pastor . From 1884 he led groups of pilgrims to Lourdes , for the 30th time in 1913; from 1885 to 1923 he was President of the "Association of Lourdes Pilgrims". From November 1886 he officiated as pastor in Tübach . Most recently he was a pilgrimage priest from 1907 on St. Iddaburg near Kirchberg, where he also worked as a publisher of a pilgrimage. He died there after a stroke and was buried under the auspices of the Church.

Bächtiger's example shows a certain type of popular piety : He was considered a “priest of blessings”, ie a priest whose blessing was said to have a special healing power. That is why a great many people turned to him: “Many years 15 to 20,000 people sought help from him personally or in writing.” Already during his chaplain years in Bruggen, he was said to have healed his blessings and exorcisms . As pastor of Hemberg, he continued his blessings and exorcisms until he received an episcopal exorcism ban. As pastor of Tübach, he received complaints from an episcopal ban on any treatment of the sick with threatened excommunication in 1891/92 ; from 1894 there was no longer any ecclesiastical resistance to him. He “healed physical illnesses through his pious prayer, his steadfast trust in God and through the means that the Church puts in the hands of the priest: blessed water and oil, the blessing of the sick and incantation (exorcism). He did not heal through hypnosis, sympathy, or even superstitious things. He helped by encouraging the sick to have great faith in God. "

Honor

Unprinted articles

In VA 8 unprinted articles by Bächtiger have been preserved in the manuscript department of the Eichstätt University Library, including:

  • A word about teaching
  • Under certain conditions the compensatio occulta is not unjust

literature

  • St. Galler Tagblatt from December 1883 (Incidents in the St. Anna Chapel in Hemberg).
  • Schweizerische Kirchenzeitung (1922), p. 290.
  • HJ Dietrich: History of the Kirchberg / St. Gallen. E. Kalberer, Bazenheid 1952 (with portrait illustration on plate 72).
  • Franz Xaver Enzler: Blessing Pastor Bächtiger. Life picture of pastor Johann Kilian Bächtiger 1850–1922. Wendelins-Verlag, Einsiedeln 1965, 95 pages with illustrations.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://immaculata.ch/archiv/iddaburg1.htm
  2. ↑ Quotation from the Swiss Church newspaper 1922, p. 290
  3. ↑ Quotation from: Enzler, Blessing Pastor Bächtiger, p. 30
personal data
SURNAME Bächtiger, Johann Kilian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bächtiger, Kilian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss priest who was said to have been healed
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Mosnang , Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1922
Place of death St. Iddaburg near Kirchberg , Canton St. Gallen, Switzerland