Johannes Bökmann

Johannes Bökmann (born June 24, 1926 in Stettin ; † July 4, 1998 in Rhöndorf ) was a German Catholic moral theologian and an influential theological publicist as the editor of the monthly magazine Theologisches .

Life

Johannes Bökmann was born in Stettin in 1926 and spent his childhood there. In April 1943, before graduating from high school , he was drafted as an air force helper in World War II , and in 1944 as a soldier . He was captured in England and released in the summer of 1945. Then he attended the Collegium Albertinum in Bonn , and then studied theology at the University of Bonn . In 1950 he entered the Bensberg seminary . He was ordained a priest on February 17, 1952.

In the following two years he was chaplain in Düsseldorf-Unterrath . On August 1, 1954, he was released from pastoral care to continue his studies at the University of Bonn with a focus on moral psychology and theology. In 1964 he received his theological doctorate . For the next four years he worked at the moral theological seminar at Bonn University, both as a managing administrator and as a research assistant.

Shortly thereafter, Bökmann became a lecturer at the University of Education in Bonn . However, he had this only briefly held since February 21, 1970, the Archbishop of Cologne appointed him Joseph Hoffner to professor of moral theology at the Seminary of Cologne . Six months later, on August 1, 1970, he was appointed lecturer at the Institute for Teacher Training in Essen , which he remained until 1991.

In 1984 he became professor of moral theology at the late career seminar St. Lambert in Lantershofen . From 1976 to 1979 he was also a judge at the Cologne Officials . He was appointed by the Catholic Office in Bonn as spokesman for the Catholic Church in a hearing in the Bundestag .

In 1980, Bökmann, as successor to Wilhelm Schamoni, took on both the editing and the publication of the theological journal Theologisches , which he held until his death in 1998. Under his leadership, the monthly newspaper became one of the highest-circulation theological journals in Germany. The magazine received praise from the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in 1982 and 1986 .

Bökmann was the correspondent of the Pontifical Roman Academy for Theology . In 1977 he was appointed chaplain to His Holiness .

Publications (selection)

• Tasks and methods of moral psychology , Cologne / Bonn 1964.
• The ethical function of moral criminal law , Cologne 1970.
• Not infallible? On the unsuccessful attack on the unmistakable truth , Abensberg 1981.
• Liberation from the objectively good? From the denied disaster of anti-conception to the liberated ethos , Vallendar-Schoenstatt 1982.

literature

• David Berger :  Bökmann, Johannes. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 18, Bautz, Herzberg 2001, ISBN 3-88309-086-7 , Sp. 224-226.
• Norbert Trippen : The Cologne seminary in the 19th and 20th centuries , Siegburg 1988, p. 218.
• Walter Hoeres : Fortes fortuna adjuvat. Johannes Bökmann on his 70th birthday , in: Theologisches 26 (1996), Sp. 199–207. ( online )

Web links

• Online archive of the magazine Theologisches , including all the issues for which Bökmann was responsible, as well as the obituaries in issue 7/8 1998 and the sermon at the Requiem in issue 9/10 1998