Johannes Messner

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Johannes Messner (born February 16, 1891 in Schwaz , Tyrol ; † February 12, 1984 in Vienna ) was an Austrian theologian, legal scholar and economist.

Life

Johannes Messner, brother of the composer and cathedral music director Joseph Messner , attended the humanistic high school Vinzentinum in Brixen after primary school in Schwaz , which he graduated with the Matura in 1910 . He then completed a course of study at the Catholic Theological College there. His interest in social issues was deepened during his studies through the suggestions that Messner received from the future Archbishop of Salzburg, Sigismund Waitz .

On June 29, 1914 Messner was ordained a priest in Brixen, followed by several years of pastoral care as a cooperator in Uderns , Imst , Reutte and Innsbruck . Messner then studied law in Innsbruck from 1919 to 1922 and economics in Munich (1919-1924), each of which he completed with a doctorate.

Messner was an important advisor to the Catholic episcopate as well as to leading Christian-social politicians in the interwar period in Austria. Hence his critical accompaniment to the encyclical Quadragesimo anno by Pope Pius XI. Austrian government under Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss built an Austro-Fascist state and social experiment between 1933 and 1938.

Already at the beginning of the Dollfuss government, Messner systematically referred to the establishment of a professional order supported by class democracy. This order, which for him was not to be equated with the corporate state as a term, he then dedicated a major work of his own in 1936: The professional order .

His influence on the new constitution of authoritarian Austria of May 1, 1934 is not only proven by his friendship with Dollfuss, but also by the lack of the term corporate state in the same, although the Heimwehr and other forces favored this term. Messner repeatedly defended his social realism against fascist tension supporters and thereby rendered Dollfuss and his successor Kurt Schuschnigg a great service. However, through murder (Dollfuss) and occupation (Schuschnigg), they could no longer prove that their professional experiment was really open to democratic developments, not only in the formal sense.

The climax of Messner's socio-political activities in the interwar period were three stations:

  • the official representation of the Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss on April 30th, 1934 (Dollfuss was canceled because of the constitution to be proclaimed on May 1st) with the department The State Will of Catholic Austria
  • his Dollfußbuch in 1935 after the murder of Messner, who was glorified as holy leader
  • the publication of the monthly for culture and politics on behalf of Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg from 1936 to 1938

After his habilitation , the University of Vienna also appointed him associate professor for ethics and social sciences in 1935 . In 1938 Messner lost his professorship through the annexation of Austria , as he had taken a very clear position against Adolf Hitler in the Dollfußbuch .

He fled via Switzerland to England, where he was accepted into the oratorio founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman in Birmingham . The years in England had an important impact on Messner's thinking. In 1949, the work Social Ethics (German version: Das Naturrecht ) was published, initially in English, with a comprehensive overview of all areas of social, political and economic life. Messner first developed the criterion of morality on the basis of the experience-based existential analysis of the human being. The concept of the essential, existential purposes of life is central.

Messner resumed teaching in Vienna in 1949, but only for one semester a year. He used the opportunity to continue working in Cardinal Newman's oratorio in Birmingham until 1965. He declined the opportunity to be appointed to the famous chair for Christian social studies at the University of Münster in 1948 as the successor to Franz Wärme and Heinrich Weber because of the completion of his fundamental work on the "natural law" and in view of his upcoming appointment to Vienna. Messner wrote extensive treatises: the cultural ethics ( 1954) and the ethics (1955). Messner retired in the autumn of 1962. Johannes Messner died on February 12, 1984 in Vienna. He is buried in Schwaz.

Prizes and awards

Beatification process

On October 31, 2002, the process of beatification for the priest and scientist Johannes Messner was opened by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn . The beatification process has not been pursued since November 30, 2015, as, according to the decree to suspend the case by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, “at least one essential element” for continuing the process is not given: “an extensive, continuous and lasting veneration of the servant of God in the Archdiocese of Vienna ”.

Act

The “Johannes Messner Society” endeavors to promote the scientific concerns represented by Johannes Messner (he is considered the founder of the “Viennese School” of natural law ) and the spiritual impulses he emanated. Scientifically, the following people in particular deal with his thinking: Rudolf Weiler , Alfred Klose , Herbert Schambeck , Wolfgang Schmitz , Johannes Michael Schnarrer , Herbert Pribyl .

Works (selection)

  • Social question and social order. Facts and Principles , 1928
  • Social Economics and Social Ethics. Study on the foundation of a systematic business ethics , 1929
  • The Path of Catholicism in the 20th Century , 1929
  • To the catholic-social line of unity. With an escort by Sigmund Waitz , 1930
  • The social question of the present. An introduction , 1934
  • Dollfuss , 1935
  • The social question. An introduction 5., worked through. u. exp. Ed., 1938
  • The teleology in O. Spanns "Fundament der Volkswirtschaftslehre" , 1947
  • The natural law. Handbook of Social Ethics, State Ethics and Business Ethics , 1950 (8th edition, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-428-85576-6 )
  • The Immaculate Heart. Litany and reflections according to Cardinal JH Newman and M. Jos. Scheeben , 1950
  • Contradictions in human existence. Facts, Doom, Hopes , 1952
  • Cultural ethics. Based on principles ethics and personality ethics , 1954
  • The English experiment of socialism. Depicted on the basis of economic facts and socialist personal testimonies , 1954
  • Ethics. Compendium of Overall Ethics , 1955
  • The Christian's Risk , 1960
  • The functionary. Its key position in today's society , 1961
  • The common good. Idea, Reality, Tasks , 1962
  • The entrepreneur in economic and social policy , 1964
  • You and the other. On the meaning of human society , 1969
  • Ethics and society. Essays 1965-1974 , 1975
  • Marxism, Neo-Marxism and the Christian , 1975
  • Class struggle or social partnership? , 1976
  • The ideological positions in today's debate , 1977
  • Development aid and the new world economic order , 1978
  • The state , 1978
  • Brief Christian Social Doctrine , 1979
  • The Magna Charta of the Social Order. 90 years of Rerum novarum , 1981
  • Selected works , 6 vols., 2001–2004

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note: the existential analysis of Messner mentioned here should not be confused with Viktor Frankl's existential analysis , despite the identical name .
  2. ^ Wiener Diözesanblatt, Volume 154, No. 1, January 2016
  3. ^ Johannes Messner Society , accessed on April 12, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Messner, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian theologian, legal scholar and politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwaz , Tyrol
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1984
Place of death Vienna