Josef Clemens Maurer

Cardinal Maurer on a visit to Germany in 1981

Coat of arms as a cardinal

Josef Clemens Cardinal Maurer CSsR (born March 13, 1900 in Püttlingen , Saar, † June 27, 1990 in Sucre , Bolivia ) was Archbishop of Sucre .

Life

Josef Clemens Maurer was the youngest child of the miner Peter Maurer (1855–1923) and his second wife Angela, b. Clement. Born in poor conditions, the pious parents early wished that the youngest member of the family should become a priest.

The family had contact with the Redemptorist monastery in Téterchen , Lorraine ; the father himself took part in a retreat there. Josef Clemens' older brother Peter was accepted into Téterchen in 1910 and later moved to Bertigny , Switzerland . Josef Clemens also traveled to Bertigny in 1912, the day after his first communion . He stayed there until he graduated from high school , then he came to the religious house in Landser near Mulhouse in Upper Alsace . He made his temporary vows on September 10, 1921 in Trois Epis in Alsace , and was perpetually vowed on September 19, 1924.

In Echternach in Luxembourg studied Maurer philosophy and Catholic theology and received there on 19 September 1925, the sacrament of Holy Orders . In 1926 he was sent to Bolivia as a missionary . Maurer initially carried out his mission on foot and on horseback, in later years by jeep or by plane across Bolivia. In 1933 Josef Clemens became a superior mason of the San Juan de Dios monastery in La Paz . In April 1938 he himself founded the San Martin Monastery in Potosí . From 1939 to 1944 he worked as a superior and pastor in Tupiza . On March 23, 1944, Maurer was appointed Provincial of his order in the Vice Province of Bolivia, which then comprised Chile , Peru , Ecuador , Colombia and Bolivia. After Maurer had visited all of his 21 monasteries in the vast province, he flew to Rome in February 1950 to report.

There Pope Pius XII. Inform Maurer that he would like to appoint him titular bishop of Cea and auxiliary bishop in La Paz . Maurer initially refused, but then agreed, so that Pius XII. appointed him to the named offices on March 1, 1950. The episcopal ordination received his Adeodato Giovanni Piazza Cardinal OCD on April 19 of that year in Rome. Co-consecrators were Curia Archbishop Francesco Beretti and the former bishop of La Paz , Auguste Sieffert CSsR.

On October 27, 1951, he was appointed Archbishop of Sucre , the oldest diocese of Bolivia. The seminary there was destroyed by an earthquake in 1948 ; many houses and churches were in a desolate state. Social unrest, which culminated in the revolution of 1952, was added. Again Maurer exchanged the bishop's seat for the saddle and rode through the towns and villages of his diocese. The need in Bolivia prompted the Catholic priests in Maurer's home community of Püttlingen to initiate aid to Bolivia in the diocese of Trier in 1959 . It became the nucleus for the church aid organization Adveniat . As a symbol of this partnership, a replica of the Trier market cross was erected on the Sucre market square.

Maurer participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council as a council father.

On June 26, 1967, Pope Paul VI took him . as cardinal priest with the titular church Santissimo Redentore e Sant'Alfonso in Via Merulana in the College of Cardinals .

In Bolivia, Maurer's concern was primarily with the Indians . All of the country's presidents since the early 1950s asked Cardinal Maurer to mediate in crisis situations. The cardinal kept his distance from the governments and thus retained respect for the common people. Cardinal Maurer founded a settlement agency in Sucre, which today bears his name as Fundación Cardenal Maurer , and promoted social housing for the poor. From 1971 to 1989 the factory built 263 single-family houses for Indios.

In 1978 he took part in the two conclaves in August and October . On November 30, 1983, Pope John Paul II accepted the 83-year-old's resignation, which had been submitted for reasons of age. The fact that he remained in office for so long beyond the 75th year of life stipulated in the Codex iuris canonici can be explained as a great appreciation on the part of the Popes for his work.

The cardinal died on the morning of June 27, 1990; about 90,000 people said goodbye to the body laid out.

Appreciation

In 1951 Maurer was accepted into the Légion d'honneur on the proposal of the French Prime Minister Robert Schuman ; In 1955 he received the large Federal Cross of Merit with a star, later with a star and shoulder ribbon. In 1967, José Clemente became a bricklayer from Pope Paul VI. elevated to cardinal. He was the first cardinal of Bolivia. Cardinal Maurer made his home community of Püttlingen an honorary citizen in 1967 ; In mid-July 1978 he received the Saarland Order of Merit from Prime Minister Dr. Franz-Josef Röder. The University of La Paz awarded Cardinal Maurer an honorary doctorate in 1975 ; in the same year he was honored as an honorary canon of the Trier cathedral . The state of Bolivia honored him with its highest order.

In order to continue the work of Cardinal Maurer, the Cardinal Maurer Society was founded on November 3, 1994 in the Heilig Kreuz Monastery in Püttlingen on the initiative of Arthur Schmidt (the cardinal's former secretary on his trips to Germany and husband of the cardinal's great niece, Hildegard Schmidt) . The founding board consisted of the then mayor Rudolf Müller, publisher Herbert SA Blaes, the former publisher Heinz Balzert, dean Willi Heckmann, master baker Klaus Konrad, bank director Rüdiger Sutor and Arthur Schmidt as chairman. After the sudden death of the founding chairman Arthur Schmidt, the textile merchant Hans-Walter Bremerich was elected as the company's new chairman. The work of the society is supported by Father Otto Strauss, to whom the cardinal placed the management of the settlement work shortly before his death in April 1990. This work was constituted as a foundation under the name “Fundación Cardenal Maurer”. The mission of the Cardinal Mason Society is to promote the religious and social legacy of the cardinal in collaboration with the Fundación Cardenal Maurer in Bolivia. His hometown Püttlingen celebrated the 100th birthday of the honorary citizen in 2000 with two fortnightly celebrations.

Picture gallery

• Josef Clemens Maurer in Bonn, 1960
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

literature

• Commemorative publication on the occasion of the Silver Bishop's Jubilee of Cardinal José Clemente Maurer, Bolivia 1975
• Gudula Overmeyer: Dr. Josef Clemens Cardinal Maurer CSsR. Archbishop of Sucre. Primate of Bolivia. Püttlingen 1989
• Bruno Sonnen / Eugen Reiter: On the way in Bolivia , Trier 1995
• Joseph Clemens Cardinal Maurer (1900–1990). Mediator between the continents. Published by the Kardinal-Maurer-Gesellschaft, Trier 2000 (there numerous images)
• Josep M. Barnadas: El Cardenal Maurer de Bolivia. Sucre 2000.
• Joachim Conrad :  Mason, Josef Clemens. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 952-956.

Web links

Commons : Josef Clemens Maurer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Josef Clemens Maurer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Josef Clemens Maurer in the Saarland biographies
• Entry on Josef Clemens Maurer on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ Announcement of awards of the Saarland Order of Merit . In: Head of the State Chancellery (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Saarland . No. 33 . Saarbrücker Zeitung Verlag und Druckerei GmbH, Saarbrücken August 4, 1978, p. 697 ( uni-saarland.de [PDF; 225 kB ; accessed on May 29, 2017]).