Josef Schoiswohl

Josef Schoiswohl (born January 3, 1901 in Guntramsdorf , Lower Austria , † February 26, 1991 in Vienna ) was a Roman Catholic bishop of the Graz-Seckau diocese .

Schoiswohl's bishop's coat of arms (St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna)

Life

Josef Schoiswohl entered the minor seminary Hollabrunn and graduated on July 10, 1920 at the Federal Hollabrunn . After studying theology and doing his doctorate at the University of Vienna , he was ordained a priest on July 20, 1924 . After that he was chaplain in Kirchberg am Wagram and from 1925 prefect of studies at the boys' seminar in Hollabrunn. In 1930 he became cathedral curate of St. Stephan in Vienna. He was commissioned to set up the finance chamber of the Archdiocese of Vienna , of which he became director on January 1, 1940. From 1942 he was parish administrator in the parish church of Mauer in Vienna, from 1946 pastor there .

On November 11, 1949, he was appointed apostolic administrator of Burgenland , which at that time ecclesiastically belonged to the Archdiocese of Vienna . On June 20, 1951 he was appointed titular bishop of Phytea (Fitea) and on September 2, 1951 he was ordained bishop in Eisenstadt .

On January 18, 1954, he was appointed bishop of the Graz-Seckau diocese as the successor to Ferdinand Stanislaus Pawlikowski . The strict bishop himself was initially considered a conservative. After the Second Vatican Council he became more liberal and granted many freedoms, so that conservative clergymen spoke of the diocese as "Holland in Austria". He convened a permanent council of priests to advise him; Lay people were allowed to have a say in a synod and to act as communion donors. Priestly formation was modernized and collegial leadership was held by a group of progressive theologians. Young priests were allowed to work in groups for three months in Upper Styrian coal mines in order to talk to the miners. The papal primacy was not abolished for him, "but the emphasis on the point, the isolation, the monolithic recedes". He also only saw the beginning of a further development. All of this created tension in the diocese. The apostolic nuncio Opilio Rossi was also a strong adversary in the clergy . In November 1968 Schoiswohl went to Rome unsuccessfully in order to ensure that married former priests should at least be admitted as permanent deacons and religious teachers.

All of this prompted him to submit his resignation, which was approved on November 27, 1968 and became effective on January 1, 1969, but initially remained a secret. It was not until noon on December 31st that he surprisingly announced his resignation, which was also reported on the radio, and left the city. In the evening, to the amazement of the informed audience, a recorded New Year's Eve was broadcast on television. On January 1, 1969, he was appointed titular bishop of Sulletto and on June 10, 1969 titular archbishop of Monteverde .

After his resignation he worked as a pastor in his home community Guntramsdorf, where he was buried.

Josef Schoiswohl had been a member of the Catholic student union K.Ö.St.V. since October 18, 1920. Rudolfina Vienna in the ÖCV .

Awards (excerpt)

• Ring of Honor of the State of Styria

literature

• Maximilian Liebmann:  Schoiswohl, Josef. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 439 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Ekkart Sauser :  Schoiswohl, Josef. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 669-670.

Web links

• Literature by and about Josef Schoiswohl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Josef Schoiswohl on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Archive material with and about Josef Schoiswohl in the online archive of the Austrian Media Library (portrait, interview)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Greetings from it . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1969, p. 90-91 ( online ).