Joseph Widmer

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Joseph Widmer (born August 15, 1779 in Hochdorf ; † December 10, 1844 in Beromünster ) was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian and university professor .

Life

Joseph Widmer was the son of the farmer Joseph Widmer and his wife Maria, geb. Leu; he grew up on their Waldispühl estate in Hochdorf. His uncle was the National Councilor Johann Jakob Widmer .

He was prepared for grammar school by chaplain Schmidlin in Kleinwangen and attended grammar school in Lucerne ; after graduation he initially studied rhetoric and then philosophy and theology at the local lyceum . Together with his school friend Alois Gügler , who followed him a month later, he studied theology at the University of Landshut from October 1802 to 1804 ; There he heard lectures from Johann Michael Sailer , who also accepted him in his apartment and significantly influenced him, as well as the lectures of Patritius Benedikt Zimmer and Andreas Röschlaub , who gave lectures on philosophy.

During his two-year stay in Landshut, he attended the seminary of Georg Michael Wittmann and was ordained a priest by Bishop Karl Theodor von Dalberg ; He gave his first sermon to his friend, the later Bishop of Regensburg , Franz Xaver Schwäbl , who was pastor in Oberviehbach at the time .

After his return together with his friend Gügler, he was for a short time vicar to Pastor Jost Bernhard Häfliger (1759–1837) in Hochdorf and was shortly afterwards asked to take over his philosophy lectures at the Lucerne Lyceum for the sick Franz Geiger ; after his death in 1805 he was appointed real professor of philosophy. His friend Gügler was already professor of philosophy and exegesis at the lyceum . Over time, the two friends came into conflict with the followers of Ignaz Heinrich von Wessenberg , whose spiritual head in Lucerne was the pastor Thaddäus Müller at the time. Disputes between Gügler and Müller led to the removal of Gügler by the Lucerne government on December 12, 1810, whereupon Joseph Widmer voluntarily resigned from his office. When the measure against Gügler was withdrawn shortly afterwards, Joseph Widmer also withdrew his resignation . On March 1, 1816 he was appointed canon at the same time as Gügler at St. Leodegar Abbey in the courtyard in Lucerne. In 1819, at his own request, he was given the chair of moral and pastoral theology until he was deposed by the government in 1833 because of his ultra-montane attitudes and he was given a canon in Beromünster, where he was appointed provost of the cathedral in 1842 . After the conservative turnaround in 1841 he was rehabilitated and elected as a representative of the Hochdorf chapter as a member of the education council and was again active as a professor of moral and pastoral theology at the Lucerne lyceum until 1843,

Writing and theological work

Sailer looked at him like a spiritual son ; he was also kindred in spirit and became like his second self in science ( Joseph Hubert Reinkens ).

In 1817 he was asked by a businessman to write the statutes for a society to be founded to educate the population for literature and higher living standards. To this end, he gave a lecture in which he commented on the relationship between state and church and which caused a great stir. The lecture was not printed, but its leading ideas can be found in his work The Divine in Earthly Development and Glorification, proven in the life of Blessed Nikolaus von der Flüe .

When Sailer visited Switzerland for the last time in 1823, as Auxiliary Bishop of Regensburg, accompanied by the youthful writer Christoph Schmid and his then secretary Melchior Diepenbrock , he commissioned Joseph Widmer to revise and re-publish all of his writings ; the work later comprised forty volumes. He also edited the works of Franz Geiger and Alois Gügler.

In 1832 he was a co-founder of the Swiss Church Newspaper .

His works also include smaller writings and essays in magazines as well as translations of several writings by St. Augustine and Bonaventure’s Breviloquium .

Honors

In 1829 he was appointed non-resident canon of the newly organized diocese of Basel .

Fonts (selection)

Literature (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Widmer, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Widmer, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Roman Catholic theologian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1779
PLACE OF BIRTH Hochdorf
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1844
Place of death Beromünster