Ludwig Wiedenmann

Ludwig Wiedenmann SJ (born July 27, 1928 in Regensburg ; † April 25, 2020 in Unterhaching ) was a German Roman Catholic religious priest , missiologist and journalist. From 1979 to 1988 Wiedenmann was director of the Missio Institute in Aachen.

life and work

Schoolchildren and air force helpers

Ludwig Wiedenmann grew up in Regensburg, where he attended the Klarenangerschule and from 1939 to 1946 the old grammar school. Then he moved to the St. Blasien college , where he graduated from high school in 1948. From January 1944 to March 1945 he was an air force helper in Regensburg and Nuremberg.

Ten years of training as a Jesuit

In 1948 he entered the Jesuit order and was a novice in Pullach until 1950 . From 1950 to 1953 he studied philosophy at the University of Philosophy of the Jesuits in the Berchmanskolleg , Pullach (today in Munich). From 1953 to 1957 he studied theology at the Philosophical-Theological University of St. Georgen of the Jesuits in Frankfurt am Main ( the entry visa was refused for the study planned in Pune in India ). He completed both courses with a licentiate . In 1956 he was in Michael's Church in Munich by Cardinal Joseph Wendel for ordained priests . From 1957 to 1958 he graduated from the Tertiate in the Jesuit office in St. Andrä in Carinthia .

PhD in Rome

From 1958 to 1961 studied Wiedenmann Missiology at the Missio logical faculty of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He received his doctorate in mission and eschatology in 1962 . An analysis of the more recent German evangelical mission theology (published in Paderborn in 1965 as vol. 15 of the series of denominational and controversial theological studies published by the Johann Adam Möhler Institute for Ecumenism ). The dissertation supervised by Professor Pater Joseph Masson SJ (1908–1998) filled a gap, since the eschatological aspect of mission discussed in Protestant theology was almost completely missing in the thought work of Catholic missiology up to this point. In the Council decree on the missionary activity of the Church Ad gentes (promulgated on December 7, 1965), however, Article 9 was dedicated to eschatology.

Editor of The Catholic Missions in Bonn

In 1961, Wiedenmann was appointed to the editorial team of the bimonthly magazine The Catholic Missions . There he was in charge of the South Asia department (observation of missionary development, documentation, contact with authors, procurement of thematic articles, translations, preparation of country reports). He took part in the World Eucharistic Congress in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1964 and undertook information trips through various Asian countries (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Burma / Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao).

In 1966 he also held a block of lectures on the understanding of missions of the Second Vatican Council at the theological faculty of the University of Innsbruck and a seminar on this at the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1969, Wiedenmann took over the editorial management of the Catholic Missions (and the management of the mission library) from Josef Albert Otto (while retaining the South Asia department, expanded to include China) and remained editor from year 88 (1969) to year 117 (1998).

Educational work at Missio in Aachen

At the invitation of Prelate Wilhelm Wissing , President of the Papal Work for the Propagation of the Faith , later Missio, Wiedenmann took over the management of the “Department of Awareness Raising” in Aachen in 1974 (in addition to his job in Bonn, on a weekly basis). It comprised the coordination of the missionary educational work for target groups with the press and public relations work of the plant, the preparation of the annual World Mission Sunday at the end of October, as well as the cooperation of the Aachen plant with Missio Munich . In this position he was also a member of the management conference of missio.

Director of the Missio Institute of Missiology

From 1979 to 1988, Wiedenmann took over the management of the missio (MWI) Institute of Missiology in Aachen from Georg Schückler . The institute researched the “theologies in context” that arose in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and conducted a scientific dialogue with the so-called Third World theologians. It documented their work and mediated German theology. It financed scholarships for young theologians and organized scholarship meetings. There were grants for various theological work projects in these countries. The institute had two series of publications: the book series “Theology of the Third World” with works by well-known theologians from these countries in German translation and under the direction of the theological consultant Dr. Georg Evers (* 1936) the bibliographic journal Theologie im Context , which continuously documented the contents of selected theological journals in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The institute worked on a donation basis.

In the following years Wiedenmann was also involved in the new edition (3rd edition 1993-2001) of the Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK). He was a “specialist advisor for ecclesiastical geography in Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America and Oceania” and had to obtain, review and forward the relevant contributions to the editorial team.

Member of the Würzburg Synod

At the Joint Synod of the Dioceses in the Federal Republic of Germany (1971–1975) to implement the Second Vatican Council in the German church situation, Wiedenmann was chairman of the technical commission 10 “Overall Church Cooperation, World Mission and Ecumenism” and as such also a member of the central commission of the synod. The draft resolution “Missionary Service to the World” developed under his leadership was approved by the plenum on November 19, 1975 with 242 votes (with one vote against).

Role in missionary ecumenism

In 1966, after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, the German Evangelical Mission Council (DEMR) under its chairman, Bishop Hans-Heinrich Harms , sent the Catholic Missions Council (KMR) under its President Prelate Klaus Mund a memorandum on questions of cooperation between Protestant and Catholic German missionaries in their mission areas. Prelate Mund asked Wiedenmann to work with a small working group on an answer to the memorandum. After this written exchange, it was agreed to invite a delegation from the other council to the general meetings of the two councils. With changing occupations, Wiedenmann became a permanent member of these delegations and took part in the work of the DEMR (through a presentation, panel discussion, commission work, talks) until the mission council was split into the Evangelical Missionswerk (EMW in Hamburg) and the Working Group Evangelical Missions (AEM) . The delegation of the Catholic Mission Council continued to take part in the general meetings of the Evangelical Mission Association until the Catholic Mission Council dissolved in 2012.

In the context of the developing ecumenical contacts, Wiedenmann worked in various commissions, for example in the joint working group of the Secretariat for Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches on evangelism.He was a member of the administrative board of the (Protestant) German Society for Mission Studies and organized On her behalf in 1974 the first mission science congress of the newly founded International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS) in Frankfurt St. Georgen.

Mission procuration of the Jesuits in Nuremberg

After giving up the magazine The Catholic Missions in 1998, Wiedenmann switched to the mission procuration of the Jesuits in Nuremberg and initially worked in the editorial department of the magazine worldwide . He then worked in the project department of the Missionsprokurator (later Jesuit mission), where he processed the project applications that were received from Africa, Asia and Latin America and had been approved by the mission procurator Klaus Väthröder, so that they were briefly submitted to the advisory board for decision at its meetings could be presented.

retirement

In 2016, after 55 years in mission science and journalism, Wiedenmann retired for health reasons in the Jesuit community Pedro Arrupe in the St. Katharina Labouré nursing home in Unterhaching near Munich. He died in April 2020 at the age of 91 in Unterhaching as a result of COVID-19 .

Fonts

• Mission and eschatology. An analysis of the more recent German evangelical mission theology . Paderborn 1965 (denominational and controversial theological studies 15) (dissertation)
• Buddhism and Catholicism in South Vietnam. In: Voices of the time 91, 1966/1967, 178, pp. 332–343.
• Theological considerations on Evangelical-Catholic cooperation in missions. In: Ordenskorrespondenz 8, 1967, pp. 381–396.
• Is Rome on the way to Geneva? Developments at the World Church Conference in Uppsala 1968 . Bonn 1968 (Lectures in the Catholic Education Center in Bonn, 3).
• Eschatological Aspects of Mission. In: Verbum SVD 12, 1971, pp. 3-19.
• La Chiesa deve ancora convertire i "pagani"? In: Mondo e missione. Rivista di attualità e cultura . Pontificio istituto missioni estere 102/3, 1973, pp. 73-76.
• 100 years of "The Catholic Missions". 1873-1973. In: The Catholic missions 92, 1973, pp. 111–112.
• Missionary service to the world . Introduction. In: Joint Synod of the Dioceses in the Federal Republic of Germany. Resolutions of the general assembly. Official complete edition 1. Herder, Freiburg 1976, pp. 807–819.
• World mission today. In: Voices of the time 197, 1979, pp. 435–444.
• (Author of the introduction) Understanding faith anew. Contributions to an Asian theology (by Catalino G. Arevalo, Aloysius B. Chang and Wendy Flannery), translated from English by Ursula Faymonville. With an introduction by Ludwig Wiedenmann, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1981; 2nd edition, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1987 (Theology of the Third World 1).
• Mission Studies or Contextual Theology? Orientation of the missiological institute Missio in Aachen. In: Inculturation and Contextuality. Theologies in global exchange. Festschrift for Ludwig Bertsch SJ for his 65th birthday . Edited by Monika Pankoke-Schenk and Georg Evers. Knecht, Frankfurt a. M. 1994, pp. 231-240.
• The Missio Institute in Aachen. In: Festschrift for the 75th anniversary of the International Institute for Research in Missiology . Aschendorff, Münster 1986, pp. 240-242.
• Eschatology. VIII. Missionary. In: LthK 3, 1995, Sp. 878 f.
• "Go and light everything!" 200 years of worldwide Jesuit mission (online)

Web links

• Literature by and about Ludwig Wiedenmann in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Father Ludwig Wiedenmann SJ died. Jesuits , April 26, 2020, accessed April 26, 2020 .