Ottmar Schoch

Ottmar Schoch SDB (born January 8, 1933 in Stuttgart ) is a German Salesian of Don Bosco and a psychologist .

Life

Schoch grew up in Stuttgart. In 1945 his family moved to Schwäbisch Gmünd . From 1948 he attended the Salesian grammar school in Benediktbeuern and decided to become a Salesian of Don Bosco. In 1951 he entered the novitiate of the religious order in Ensdorf and made his first profession the following year, on August 15, 1952. In 1954 he graduated from high school, followed by a two-year pedagogical internship in the Buxheim branch .

From 1956 to 1961 he studied philosophy and theology at the religious college in Benediktbeuern. During this time he was involved in the pedagogical group , which also included Old Testament scholar Otto Wahl , who tried to reform the educational institutions in Benediktbeuern. He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1961 . He then studied psychology in Würzburg, Münster and Marburg until 1967. In the 1967/68 school year he worked as a study director and home psychologist in the Würzburg institution of the religious order, before he became a lecturer at the higher technical school for social pedagogy from 1968. In 1969 he took over the management of the facility, which in 1971 was integrated as the Benediktbeuern department into the newly founded Catholic foundation college in Munich . He took over the professorship for psychology. From 1971 to 1972 and from 1988 to 1992 he headed the Benediktbeurer department of the University of Applied Sciences.

Schoch campaigned for the establishment of the educational counseling centers in Benediktbeuern and Weilheim-Schongau and from 1978 to 1985 he headed the Don Bosco youth pastoral institute in Benediktbeuern, which he co-founded .

In 1997 he retired. Since then he has been the coordinator of the Benediktbeurer Center for Environment and Culture . In 1997 he received the Federal Cross of Merit with ribbon and the Medal of Honor from the Church Foundation for Catholic Educational Institutions for Social Professions in Bavaria. The Bavarian Environmental Medal followed in 2000 and the Sonja Bernadotte Prize for ways to educate nature in 2001.

Web links

• Press release on the 50th anniversary of the priesthood of June 29, 2011.
• Press release on the 75th birthday of January 2, 2008.