Otto Huber (clergyman)
Father Otto Huber MFSC (* 1871 in Rülzheim , Pfalz ; † May 21, 1954 in Verona , Italy) was a German priest . He came from the Diocese of Speyer and was a father and missionary pioneer in North Africa.
Life
Otto Huber was born in 1871 in Rülzheim in the South Palatinate, then in the Kingdom of Bavaria . In 1890 he joined the Missionary Brothers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus founded by Daniele Comboni in Verona (Congregatio Missionariorum Filiorum Sanctissimi Cordis Jesu, since 1979 Comboni missionaries of the Sacred Heart) .
Otto Huber was ordained a priest in Verona in 1895 and immediately sent to the order's North African mission. First he came to pastoral care in Aswan , Egypt, after the suppression of the Mahdi uprising in Sudan in Khartoum. He became a confidante of Vicar Apostolic Antonio Roveggio and accompanied him to the tribe of the Niam-Niam , some of whom were still cannibals at that time and therefore very feared. After seven years in North Africa, the murderous climate forced the priest to take a vacation in Europe in 1903.
Returning to the mission, Otto Huber also accompanied his Bavarian compatriot, the new Apostolic Vicar Franz Xaver Geyer, on his missionary trips. In addition, he worked as a pastoral care worker for the scattered Christians in the desert between Aswan and the Red Sea.
He described his many interesting experiences in the renowned mission magazine " Stern der Neger " under the titles "From the Nile to the Red Sea" (1905) and "Visit of the Christians in Cordofan " (1906). When the war broke out in 1914, as a German, Father Huber was interned in Sudan by the British until 1920 and then expelled.
In that year he visited his home village Rülzheim and went back to the mother house in Verona, where he taught the students in Arabic, which he was very good at. At the request of the Catholics in Sudan, the English authorities lifted his expulsion from the country and the priest was allowed to work again in the mission there from 1928. Mainly he now worked as a pastor in Aswan and in Khartoum.
In 1939 he stayed three weeks on vacation in his Palatinate homeland, but was then unable to return to Sudan because the Second World War had broken out . Again he went to the mother house in Verona, where he spent the last years of his life, working as a priest to the fullest.
Father Otto Huber died there on May 21, 1954 after a short sick leave and was buried in the order's own cemetery. His final thoughts and prayers were for his North African mission, as the obituary stated. According to this necrology, Father Huber was able to preach in five different languages and mastered Arabic like his mother tongue.
See also
literature
- Obituary in Pilger , Speyer, No. 24, 1954, p. 482.
- Obituary in the pilgrim calendar, Speyer, 1956, p. 93.
Web links
- Webpage of the Austrian African Studies project, to Father Otto Huber
- Webpage about the history of the Comboni missionaries in Sudan
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Huber, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German priest, Father and Comboni missionary, missionary pioneer in Africa |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1871 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rülzheim , Palatinate |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 21, 1954 |
| Place of death | Verona , Italy |