Paul Heinz

Paulus (Josef) Heinz OSB (born September 13, 1914 in Gunzenhausen , † December 17, 1995 in Plankstetten ) was abbot of the Plankstetten monastery .

Life

Josef Heinz was born on September 13, 1914 as the son of the married couple Heinrich and Josefa Heinz in Gunzenhausen in Central Franconia . His father was a tax inspector at the local tax office. In the pious parental home and in the diaspora situation of the Catholic community in his hometown, the desire for the priesthood was awakened in the talented boy. After the early death of his father on November 3, 1921, his mother sent him to the humanistic grammar school in Eichstätt , where he was soon accepted into the St. Benedict seminary of the local diocese .

After graduating from high school in 1934, he entered the Plankstetten monastery and was dressed by Abbot Jakobus Pfättisch on May 8, 1934 . The following year he laid on May 9, the temporal vows , and joined on 1 May 1938 solemn profession for life with the Congregation of Benedictine . He completed his philosophical and theological studies in Eichstätt, where he was ordained a priest on July 29, 1939 by Bishop Michael Rackl .

At the beginning of 1940, Heinz was drafted into the military and served as a medic for five years in various theaters of war in France, Russia and Denmark. After returning home from there, after a short period in pastoral care , he began studying mathematics and physics in Munich in November 1946 for a higher teaching post , which he completed in 1952 with the state examination. Since Plankstetten did not have his own school at that time, even if it was already planned, he went to Scheyern as a teacher and prefect from 1952 to 1954 , then from 1954 to 1958 as a teacher in Metten .

From this activity it out chose his confreres after the resignation of Pfättisch on 27 May 1958, in the first round to their abbot. The then-diocesan Bishop Joseph Schröffer gave him on 11 July of the same year the solemn benediction . In this function he initially took on the urgent renovation of the monastery buildings from 1959, before the monastery church was restored between 1966 and 1970 and the former brewery building was converted into a library in 1968. He also tried to follow the school plans that had been cherished for a long time, so that a middle school was finally approved in 1959/60 and a new school building could be built in the courtyard of the monastery. It was there that Heinz found his preferred field of work again, which is why, in addition to his abbot management position, he also held a full number of hours and was head of the school until 1971. It was thanks to his talent and experience as a teacher that the educational institution was quickly recognized by the state (1963), which was renamed “Realschule” in 1965 and closed in 1988. For these services, Heinz was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit on March 21, 1974 .

In monastic life, the liturgy celebrated together by the convent and renewed by the council was of great concern to him, since he saw in it the climax of the common monastic life. He was also happy to provide pastoral care and willingly took on confirmations and pontifical functions in the diocese of Eichstätt to relieve the diocesan bishop . In all the years of his abbotical ministry, the problem of the lack of monastic offspring weighed heavily on him.

On July 28, 1976, Heinz resigned from his position. As the statutes of the religious order provide, he chose another monastery, the Münsterschwarzach Abbey , as his place of residence, where he again worked as a valued teacher at the local Egbert grammar school between September 1976 and July 1985. In addition, he again developed a lively activity as a corporate donor in the dioceses of Eichstätt and Bamberg . Even when he had to give up school service for reasons of age, he found the confreres in Münsterschwarzach hospitable and ultimately willing care.

From 1990 onwards, Heinz came to Plankstetten for repeated stays before he decided in the spring of 1995 to return completely to his professed monastery. He moved into a room in the infirmary because his physical, but even more so his mental powers were rapidly deteriorating. Because of a fractured thigh neck he had to visit the hospital of the Barmherzige Brüder in Regensburg at the end of November . After returning from there, he did not recover and died on December 17, 1995 in the presence of Abbot Gregor Maria Hanke OSB.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Slightly modified text for the entire section taken from: Egbert-Gymnasium Münsterschwarzach (Ed.), Annual Report 1995/96, Münsterschwarzach 1996, pp. 74-76 (Nekrologsbeitrag by the then director P. Cornelius Hörnig OSB).
2. ↑ Extensions from: P. Petrus Bauer OSB, The Plankstetten Benedictine Abbey in Past and Present, Plankstetten 1979, pp. 87-88.

Web links

• Entry to Paulus Heinz on order online

predecessor	Office	successor
James II. Pfättisch OSB	Abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Plankstetten 1958–1976	Dominikus V. Madlener OSB