Peter Janser

Peter Janser, Apostolic Prefect of Indore

Peter Janser SVD (born November 9, 1878 in Bexbach ; † May 4, 1959 in Waukegan , Illinois , USA) was a Catholic priest from the Speyer diocese , a Steyler missionary in America and China , from 1935 to 1945 Apostolic Prefect (with the rank of Bishop) of Indore , India.

Life

Peter Janser was born in Bexbach (Mittelbexbach), Diocese of Speyer , Saar-Palatinate , Kingdom of Bavaria in 1878 and entered the order of Steyl Missionaries in 1890 in the mother house in Steyl . Ordained a priest in 1902 , the founder of the order, Father Arnold Janssen , sent him to North America. The local branch of the Steyler missionaries was founded in 1895 and grew rapidly under Father Janser's leadership. He founded the two provincial houses of St. Mary zu Techny (near Chicago) in Illinois and the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Girard, Pennsylvania . Father Janser devoted himself a. a. intensified the "Negro chaplaincy" and wrote a memorandum to the US bishops in 1921 on the establishment of a special seminary for colored students. Soon afterwards, Father Janser went to Shanghai , where his organizational skills were entrusted with the care of the many missionaries in East Asia, especially in China. The year 1932 brought him a new and difficult task, the management of the Steyler Mission in India. Father Janser and his companion, Father Leo Krzeminski SVD, landed in Bombay on December 14, 1932. The mission seat was in Indore , in today's Indian state Madhya Pradesh , and covered an area with seven million inhabitants, with an area of ​​110,000 square kilometers. In the obituary it says: "Thanks to the energetic, careful commitment of Father Janser, this new territory was raised to the Apostolic Prefecture after just three years and he himself was appointed the first Apostolic Prefect." The Apostolic Prefecture is, so to speak, a "diocese on probation" is headed by an Apostolic Prefect who has the rank of bishop and is dressed accordingly, but who has mostly not received an episcopal ordination. Outwardly and in terms of jurisdiction, the Prefect Apostolic is equal to a bishop, but in terms of sacramental powers he is only a simple priest. Peter Janser held this responsible position from July 11, 1935 until the end of 1945, when he resigned himself due to illness and returned to North America. He lived in the Steyler mission house he founded in St. Mary, Techny, Illinois, and died in 1959 in St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan.

The obituary in the Speyer diocese newspaper Der Pilger states: “Despite his old age and poor health, he still put himself at the service of the apostolate through lectures, retreats and sermons. Msgr. Janser was a man of real missionary stature with an apostolic, wide and loving heart, of which our diocese can be proud. ”His Steyler brother, Bishop Karl Christian Weber , who, like Peter Janser, came from Bexbach in the diocese of Speyer, stayed in the local parish church on May 12, 1959 the official Requiem. In 1952 the Apostolic Prefecture became today's Diocese of Indore .

literature

• Obituary. In: Der Pilger , Speyer, No. 21 of May 24, 1959, p. 470.
• Johannes Fleckner: Msgr. Peter Janser 1878–1959 . In: ders .: So they were. Divine Word missionaries from 19 countries . Missionary Seminary, St. Augustin 1995, 183–185.
• Cyprian Davis, Jamie Phelps: Stamped with the Image of God - African Americans as God's Image in Black. Orbis Books, Maryknoll 2003 (with a separate chapter on Pater Janser: Father Peter Janser, SVD, Informs the American Bishops of the Establishment of a Seminary to Teach Black Students for the Priesthood, 1921 ).

Web links

Commons : Peter Janser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Peter Janser on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Peter Janser at Saarland Biographies
• Memorial page of the Diocese of Indore to Peter Janser