School Sisters of Our Lady (Bohemia)

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The School Sisters of Our Lady , in Czech, Kongregace Školských sester de Notre Dame (deND), are a congregation under papal law in the Roman Catholic Church . The religious order was founded in 1853 by Gabriel Schneider (1812–1867) in Hirschau ( Bavaria - Bohemia ) and is therefore also known as the “School Sisters of Our Lady in Bohemia” . The Bavarian Order Province , with its seat in Auerbach in the Upper Palatinate , is known under the name "Auerbach School Sisters" . The General House is based in Hradec Kralove (Hradec Kralove) in the Czech Republic . Superior General is Sister Anezka Bednárová, who took over the office from Miriam Baumruková in 2010.

history

root

The pastor Pierre Fourier of Mattaincourt near Nancy tried in his parish to a Christian education of youth. In the implementation of his goals he met the young Alexia Le Clerc , who expressed the desire to put her life and work entirely in the service of God . The pastor asked Alexia to collect more applicants and developed the idea of educating and teaching the students through school sisters. On December 24, 1597, Alixia and three other postulants publicly consecrated their lives for God. Church confirmation did not follow until 1617, and the Congregation of the Augustinian Choir Women de Notre Dame expanded into France . With the French Revolution 1789–1794, the school sisters had to stop their work in France. The monasteries in Germany were abolished in the course of secularization .

Foundation and reconstruction

In the small community of Hirschau , near the German-Bohemian border, which belonged to the diocese of Budweis , the clergyman Gabriel Schneider worked as a pastor . Schneider also wanted to use school sisters for the education and instruction of young people. He tried to recall some Augustinian choir women from Munich to Hirschau. Since he was denied success, he endeavored to create his own congregation. With the support of benefactors, he built a small monastery with an attached monastery school next to the local church in Hirschau . On August 15, 1853, two novices made their profession . The monastery school was very popular and the premises became too small. In 1854 the school sisters bought the former Minorite monastery in Horažďovice , they expanded the monastery school and built their mother house here . Shortly afterwards they opened a branch school in Prague . They began operating in the United States in 1910 and opened a house in Slovakia in 1919 .

From 1930 the congregation consisted of the order provinces America , Budweis , Marienbad (now the seat of the mother house) and Prague. In the Einsiedl branch belonging to the province of Marienbad, the novitiate was also located . The religious community now has 862 nuns, 72 novices and looked after 117 branches. The 192 German-speaking sisters and 12 novices were centralized in the province of Marienbad, and they looked after 24 religious branches in the Sudetenland .

In 1939, all institutions were closed by the National Socialist rulers, and the school sisters were forbidden from teaching in state schools. In 1945 the nuns were also expelled and found a new home in Auerbach, which belongs to the Archdiocese of Bamberg . The Bavarian province with its seat in Auerbach was founded here. In the following years some school sisters moved to Czechoslovakia and opened new facilities. The generalate with the seat of the superior general was moved to Hradec Králové. The four provinces of the Czech Republic, Bavaria, Slovakia and the USA are administered from here.

Organization of the Bavarian Province

The seat of the provincial council with provincial council is Auerbach. The provincial council consists of a provincial superior and three councilors. The Bavarian province includes:

martyrdom

Sister Epiphania Pritzl was accepted as a martyr in the "German Martyrology of the 20th Century". She joined the congregation in 1893 and worked as a teacher. Later she took over as director of the town school in Marienbad. In 1940, because she was not ready to wear civilian clothing, she was deposed by the rulers. From 1942 to 1943 she headed the province of Marienbad as provincial superior. In autumn 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo . On March 18, 1944, she died as a result of the conditions in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . The Catholic Church accepted Sister Epiphany as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

Controversy about the Engelwerk and the Catholic Scouting Society in Europe

At the beginning of the 2001/2002 school year there was a conflict between the order and the Bavarian Ministry of Culture , the Archdiocese of Bamberg and the other supporters of the association, the district of Amberg-Sulzbach and the city of Auerbach, because the school in the dated Ministry approved biology books for the 10th grade on the subject of "Sexuality and Reproduction" 14 pages had been torn out and shortly afterwards the biology book for the 8th grade was withdrawn. In the opinion of the other side, censorship was thus exercised without authorization. In addition, there were reports about scary pedagogy in kindergarten, such as threatening hell punishments , dress codes for schoolgirls and connections of some members of the order to the Engelwerk . The Engelwerk youth organization, Catholic Scouting in Europe , reported in 1994 that seven of its members were teaching at the school.

In the course of the investigations it turned out that the Engelwerk priest Heinrich Morscher CPPS had already come to the monastery as a chaplain in 1972 and later joined the Engelwerk elite organization Canon Regulars of the Holy Cross . After an intervention by Minister of Education Monika Hohlmeier (CSU) , the Vatican deposed the Bavarian provincial leadership of the school sisters. Six of the twelve nuns employed at the school left the school and were able to settle in their dioceses with the support of the former (arch) bishops of Salzburg and St. Pölten , Georg Eder and Engelwerk member Kurt Krenn . In January 2002 Eder compared the state measures in this matter with the methods of the Nazi regime ; the methods were the same and only the actors would have changed. He admitted "own good experiences" with the Engelwerk and denied that it was a sect . The Salzburg auxiliary bishop Andreas Laun also defended the conduct of the nuns concerned. The Bavarian State Parliament , on the other hand, welcomed the departure of the nuns who had worked as teachers.

The disputes led to the split in the order in 2001 after an apostolic visitation had been carried out under Pope John Paul II . 70 nuns left the community, several of them settled in 2003 as servants of the Immaculate under Bishop Kurt Krenn in the diocese of St. Pölten. During the tenure of Bishop Klaus Küng , a member of Opus Dei , eight former Auerbach school sisters belonged to the new Institute of Consecrated Life .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Weber: 60 years in the Bavarian province (motherhouse Auerbach) of the Bohemian congregation of the school sisters of Our Lady
  2. ↑ Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century
  3. ↑ Marian Spirituality in the Martyrdom of German Witnesses of Faith (page 43), PDF
  4. ↑ John Schneider: Auerbach's Sex Controversy: Is It Underestimated? Evening newspaper from November 9, 2001
  5. ↑ Martin Zips: God's work and the devil's contribution. Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 6, 2001
  6. ↑ Realschule Auerbach: Further evidence of Engelwerk proximity and condom distribution campaigns do not allow the school to calm down. Radio Mainwelle from November 13, 2001, in the Internet Archive
  7. ↑ About angels, demons and a bishop from St. Pölten Der Standard from January 16, 2002
  8. ^ A b Roland Ebert: Auerbach School Sisters. How to teach fundamentalism by public means. ( Memento from December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) www.miz.de (1-03)
  9. ↑ Hohlmeier asks the Vatican to mediate. Die Welt of December 7, 2001
  10. ↑ Manfred Rebhandl: In Austria everyone lives on their island. Welt online from October 15, 2017
  11. ↑ Barbara Supp: Dispute about sex education: Where the devil dances . www.spiegel.de, March 19, 2002
  12. ↑ Salzburg Archbishop stands behind "Auerbach School Sisters" , kath.net , January 5, 2002
  13. ↑ Laun defends Auerbach school sisters , kath.net, undated
  14. ↑ Bavarian State Parliament, Committee on Education, Youth and Sport, minutes of the 57th meeting on November 8, 2001, 9:15 am - 12:57 pm
  15. ^ Report of the State Ministry for Education and Culture on the current state of affairs "Realschule des Zweckverband Auerbach" from December 6, 2001, 11:30 am
  16. ↑ Servants of the Immaculate Order online, April 16, 2009

literature

  • Helmut Moll (publisher on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), witnesses for Christ. The German Martyrology of the 20th Century , 6th, expanded and restructured edition Paderborn u. a. 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-78080-5 , Volume II, pp. 1074-1077.

Web links

Commons : Congregation of School Sisters of Notre Dame  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files