Stefan Hippler

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Stefan Hippler

Stefan Hippler (born May 6, 1960 in Bitburg ) is a German clergyman and AIDS activist. From 1997 to 2009 he was pastor of the German-speaking Roman Catholic community in Cape Town ; From 2009 to 2014 he worked as a Fidei Donum priest with the HIV / AIDS division in the Archdiocese of Cape Town . Hippler has been a resident priest in the Archdiocese of Cape Town and chairman of his non-profit project Hope Cape Town Trust since 2014 .

Life

Stefan Hippler received in 1986 in Trier the priesthood . He spent his chaplaincy in Münster-Sarmsheim , the vicar time in Andernach , St. Albert. He worked and lived in the St. Peter branch. He was then released and worked in various professions outside the Church. Five years later he received a new spiritual assignment and took care of refugees first in Croatia and later at Frankfurt Airport .

The Catholic Foreign Secretariat of the German Bishops' Conference then sent him to Cape Town. There he built up the AIDS aid organization Hope Cape Town Trust . Hope Cape Town is active in the Cape Province in the field of treatment, prevention, outreach and working with traditional healers.

In addition to practical work in the HIV and AIDS area, Hippler also dealt with the theological consequences of the pandemic and in 2007 published the book God, Aids, Africa with the Africa correspondent Bartholomäus Grill . In this he calls for the development of an AIDS-related theology and the revision of parts of the previously applicable moral theology of the Roman Catholic Church. He regards AIDS as a sign of the times, which questions the hundred-year-old moral theological tradition and calls for this tradition to be reconciled with the scientific knowledge of modern times . In his opinion, questions of the understanding and functionality of sexuality , the question of homosexuality , but also the equality of men and women must be reassessed. Hippler urged Pope Benedict XVI. to initiate an open-ended discussion on these issues.

In order to give the church the necessary time to reflect, but at the same time to protect people effectively, he called for the application of the principle of oikonomia , a time-honored church tradition. It allows exceptions for the greater love of God without setting a precedent. The Orthodox Church applies this principle to the question of divorce .

Stefan Hippler during the 5th HOPE Gala in Dresden with the initiator Viola Klein (2010)

Hippler received the 1001 Christian Prize of the Roman Catholic parish of St. Michael in Schweinfurt in October 2007 and in the same month Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the project in Cape Town as part of her state visit to South Africa. After readings from his book in Germany and Austria, including in the Rhineland-Palatinate Representation in Berlin and in the German Bundestag , his employer, the German Bishops' Conference in Bonn, forbade him from another reading trip that was planned for 2008 - so a press release from Kiepenheuer & Witsch . On November 2, 2008, Hippler received the Erich Kästner Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, from the Dresden Press Club for his commitment in the HIV and AIDS area in South Africa and his contribution to tolerance, humanity and international understanding, as stated in the Dresden Press Club's announcement called. A few weeks later, the German Bishops' Conference forbade him to take part in the Beckmann talk show (broadcast: November 24, 2008) in order to talk about the situation in Africa as an expert on HIV and AIDS and to present his aid organization HOPE Cape Town. Instead, co-author Grill stepped in. The official language of the Bishops' Conference is that there was no prohibition and no threat of consequences, but only a well-intentioned advice.

In March 2009, Hippler signed an agreement on behalf of the HOPE Cape Town Foundation with the Justice & Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Cape Town and thus launched a new intra-church project that is to be devoted to pastoral work with Catholic priests, religious and seminarians who are HIV-positive - are positive.

In August 2009 Hippler was elected 2nd chairman of the Western Cape Regional Council of the German-South African Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

His contract with the German Bishops' Conference, which expired at the end of September 2009, was not extended. Under an agreement of the Archdiocese of Cape Town with his native Bishop Stephan Ackermann , he has been paid for five years since 1 October 2009, released to his work in HIV / AIDS continue area. Above all, he is to be used at HOPE Cape Town and the Catholic AIDS Network of the South African Archdiocese and continue his proven work there. The organization IAM, which takes care of pastoral care for gays and lesbians as well as transsexuals, appointed him to its board of directors as a Catholic representative. Since June 2011 he has also been writing explicitly on African topics as a freelancer for the Catholic portal for the German-speaking area . At the end of September 2014, Bishop Stephan Ackermann renewed Hippler's mission in Cape Town, this time without a time limit.

At the beginning of 2015, Stefan Hippler was on board the MS Artania as part of the fifth season of Crazy About the Sea .

In 2016, Hippler founded the US association HOPE Cape Town USA with interested parties in order to go together in research and fundraising .

Awards and honors

  • 2005: Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International
  • 2007: 1001 Christian Prize from the parish of St. Michael, Schweinfurt
  • 2008: Erich Kästner Prize Winner of the Dresden Press Club
  • 2010: Honorary member of “be your own hero e. V. “, Wolfsburg
  • 2014: World without Aids Award - German AIDS Foundation

Works

  • Facilitating Relationships between African traditional healing and western medicine in South Africa in the time of AIDS: A case study from the Western Cape. (together with Dr. J. Wreford and Dr. Monika Esser) CSSR Working Paper No 06/170 Published by the Center for Social Science Research - University of Cape Town, 2006.
  • God - AIDS - Africa. A polemic. (together with Bartholomäus Grill ), Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-462-03925-2 .
  • Involving Traditional Health Practitioners in HIV / AIDS interventions: Lessons from the Western Cape Province. (together with Dr. J. Wreford and Dr. M. Esser), CSSR Working Paper No. 08/210 Published by the Center for Social Science Research - University of Cape Town, 2008.
  • Traditional healers and HIV / AIDS. (together with Dr. J. Wreford and Dr. Monika Brink) In: Religions in the fight against HIV / AIDS. Don Bosco Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7698-1718-8 .
  • HIV / AIDS - stigma and challenge for Africa. In: JMNebe (Herg.): Challenge Africa - Society and Space in Transition. Nomos Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8329-6314-9 .
  • HIV - more than a disease for humans and the environment. In: VERBUM SVD fasiculus. 3 Vol 52 2011, Steyler Verlag, 2011.
  • What does religious upbringing and education mean? In: Joachim Theis (Ed.): RELI for a good reason - DKV Muenchen 2012 - ISBN 978-3-88207-413-0
  • God-Aids-Africa - Turning stigma into a blessing . Kindle Edition, 2017.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Hippler: Curriculum Vitae (English)
  2. ↑ God - Aids - Africa , p. 29ff.
  3. ↑ MDR: Hope at the Cape - Stefan Hippler and the “Hope” project ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Süddeutsche: With beetroot against the epidemic
  5. ^ Deutsche Welle: "Hope" for the South African AIDS patients
  6. ↑ Time: Deadly Commandments
  7. ↑ http://www.shosholoza.de/suedafrika.php?id=45
  8. ↑ Sunday: Erich Kästner award ceremony at Albrechtsberg Castle , presseclub-dresden.de, October 29, 2008
  9. ↑ Erich Kästner Prize to AIDS Help “Hope” - Press Club honors initiator Pastor Stefan Hippler , presseclub-dresden.de, November 19, 2008
  10. ↑ Gernot Facius: "Beckmann" - A pastor and the Aids problem of the church , DieWelt.de, November 25, 2008
  11. ↑ German Bishops' Conference ends Stefan Hippler's mission in South Africa , kath.net, May 28, 2009
  12. ↑ Trier bishop gives AIDS pastor a free hand , volksfreund.de, August 31, 2009 (accessed on September 1, 2009)
  13. ^ Trierischer Volksfreund : Bitburg AIDS priest Hippler is allowed to stay in South Africa forever , September 19, 2014
  14. ^ HOPE Cape Town USA , website of the organization. Retrieved November 24, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Hippler, Stefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman (Roman Catholic) and AIDS activist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Bitburg