Wilhelm Klein (theologian)

Johann August Wilhelm Klein SJ (born March 24, 1889 in Traben on the Moselle ; † January 7, 1996 in Münster in Westphalia ) was a German Roman Catholic theologian and spiritualist . As a spiritual at the Germanikum and afterwards as a pastor, he shaped a generation of theologians as well as men and women of church and public life. “Influenced by GWF Hegel and in a Socratic manner , he taught, through all“ external ”,“ ambiguous ”reality, including that of“ evil ”, to look at the“ actual reality ”, namely the presence of“ pure creation ” judge, which is at work everywhere against all appearances. ”Wilhelm Klein also expresses his radical understanding of reality and God in a film document published by Nikolaus Wyrwoll in the sentence:“ God - the love that works in everyone. ”

Live and act

biography

Klein was born as the fifth of ten children of the railway worker Wilhelm Klein and his wife Katharina, née. Goergen, born. He grew up in a small row house in Trier . Like four of his brothers, he chose a career as a priest. Klein studied philosophy and Catholic theology first at the University of Trier , then at the Pontifical Gregorian University and was trained as a seminarist for the Trier diocese in the Germanikum. On 28 October 1912 he received (with special dispensation because he was too young) by Cardinal Respighi , the ordination . First he returned to his home diocese, where he was chaplain for a short time in 1913 . On September 14, 1913, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 's-Heerenberg . During the First World War he served as a division pastor and was seriously wounded in late September 1918. This was followed by further studies in Rome and at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , where he received his doctorate in 1922 under Josef Geyser . Edmund Husserl was co- speaker . The dissertation with the title “The epistemological controversy between Nikolaus von Autrecourt and Bernhard von Arezzo. A contribution to the presentation of the development of problems in scholasticism ”was not published.

From 1922 to 1929 he was professor of philosophy (from 1925 also spiritual) at the Jesuit training center in Valkenburg aan de Geul , where he also took his religious vows in 1924 . From 1929 to 1932 he worked as rector, Regens and professor at the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main. From 1932 he was found for six years as a provincial in Cologne (1934/35 also in Japan). In 1938 he took part in the General Congregation of the Jesuits in Rome. Then he returned to Valkenburg, where he took over the office of rector. He stayed there until the Gestapo abolished the college on July 7, 1942. In the following years of World War II (until 1945), Father Klein worked as a retreat master for religious in the Archdiocese of Paderborn . After the war he was sent to the Hildesheim seminary as a professor and spiritual director until 1948 . Once again in 1946 he took part as a delegate to the 29th General Congregation of the Jesuits in Rome.

From 1948 to 1961 Father Klein was spiritual in the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum in Rome. In a clearly noticeable way, he inspired a generation of theologians there, many of whom became “multipliers” of the faith, so to speak, at important church positions. Almost all of them emphasize that P. Klein was the decisive figure in their life, which of course does not exclude that they developed differently. His "pupils" included the later cardinals Karl Lehmann and Friedrich Wetter , the bishops Ludwig Averkamp , Lajos Kada , Anton Schlembach and the professors Gottfried Bachl , Gisbert Greshake , Peter Hünermann and Hans Küng .

In 1961 Father Klein was transferred to the Paulushaus in Bonn , where he lived and worked until 1988, initially as a superior until 1966 and then simply as a retreat companion, preacher and pastor. In 1988 P. Klein then moved to the senior citizens' home of his order in Münster , which was by no means problem-free and a matter of course for him. In 1989 he experienced his 100th birthday there in the Sentmaring house and on October 28, 1992 the jubilee service for the 80th anniversary of his ordination, which in turn gathered many friends and relatives around him. Among them was the papal nuncio Lajos Kada , who tried to express in his address what made Father Klein stay so young: “Openness and courage, understanding and a big heart in which much and many have space. But above all a spirit and an intellect that is not satisfied with penultimate and provisional answers ”. Several newspapers and television reported on this anniversary.

Apart from his dissertation, he did not write any other texts. "My books - you are!" He used to say. Transcripts (and manuscripts) of spiritual evening lectures (points, exhorts ) have largely been preserved.

Karl Rahner considered in various conversations whether Klein, with his theological impulses, might not be the most important Catholic theologian of this century.

Secondary literature

• Helmut Feld: The most important Catholic theologian of the 20th century? In: Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte 19 (2000), pp. 263–273.
• Gisbert Greshake: Wilhelm Klein , in: LThK3 (1997), Vol. 6, Col. 122.
• Christoph Schmitt:  SMALL, Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 33, Bautz, Nordhausen 2012, ISBN 978-3-88309-690-2 , Col. 746-749.
• Giuseppe Trentin (Ed.): In the beginning. The “Marian Secret” in Wilhelm Klein's manuscripts , translated by Walter Romahn. Echter, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-429-02817-5 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Klein in the catalog of the German National Library
• P. Wilhelm Klein SJ on the website of the Eastern Church Institute Regensburg
• Obituary by Franz-Josef Steinmetz SJ. In: Norddeutsche Provinz, 2/1996, pp. 52–60.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gisbert Greshake, Art. Wilhelm Klein, in: LThK3 (1997), Vol. 6, Col. 122.