Pope Benedict XVI today accepted the retirement of Bishop Joachim Wanke of Erfurt and Wilhelm Schraml of Passau. Bishop Wanke, 71, requested retirement in 2010 for reasons of health, but it wasn’t accepted until today.
Bishop Schraml is 77 and therefore two years over the mandatory retirement age.
With these retirements the number of vacant dioceses in Germany stands at four. In addition of Erfurt and Passau they are Regensburg, whose archbishop, Gerhard Müller, was called to Rome to lead the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Dresden-Meiβen, whose bishop, Joachim Reinelt, retired in February.
Today’s double retirements may be an indication that we will soon see four quick episcopal appointments in a row: the long wait that Bishop Wanke and Schraml had before their retirement was accepted could indicate that something was going on behind the scenes, such as the smelling out of good candidates for the four sees.
Bishop Joachim Wanke, pictured above with the Holy Father as the latter visited Erfurt in 2011, started his episcopal career in 1980, when he became Coadjutor Apostolic Administrator of Erfurt-Meiningen, then not yet a full diocese in Communist East Germany. Three months after his appointment he automatically succeeded Bishop Hugo Aufderbeck upon the latter’s death. In 1994, as Germany was now unified, Erfurt-Meiningen became the Diocese of Erfurt and Bishop Wanke became its first bishop.
Bishop Wilhelm Schraml, left, started as auxiliary bishop of his native Archdiocese of Regensburg, and in 2001 he came to Passau as that diocese’s ordinary.
Both bishops hosted Pope Benedict XVI during the Holy Father’s visit to Germany in 2011.
Photo credit: [1] Kay Nietfeld dpa/lth (cropped version), [2] dpa
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