A joyful day in Fulda yesterday, as Michael Gerber was installed in a 2-hour ceremony as the new bishop of that diocese. The former auxiliary bishop of Freiburg im Breisgau succeeded Bishop Heinz Josef Algermissen, who retired in June of last year after having reached the age of 75
Until the official appointment bull was read out, thus signifying the exact moment that Bishop Gerber became the ordinary of Fulda, the proceedings were lead by Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker, the archbishop of Paderborn and the metropolitan of the Church province to which Fulda belongs. Archbishop Becker handed the 12th-century bishop’s staff of Fulda to Bishop Gerber and then led him to the cathedra. His taking possession of the bishop’s seat was met with a lengthy applause, indicative of the joy with which Bishop Gerber has been received in his new diocese.
Virtually every media source has noted that 49-year-old Bishop Gerber is Germany’s youngest ordinary, but that was put in perspective by Cardinal Reinhard Marx. Once the youngest ordinary himself, the cardinal noted, “It will pass.” Cardinal Marx was one of several speakers at the end of the installation Mass. Among the bishops present was a selection of German prelates, as well as bishops from Cameroon, Burundi, Romania and the Netherlands: due to the close ties between Fulda and Groningen-Leeuwarden in the person of Saint Boniface, the latter diocese’s Bishop Ron van den Hout was present with his vicar general and the parish priest of Dokkum, the place where, the story has it, St. Boniface was martyred. Fulda is where his remains are buried.
Similar to when he was appointed as auxiliary bishop of Freiburg im Breisgau in 2013, Bishop Gerber undertook a two-day pilgrimage to his new diocese, arriving the day before his installation. He was accompanied by 1,000 faithful, among them a group of youth carrying the World Youth Day cross. Bishop Gerber and his predecessor Bishop Algermissen also took part in carrying the cross.
Bishop Gerber gave the homily himself, speaking about the story of the prodigal son, the Gospel reading of yesterday. In it, he said that today’s challenges are not unlike those in the time of St. Boniface: “What matters is that through this encounter with Christ, people can face the challenges of their lives, that they won’t let them bring them down, but that they can be cause for growth”.
Photo credit: [1,2,3, 5] Bistum Fulda – Ralph Leupolt, Dr. Arnulf Müller, [4] B. Vogt
On the same 5th of June it was announced this had been the last such day presided over by Bishop Heinz Joshistef Algermissen. That was not unexpected, as the bishop reached the age of 75 in February, and there was no reason to assume that his retirement would not be accepted within the following months. Bishop Algermissen led the Diocese of Fulda since 2001. Before that he served as an auxiliary bishop of Paderborn for five years.
Today, the Diocese of Fulda covers the northerns and eastern parts of the Land of Hesse, a small part of Thuringia and and exclave in Bavaria. Within its 10,318 square kilometres live some 400,000 Catholics a little of 20% of the entire population. It remains a pilgrimage site because of St. Boniface’s wish to be buried there, instead of in Mainz or Utrecht. He had been killed in the Frisian swamps near what is now Dokkum in the Netherlands (hence the connection to the the Diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden, hinted at above). With the acceptance of the retirement of Bishop Algermissen, and until the catedral chapter has chosen a diocesan administrator, Bishop Karlheinz Diez leads the diocese. He is Fulda’s sole auxiliary, making him the automatic choice for the role.
While all hold memberships in various dicasteries in the curia, two of these sit at the head of them: Cardinal Coccopalmerio is president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and Cardinal Amato (at left) is the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Nhơn remains active as archbishop of Hanoi. All will undoubtedly retire upon their 80th birthday, opening up some interesting positions in the curia. Barring any deaths, the number of cardinal electors will stand at 114 by mid-2018. Possibly not low enough for a new consistory by itself, but considering the fact that a further 10 ill age out in 2019, Pope Francis may decide to be proactive and call a consistory in autumn for the creation of anywhere between 6 and 16 new cardinals.
Speaking about the pope, he will, despite the fact that he has no love for travelling, visit several countries in 2018. In January, he will once again return to South America, visiting Peru and Chile. Ireland is on the schedule in August, when the Holy Father will attend the World Meeting of Families taking place in Dublin (logo at right). Visits not yet confirmed are to the Baltic countries in September and to Romania in December. A visit to India also remains an option, but as Pope Francis has just wrapped a visit to India’s neighbouring countries of Myanmar and Bangladesh, it may not be at the top of the list.
In the latter part of the year, all eyes will be on the Synod of Bishops again, this while the reverberations of the last two assemblies of that body are still being felt. The October 2018 Fifteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops while focus on “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment”. To this assembly, each bishops’ conference will elect one or more (depending on their size) delegates, while the Pope will also make a personal selection of delegates. One of these personal choices has already been made: Sérgio Cardinal Da Rocha, the archbishop of Brasília, was appointed as Relator General of next year’s assembly. He will outline the theme at the start of the assembly and summarise the delegates’ speeches so they can be condensed into concrete proposals.
Suddenly, an increase in rumours that Cardinal Gerhard Müller is to be let go as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appeared tonight. Should the rumours prove true, what can we say about it now?
Deacon Jesús Mauricio Meneses Santiago (pictured, fourth from the left) is Colombian. He came to the Archdiocese of Utrecht as one of four religious, wanting to do something in return for the Dutch missionaries who had come to Colombia in the past. His three fellow religious returned home over the years, but Deacon Meneses Santiago decided to stay. He says: “That was not an easy choice. But I wanted to remain true to my calling. And I am happy. The Netherlands have stolen my heart and I feel at home here. My vocation is God’s initiative, I am here for a reason. I will continue this mission that God has entrusted me with.”
Diocese of Eichstätt, ordained by Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke
Archdiocese of Paderborn, ordained by Bishop Manfred Grothe
The Diocese of Limburg was established in 1821 to cater to the Catholics in the then-current Duchy of Nassau, as well as the Free City of Frankfurt. Its territory was taken from the adjacent dioceses of Trier and Mainz. Originally a suffragan see of Freiburg, in 1929 it became a part of the Province of Cologne. In 1930 and 1933 it gained some more territory, from Fulda and Trier respectively. There are some 645,000 Catholics in the diocese, out of a total population of 2.4 million. It has few major cities aside from Wiesbaden and Frankfurt am Main, with the majority of Catholics concentrated in the south and northwest.
It’s taken two years but at long lost the Diocese of Erfurt has a bishop again. From Mainz comes 57-year-old Bishop Ulrich Neymeyr as the successor of Bishop Joachim Wanke, who retired on the first of October of 2012 for health reasons. Bishop Neymeyr, until today the sole auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Mainz, becomes the second bishop of Erfurt, which was established in 1994. Before that, since 1973, it had been the Apostolic Administration of Erfurt-Meiningen.
The Diocese of Erfurt encompasses the major part of the German state of Thuringia and was initially created in 1973 from parts of the dioceses of Würzburg and Fulda, which now border it to the west and southwest. At the time it wasn’t a full diocese because of the unique circumstances of being within the Communist state of East Germany. As the Apostolic Administration of Erfurt-Meiningen, it was first led by Bishop Hugo Aufderbeck, who died in 1981 and was succeed by Bishop Joachim Wanke. In 1994, following the German reunification, Erfurt-Meiningen was made a full diocese under the name Erfurt and Bishop Wanke was made its first bishop. He stayed on until 2012 when he retired for health reasons. During that time he hosted Pope Benedict XVI when he visited in 2011 (see image at right). There has in fact been an earlier Diocese of Erfurt, established by Saint Boniface in 742, but that was suppressed again in 755, seemingly without ever having had its own bishop. The cathedral of Erfurt is rooted in that time however. The current St. Mary’s dates from 1154, but was built on the site of the first church built around 742. Erfurt is home to some 150,000 Catholics in 63 parishes.
In the time during and following Pentecost, the dioceses in Northwestern Europe generally get new priests, as seminarians are ordained during this time in which the Church remembers and celebrates the Holy Spirit’s descent upon the Apostles and His continuing work in the Church today.
He led a diocese for less than four hours, but Bishop Manfred Melzer probably won’t lose any sleep over it. It is simply standard procedure in Cologne: as the archbishop retires, leadership of the archdiocese falls automatically to the most senior auxiliary bishop. Until, that is, the cathedral chapter has picked a diocesan administrator, and they didn’t take very long to do that. Vicar General Msgr. Stefan Heβe (pronounced “Hesse”) (pictured at right) runs the ongoing affairs of the archdiocese until Pope Francis confirms the election of a successor to Cardinal Joachim Meisner, who retired today after 25 years, two months and a few days at the head of one of Germany’s oldest sees.
Joachim Meisner was born on Christmas Day 1933, in what is now Wroclaw in Poland, but at the time the city of Breslau in Germany, which was rapidly falling into the clutches of the Nazis. Having lived through the war as a child and young teenager, Joachim Meisner ultimately became a priest of the Diocese of Fulda in 1962, days before his 29th birthday. In 1975, he was appointed as Auxiliary Bishop of the Apostolic Administration of Erfurt-Meiningen, which has been established only two years before (tensions between communist East Germany and the Holy See meant that the former had almost no full-fledged dioceses). Bishop Meisner was also given the titular see of Vina. In 1980, he became the bishop of Berlin, which, because of the aforementioned tensions, was not yet an archdiocese. Bishop Meisner stayed there for eight years, being created a cardinal in 1983, before being called to Cologne in 1980 (a poster welcoming his arrival is pictured at left).
And now? The Archdiocese of Cologne has already started the process of selecting a new archbishop by appointing a diocesan administrator. Possible candidates will now be chosen by several entities, all according to the Concordat that the Holy See signed in 1929 with Prussia, the state of which Cologne was then a part. Among these entities are Archbishop Eterovic (pictured) as the Papal Nuncio; the bishops of the other dioceses which were part of Prussia: Aachen, Berlin, Erfurt, Essen, Fulda, Görlitz, Hamburg, Hildesheim, Limburg, Magdeburg, Münster, Osnabrück, Paderborn and Trier; and the cathedral chapter of Cologne.
In Caelo et in Terra 