EDITORIAL •
On December 18, he would have been 63 years old. But on the morning of December 10, Fr. Joachim Schmiedl ISch passed away. The news of his sudden death is moving far beyond the Schoenstatt Movement. —
Joachim Schmiedl, born in Nuremberg, joined the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Fathers in 1977 and received priestly ordination in 1988.
Those who think of Fr. Joachim Schmiedl in the Schoenstatt Movement think of the magazine Regnum, of which he was editor-in-chief since 2002, and of the editor of numerous scholarly texts on topics of Schoenstatt’s history and spirituality, most recently also in the context of inquiries about Fr. Kentenich’s behavior toward Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary and vice versa: always factual, always verifiable, always sober, always scientifically tenable.
For many years he worked as Spiritual Assistant of the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Brothers of Mary and participated in the beatification process of Joseph Engling.
In the obituary on the new site of the Vincent Pallotti University in Vallendar (formerly the Pedagogical-Theological University), his scientific sphere of activity is acknowledged: Joachim Schmiedl, it says there,
after his habilitation in 1998 at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelm University of Münster, was initially a lecturer at the Theological Faculty of the PTH Vallendar.
Since 2001 Joachim Schmiedl held the professorship for church history there. In April 2009, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Theology.
Since 2002 Schmiedl was editor-in-chief of the theological journal REGNUM and since 2004 editor of the Quellen und Abhandlungen zur mittelrheinischen Kirchengeschichte. He is also closely associated with the series Europas Synoden nach dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, which he edited since 2013. From 2017 to 2020, he was chairman of the Catholic Theological Faculty Association.
With Joachim Schmiedl, not only the Faculty of Theology of the Vincent Pallotti University (formerly PTHV) loses an esteemed and internationally respected colleague, but also the theological landscape in Germany loses a scholar who was able to combine faith and science in a special way.
From the obituary of the VPU (meanwhile confirmed via the publication on Schoenstatt.de) it can also be seen that the Requiem will take place on Saturday, Dec. 18, 2021, at 1:00 p.m. in the Pilgrim Church in Vallendar-Schoenstatt. On his birthday and on the last Covenant Day of 2021. This will be followed by burial in the cemetery on Mount Sion.
Let us pray for Fr. Joachim Schmiedl, the community of Schoenstatt Fathers and all those who are hard hit by his sudden death.
Foto: © KNA-Bild, license for www.schoenstatt.org from 10.12.2021
