(Freiburg) The well-known priest and theologian Prof. Joseph Schumacher, a loyal son of the church and staunch defender of church doctrine, died in Freiburg im Breisgau at the age of 86.
Born in Münster in Westphalia, Schumacher studied philosophy and theology at the universities of Münster and Innsbruck after graduating from high school in 1952–1959. In 1959 he was ordained a priest for his home diocese in Münster. Initially he worked as a chaplain in various parishes and as a religion teacher at the grammar school. In 1971 he became an assistant at the chair for fundamental theology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1973 he received his doctorate in theology there with a thesis on “the Denzinger”.
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After working for a number of years at the Münster Ordinariate, he completed his habilitation in 1977 in Freiburg with the thesis: “The apostolic conclusion of God’s revelation ”. With this he received the license to teach fundamental theology, which he initially exercised as a private lecturer. From 1980 he took over the representation at the chair for fundamental theology in Freiburg, where he was appointed associate professor in 1983.
Schumacher became a full member of the Pontificia Academia Theologica Romana and corresponding member of Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis berufen.
In the past more than 40 years he has distinguished himself particularly through a lively lecture activity. He dealt mainly with current issues and took part in the debates taking place on them, such as women’s priesthood. Intercommunion, the failed fruits of the Second Vatican Council or the identity of the Catholic, where he defended the traditional doctrine of the Church decisively and at a high intellectual level. In this sense, he was also one of the longstanding authors of the magazines Theologisches.
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His most recent book became a specialist thological legacy: “Absoluteness and perfection. A fundamental theological Christology“Has just been published by Patrimonium-Verlag. In the book presentation it says:
“Today theology has largely succumbed to arbitrariness and has been overtaken by total subjectivism for some time. The objective truth seems to her more and more inaccessible.
The fundamental theologian Joseph Schumacher ties in with his Demonstratio christiana to the theology of the Church Fathers, as it has continuously developed over the two millennia of the history of the Church. In doing so, he directs his gaze to the signs of divinity in the Old and New Testaments in order to rationally justify the claim to absoluteness of the two Testaments and to show the completion of the Old Testament in the New. “
On his website Theologie heute he published his current sermons, which he gave on Sundays in the Antoniuskapelle of the Church of St. Martin in Freiburg, where he celebrated and heard confession. The most recent and last sermon posted there is that of last September 6th on the 14th Sunday after Pentecost: “You can not serve God and mammon“. As a friend of Prof. Schumacher confirms, he recently celebrated regularly in the chapel of the Priesterbruderschaft St. Pius X. in Freiburg. On request from the German district of Piusbruderschaft one did not want to comment on it.
His scientific papers are in the University Archives in Düsseldorf.
The funeral of Prof. Joseph Schumacher will take place on October 6th in Littenweiler (Freiburg im Breisgau).
Requiescat in pace
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Wikicommons / Patrimonium Verlag
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