John M. Oesterreicher
John Austrians ( born February 2, 1904 in Liebau city in Moravia, † April 18, 1993 in Livingston, New Jersey) was an Austrian Catholic priest of Jewish descent.
Life
After a happy childhood in the city Liebau he attended high school in Olomouc, where he was also active in the Zionist youth movement. He moved to his medical studies in Vienna, where he writings of Christian authors saw frequent contact and a lively exchange with Max Josef Metzger led. In May 1924, he was baptized in Graz; his godfather was Max Josef Metzger. Even as a Jew, he began his theological studies in Graz; on 17 July 1927, he was ordained by Archbishop Friedrich Gustav Piffl a priest.
He conducted jointly with Georg Bichlmair SJ Paul the factory, founded by Cardinal Innitzer in Vienna, which pursued dual objective: on the one hand, the proselytizing of Jews, on the other hand to protect the Jews from persecution. " The Paul 's work was an attempt Hitler on a religious level counter. Back then, we coined the phrase that the Jewish question a question for Jews and Christians is but a religious issue and not a political and social nature. " (Interview in the Kleine Zeitung of 10 June 1988).
After Schuschnigg's radio speech on 11 March 1938, the capitulation of Austria and an interview with Cardinal Innitzer burned John Austrians to protect his entire correspondence as well as his books to the citizens of Jewish origin and fled 5 weeks after the invasion of Paris. From Paris, he held regular militant sermons against the tyranny of racial madness that has been transferred to the wavelength of an Austrian resistance radio station. After the invasion of the German troops in France his escape went to Spain, Portugal and finally to New York, where he worked at several parishes and from March 1953 at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey Taught in which he, the Institute has built for Jewish - Christian Understanding and worked well into old age. In 1961 he was called by Pope John XXIII to the prelates of His Holiness ( Monsignor ) appointed. Johannes Maria Austrian was one of the pioneers of the international Jewish-Christian dialogue, and were instrumental in the creation of the "Jewish Declaration" of the Second Vatican Council. Pope John XXIII. summoned him before the start of the second period as commissioner in the " Secretariat for Unity ". He wrote a study of those basic truths that should govern or determine the relation of the Church to the Jewish people. The Council's Declaration is based on this study.
Johannes Maria Austrians summarizes the epitome of the Jews explanation in one sentence ( Kath Press Interview from 1988 ): ". Rediscovery of Judaism and the Jews in their own value and their importance for the Church " The Church has stated that their existence in the deliverance of Jacob's descendants from Egyptian bondage, their miraculous passage rooted through the Red Sea and their wanderings through the desert. What does it for our life of faith and our relationship to the Jews? A watchful eye for the Jewish milieu of the New Testament, a real empathy with the environment of Jesus is to fully understand we need the right proclamation of the Christian message. You have to lovingly empathize with the concerns, worries, hopes and sufferings of the people. The Christian should be familiar with Hebrew thought and language forms. The Declaration was adopted on 28 October 1965 as Nostra Aetate. Johannes Maria Austrians always described himself as a " Jew and Catholic" and used his life intimate contact with the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. Likewise, he became deeply for the understanding of the Jews and vehemently against on racial hatred.
As a person he is described as a very kind, extremely intelligent, extremely humble and tolerant.
Quote
" I am a Jew and a Catholic " ( often quoted by him)
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph were in their earthly life Jews, just as the apostles and members of the early church. Anyone who uses the term Jew as an insult, insulted, without knowing it, Jesus and all the early saints of the Church " ( Kath Press interview from 1988)
" A detailed account of my life and my commitment to Christ would take weeks to complete. Among other things, I would have to describe the influence which the Soren Kierkegaard, Cardinal Newman, Ferdinand Ebner, Theodor Haecker, ' The Burner ', ' The Torch', especially Gospels had on me. " ( John Mary Austrians in a letter dated 16 October 1986)