Joseph Anton Gall

Joseph Anton Gall ( born March 27, 1748 in Weil der Stadt, † June 18, 1807 in Linz) was a Catholic priest, educator and Bishop of Linz.

Life

Joseph Anton Gall was born in 1748 as the fifth of eleven children of a cloth merchant and tobacco manufacturer Anton Gall in Weil der Stadt. His father served in 1756-1791 the office of mayor in the former free imperial city. After studying theology and philosophy in Heidelberg, he entered the seminary in Bruchsal ( residence of the prince-bishops of Speyer ), where he was ordained a priest in 1772 for the Diocese of Speyer.

Already in 1773 he went to Vienna, where he - after training at the reformer of the Austrian education system, abbot Johann Ignaz von Felbiger - as a catechist worked at the Normal School. After his appointment as chaplain in 1778 Gall was pastor in 1779 Burgschleinitz and Upper director of the schools in Lower Austria. In this capacity he introduced the Socratic method in the classroom, a question method to promote cognitive performance ( instead of a one-sided emphasis on memory performance ). On April 22, 1787 he was invested as Domscholaster the Vienna Cathedral and Metropolitan Chapter.

1788 Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his successor Johann Nepomuk of Ernest Herbersteins the second diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Linz, founded in 1784, which Pope Pius VI. confirmed on 15 December 1788. Consecration and enthronement took place beginning in 1789.

Bishop Gall won by his humble and selfless life quickly the sympathies of the people of his diocese. He supported the Josephinism became known as the State and religious policies of Joseph II as careful reconnaissance he turned against superstitious practices and founded in 1802 the Theological and practical monthly magazine in which he published himself.

In 1799 he made ​​the controversial priest in Augsburg Martin Boos come to his diocese ( and gave him 1806, the parish Gallneukirchen ). Gall founded in 1806 the Linz Seminary and fitted it partially out of its own funds and gave it generously in his will. He died on 18 June 1807 in Linz and was buried there in the Old Cathedral.

Writings

• Ideas of loving rich institutions and order of God, to make people well and blissful (Vienna 1778)
• Introduction to Religious Education in conversations the mother with the child (Vienna 1779)
• Socrates among Christians in the person of a village priest, 3 volumes (Vienna 1783/84 )
• Guide to knowledge and worship of God, together with the instruction to bliss by the life and teaching of Jesus (Vienna 1793)
• Loving- institutions of God, to make people well and blissful (Vienna 1795)