Paul Augustin Mayer

Paul Augustin Cardinal Mayer OSB, also Augustine Mayer, (* May 23, 1911 in Altötting Paul Mayer, † April 30, 2010 in Rome) was Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

Family

Paul Augustin Mayer was one of three children of Royal Bavarian General Ludwig Mayer and his wife Meta Hoeness born in Ulm. His uncle was the Württemberg State President Eugen Bolz.

Life

Mayer was born in Altötting and grew up in running. In 1921 he visited the monastery seminar, higher secondary school of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Michael in Metten. He joined in 1930 in the Benedictine Metten and laid on May 17, 1931 there from the profession ( religious name Augustin). From 1932 to 1937 Mayer studied philosophy in Salzburg and Catholic Theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm, the convent's University of the Benedictines in Rome. On 25 August 1935 he was ordained priest. In 1937 he received his doctorate at Saint Anselm with a thesis on Clement of Alexandria as a doctor of theology. He was then a high school teacher in Metten.

In 1939, Mayer an appointed professor of dogmatic theology at Benedictine College Saint Anselm in Rome and was rector there from 1949 to 1966. As an Apostolic Visitor, he was responsible from 1957 to 1959 also for seminaries in Switzerland.

Mayer was instrumental in the preparations for the Second Vatican Council. He seemed particularly in the Council Commission for seminars as well as in the Commission for Catholic Education. He was instrumental, involved during the Vatican II decree on Optatam Totius, the neuordnete the training of priests. This decree was the only conciliar document immediately the approval of the Assembly.

In 1966 he was elected abbot of the monastery of Metten; the Abtsbenediktion he received on 10 December 1966. Mayer in 1968 became the abbot - president of the Bavarian Benedictine Congregation and 1971 elected chairman of the Salzburg Äbtekonferenz. These offices he had to resign in 1971, when he. Pope Paul VI was appointed Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome.

Pope Paul VI. appointed Paul Augustin Mayer on January 6, 1972 Titular Archbishop of Satrianum and donated to him on 13 February of the same year in St. Peter's episcopal ordination; Co-consecrators were the Archbishop of Utrecht, Bernard Cardinal Alfrink January, and the Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal William Conway. 1984 Mayer was Pro- Prefect of the Congregation sacrament.

On May 25, 1985 John Paul II Cardinal Mayer took over as deacon with the title Diakonia of Saint Anselm all'Aventino in the College of Cardinals on (from January 29, 1996 Cardinal Priest). Two days later, he was appointed Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He held until July 1, 1988 this office. On 2 July, the Pope appointed him president of the newly established Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which should strive to reintegration of priests, seminarians and religious, the traditionalist movement to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre were close and faced the reforms of the Second Vatican Council dismissive.

John Paul II took his resignation on 1 July 1991, shortly after Mayer's 80th birthday, at.

Mayer, who underwent nine pontificates, died on 30 April 2010 and was at the time of his death the oldest cardinal ( since the death of Alfons Maria Stickler 2007). Before the funeral Mass tribute to Pope Benedict XVI. Mayer's merits in the preparation of the Second Vatican Council. In St. Peter's Basilica a requiem was held on May 3, 2010, the Cardinal Dean Angelo Sodano led; the blessing ceremony of the corpse, Pope Benedict XVI. personally made. Augustin Mayer was born on 12 May 2010 at the Abbey of Metten to the grave.

He was an honorary member of the 1610 founded the Marian Congregation of Men Annunciation at the community hall in Munich.