Yesterday saw the early retirement of Bishop Johannes Kreidler, auxiliary of the southern German Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, and the appointment of his successor. Unlike dioceses in most parts of the world, the ones in German almost all seem to come with a standard set of auxiliary bishops; when one retires, a new one is appointed almost immediately. There are exceptions, and some sees may do without an auxiliary bishop for a while, but they can expect the eventual appointment of one in due time. While Rottenburg-Stuttgart has two, other dioceses have rather more, with Münster topping the list with no less than four auxiliary bishops (and a fifth is expected to be named some time this year). In many cases the appointment to auxiliary bishop is a given for episcopal vicars of specific pastoral areas of a diocese. It makes for a rather large and – I imagine – unwieldy bishops’ conference.
Back to Rottenburg-Stuttgart. The successor of 70-year-old Bishop Johannes Kreidler, who has retired for health reasons, is 48-year-old Matthäus Karrer. The new bishop is a member of the cathedral chapter and heads the department of pastoral planning in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. He joins Bishop Gebhard Fürst and Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Renz at the head of that diocese, which covers the central and eastern part of the State of Baden-Württemberg. Bishop-elect Karrer studied theology in Tübingen and Munich, writing a dissertation on “marriage and family as house Church”. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1995. In 2008, after more than a decade as parish priest in several locations, he was appointed as the first Dean of Allgäu-Oberschwaben.
The consecration of Bishop Karrer is scheduled for 28 May. As an auxiliary bishop he has been given the titular see of Tunnuna. That former diocese, located in modern Tunisia, has a bit of a recent tendency of not being held long by one bishop. Bishop-elect Karrer’s predecessors there, Bishops Stephen Robson, now of Dunkeld, Scotland, and Jan Liesen, now of Breda, the Netherlands, were appointed as ordinaries of dioceses of their one after less than two years. In Germany, only Mainz is still awaiting a new ordinary…
Photo credit: Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart/Jochen Wiedemann
