Draft:Peter Hünermann

Peter Hünermann (8 March 1929 - 21 December 2025) was a German Roman Catholic priest and theologian. After teaching dogmatics at the University of Münster, he was Professor of Catholic Dogmatics at the University of Tübingen, and from 1989 to 1995 the founding president of the European Society for Catholic Theology. He is considered, along with Pope Benedict XVI and Hans Küng, one of the most influential German-speaking theologians of his generation. With a five-volume commentary on the Second Vatican Council, Herders Theologischen Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil Hünermann made a substantial contribution to its interpretation. As a longstanding advocate for a stronger role for women within the Catholic Church, he participated in founding the German Netzwerk Diakonat der Frau in 1997, subsequently serving as a member of its board.

Life

Peter Hünermann was born in Berlin on 8 March 1929 as the eldest of five siblings. In 1949 he entered the seminary of the Diocese of Aachen and studied Catholic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained a priest in 1955. Hünermann received his doctorate from the Gregorian University in 1958 with a dissertation on the Trinitarian anthropology of Franz Anton Staudenmaier in relation to German Idealism. He returned to Germany and from 1958 to 1961 worked as a chaplain and teacher of religion in Mönchengladbach and Aachen. From 1961 to 1967 he continued his studies at LMU Munich under Max Müller and at the University of Freiburg, where he was particularly influenced by the philosopher of religion Bernhard Welte.

In 1971, Hünermann was appointed professor of dogmatic theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Münster. He took over the supervision of several doctoral students previously supervised by Karl Rahner. Alongside his academic work, he served in pastoral ministry and was Rector Ecclesiae of the Dominican Church in Münster. In 1982 he accepted a professorship in dogmatic theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Tübingen, where he remained until his retirement in 1997. From 1985 to 2002, Hünermann served as president of the Catholic Academic Exchange Service (KAAD), after which he became its honorary president. From 1989 to 1995 he was the founding president of the European Society for Catholic Theology. In 2008 the Peter Hünermann Foundation was established to intensify the European Society’s research activities through the initiation and development of several special projects.

Hünermann lived from 1982 in the parish house in Oberndorf near Rottenburg am Neckar, where he also served the local parish of St. Ursula. In 2024 he moved to Erligheim to be closer to his family. He died there on 21 December 2025, aged 96, in a nursing home. He was buried at the cemetery in Oberndorf on 2 January 2026.

Latin America and contacts with Jorge Mario Bergoglio

In 1968, Hünermann made his first journey to Latin America, visiting Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago de Chile and, together with Bernhard Welte, helped establish the German–Latin American scholarship organization that later became ICALA. Over the following decades, Hünermann made repeated visits to Latin America and engaged extensively with Latin American theology, particularly liberation theology and Catholic social teaching. In 1983 he was appointed honorary professor at the Universidad Católica Boliviana in Cochabamba, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1997. From 1986 to 1993, he co-directed an international research project on Catholic social teaching in Latin America with Argentine theologian Juan Carlos Scannone.

Peter Hünermann and Jorge Mario Bergoglio first met in Buenos Aires during Hünermann’s initial visit to Latin America. In 2005 the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina awarded Hünermann an honorary doctorate. At the time, Bergoglio was the university's Grand Chancellor and the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. After his election as pope, he received Hünermann for a private meeting at the Vatican in May 2015. In an interview with Grant Kaplan, published in the Roman Catholic magazine Commonweal, Hünermann elaborates on his relationship with Archbishop Bergoglio and his meeting with him as Pope Francis in 2015. Church historian Massimo Faggioli describes Hünermann as an influential German theologian in the interpretation of Pope Francis's approach to the Second Vatican Council and mentions that he was among the few theologians who publicly expressed hope for the election of Bergoglio in 2013.

Work

Hünermann was regarded as one of the major German theologians shaped by the Second Vatican Council. He interpreted Vatican II as a theological liberation that introduced a new program and practice for the Catholic Church in its relationship with modernity. He concluded his farewell lecture at the University of Tübingen in 1997 with a passage that may be regarded as programmatic for his theological work:

„Der Glaube, die Kirche wie die Theologie sind in einer gänzlich neuen Weise auf den Prüfstand gestellt. Sie müssen sich in der Begegnung mit der Zeit, in der Auseinandersetzung mit den Kulturen, im Dialog mit den Religionen jeden Tag neu bewähren. Es gibt keinen Rückzug hinter die Bastionen. Theologen sind heute in anderer Intensität als in der vorkonziliaren Epoche zur Kreativität herausgefordert.“

English translation: “Faith, the Church, as well as theology, are being put to the test in a completely new way. They must prove themselves anew every day in their encounter with the times, in their engagement with cultures, and in their dialogue with religions. There is no retreat behind the bastions. Theologians today are challenged to be creative with a different intensity than in the pre-conciliar era.”

Central to Hünermann's theological thinking is Christology with the recurring theme of "friendship with God", particularly friendship with Jesus Christ. He developed this concept extensively and systematically in "Jesus Christus – Gottes Wort in der Zeit" (1994), especially in the section devoted to Jesus as “friend and Lord.” He was also among the early European theologians to engage with liberation theology. Hünermann also studied the theology of John of the Cross and interpreted the mysticism of the "dark night" as a path into modernity. He defended the right and responsibility of theologians to speak openly within the Church in what he called parrhesia, particularly in relation to the freedom of theological scholarship.

Together with Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Hünermann edited Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, a five-volume theological commentary on the documents of Vatican II, published between 2004 and 2006. The project combined new translations of the council documents with extensive theological commentary. On 22 February 2006, Hünermann and Hilberath presented it to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. In 2016 Hünermann, together with Margit Eckholt, Joachim Schmiedl and Klaus Vellguth, initiated the research project Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil – Ereignis und Auftrag, involving approximately 150 theologians from different continents in research on the reception and continuing significance of Vatican II.

In 2009, in connection with the lifting of the excommunication of bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X, Hünermann criticized the papal decision of Pope Benedict XVI and described it as an abuse of office. In an ecumenical perspective, Hünermann advocated decentralized and synodal processes in the Catholic Church. During the Würzburg Synod, he was one of three theological experts, alongside Yves Congar and Herbert Vorgrimler, asked to examine whether the female diaconate could be restored. Hünermann argued that there were no dogmatic obstacles to it and supported its reinstatement.

Denzinger-Hünermann

From the 37th edition, published in 1991, Hünermann served as editor of the Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, the collection of Catholic creeds and doctrinal decisions originally compiled by Heinrich Denzinger. He expanded the work and added German translations of doctrinal texts originally issued in Greek and Latin. The editions published under his editorship became known as the "Denzinger-Hünermann" (DH). In 2025, shortly before his death, Hünermann entrusted Michael Seewald with responsibility for future editions of the Enchiridion Symbolorum. Hünermann was also editor of the theological book series Quaestiones disputatae, published by Herder Verlag, from 1994 to 2019. His writings were translated into numerous languages.

Students

Among his students were Federico Altbach, Guido Bausenhart, Fernando Berríos, Juan Noemi Callejas (1942–2017), Carlos Casale, Margit Eckholt, Barbara Hallensleben, Dieter Hattrup, Linus Hauser, Regina Heyder, Helmut Hoping, Martin Kirschner, Claudia Lücking-Michel, Pablo Pagano, Eduardo Rodríguez Antuñano, Thomas Schärtl-Trendel, Carlos Schickendantz, Roman Siebenrock, Joaquin Silva-Soler, Pablo Sudar, Francisco Taborda, Jan-Heiner Tück and Virginia Azcuy.

Honours and awards

• Honorary professorship at the Universidad Católica Boliviana in Cochabamba (1983)
• Honorary doctorate from the Universidad Católica Boliviana in Cochabamba (1997), from Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires (2005), from Universität Freiburg (2005) and from Universität Erfurt (2008).
• Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse) (June 1989)
• Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg (2001)

In 2008, the KAAD established the foundation "KAAD Stiftung Peter Hünermann" under the auspices of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart to honor its honorary chairman and to support educational events and research projects by KAAD alumni.

Selected publications

As author

• Trinitarische Anthropologie bei Franz Anton Staudenmaier. Karl Alber, Freiburg and Munich, 1962.
• Der Durchbruch geschichtlichen Denkens im 19. Jahrhundert. Johann Gustav Droysen, Wilhelm Dilthey, Graf Paul Yorck von Wartburg. Ihr Weg und ihre Weisung für die Theologie. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1967.
• Theologie als Wissenschaft. Methodische Zugänge, with Bernhard Caspar and Klaus Hemmerle. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1970.
• Wort in Worten. Predigten zum Kirchenjahr. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1979.
• Über-Setzung oder Der Glaube an die Kraft des Gotteswortes in unserer Zeit. Predigten zum Kirchenjahr. Aschendorff, Münster, 1984.
• Offenbarung Gottes in der Zeit. Prolegomena zur Christologie. Aschendorff, Münster, 1989.
• Jesus Christus, Gottes Wort in der Zeit. Eine systematische Christologie. Aschendorff, Münster, 1994.
• Ekklesiologie im Präsens. Perspektiven. Aschendorff, Münster, 1995.
• Dogmatische Prinzipienlehre. Glaube, Überlieferung, Theologie als Sprach- und Wahrheitsgeschehen. Aschendorff, Münster, 2003.
• El Vaticano II como software de la Iglesia actual. Centro Teológico Manuel Larraín / Editorial Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago de Chile, 2014. ISBN 978-956-357-018-2.
• Sprache des Glaubens – Sprache des Lehramts – Sprache der Theologie. Eine geschichtliche Orientierung. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2016.
• Human Beings According to Christ Today: Pope Francis’ Anthropology. Coventry Press, 2019.

As editor or co-editor

• Enchiridion Symbolorum ("Denzinger-Hünermann"), 45th edition, under the title Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse und kirchlichen Lehrentscheidungen. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2017.
• Gott im Aufbruch. Die Provokation der lateinamerikanischen Theologie, with Gerd-Dieter Fischer. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1974.
• Franz Anton Staudenmaier. Styria, Graz, 1975.
• Wer ist Gott? Die Antwort der Weltreligionen, with Adel Theodor Khoury. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1983.
• Weiterleben – nach dem Tode? Die Antwort der Weltreligionen, with Adel Theodor Khoury. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1985.
• Warum leiden? Die Antwort der Weltreligionen, with Adel Theodor Khoury. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1987.
• Wozu und wie beten? Die Antwort der Weltreligionen, with Adel Theodor Khoury. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1989.
• Das II. Vatikanum. Christlicher Glaube im Horizont globaler Modernisierung, with Jan Heiner Tück. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 1998.
• Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, 5 vols., with Bernd Jochen Hilberath. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2004–2006.
• Joseph Ratzinger / Benedikt XVI.: Wort Gottes. Schrift – Tradition – Amt, with Thomas Söding. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2005.
• Bernhard Welte: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2007.
• Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI: God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office, with Thomas Söding. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2008.
• Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals. Ignatius Press, 2012.

Bibliographies

• Margit Eckholt: Bibliographie Peter Hünermann. In: Dieter Hattrup, Helmut Hoping (Eds.): Christologie und Metaphysikkritik. Peter Hünermann zum 60. Geburtstag. Aschendorff, Münster 1989, pp. 141–157.
• Thomas Fliethmann: Bibliographie Peter Hünermann (1960–1993). In: Bernhard Fraling, Helmut Hoping, Juan Carlos Scannone (Eds.): Kirche und Theologie im kulturellen Dialog. Für Peter Hünermann. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, pp. 476–492.
• Sebastián Pinazzo: Auswahlbibliografie zum Thema „Synodalität“ im Werk von Peter Hünermann. In: Margit Eckholt, Dorando Michelini (Eds.): Interpretatio temporis. Annäherungen an Peter Hünermanns Denken im Dienst einer Kirche in der Welt. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Ostfildern 2024, pp. 295–318.

Further reading

• Gotthard Fuchs: Die Kunst des Vermittelns. Peter Hünermann zum siebzigsten Geburtstag. In: Christ in der Gegenwart, Jg. 51 (1999), pp. 77–78
• Thomas Philipp: Scham und Negation. Zur Theologie des Scheiterns. Peter Hünermann zum 70. Geburtstag. In: Geist und Leben, Jg. 72 (1999), pp. 84–96.
• Margit Eckholt and Regina Heyder (Eds.): In der Freiheit des Geistes leben. Peter Hünermann im Gespräch. Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Ostfildern, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7867-2843-6.
• Guido Bausenhart, Margit Eckholt and Linus Hauser (Eds.): Zukunft aus der Geschichte Gottes. Theologie im Dienst an einer Kirche für morgen. Für Peter Hünermann. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014. ISBN 978-3-451-30980-9.
• Margit Eckholt: Intellektuelle Redlichkeit und Parrhesia im Dienst der Kirche. Zum 90. Geburtstag von Peter Hünermann. In: Stimmen der Zeit, Jg. 144 (2019), Bd. 237, pp. 219–228.
• Margit Eckholt and Dorando Michelini (Eds.): Interpretatio temporis. Annäherungen an Peter Hünermanns Denken im Dienst einer Kirche in der Welt. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Ostfildern, 2024. ISBN 978-3-7867-3364-5.
• Sebastián Pinazzo: Freundschaft als freie Zuwendung. Annäherungen an das Denken Peter Hünermanns. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2025. ISBN 978-3-451-02509-9.

Selected Obituaries

• Vatican News: "Theologe Hünermann mit 96 Jahren gestorben"
• European Society of Catholic Theology: "Obituary – Prof. Peter Hünermann"
• Natalie K. Watson: "Vatican II theologian Peter Hünermann remembered for ‘critical loyalty’ after death at 96", in: The TabletThe Tablet - The International Catholic News Weekly, December 27, 2025
• Margit Eckholt, Martin Kirschner, Thomas Fliethmann, Regina Heyder and Saskia Wendel: "Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Peter Hünermann im Alter von 96 Jahren verstorben", University of Tübingen, December 22, 2025.
• Jan Heiner Tück: "Für das III. Vaticanum ist es noch zu früh", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 23, 2025
• Margit Eckholt, Jutta Mader-Schömer, Irmentraud Kobusch: "Das Netzwerk Diakonat der Frau trauert um sein langjähriges Vorstandsmitglied", December 24, 2025
• Paul Kreiner: "Dogma und Widerstand", in: Publik-Forum, December 23, 2025
• Klaus Vellguth: "Serviam – Ich will dienen.", in: Anzeiger für die Seelsorge, Jg. 135 (2026), Vol. 3, pp. 37–40.
• Directiva Sociedad Chilena de Teología: "El maestro Peter Hünermann", in: Mensaje, January 27, 2026
• Mariano Delgado: "La libertad de la teología en la Iglesia: el legado del teólogo alemán Peter Hünermann", in: Religión Digital, December 26, 2025.

External links

• Literature by and about Peter Hünermann in the German National Library catalogue
• Hünermann Foundation at European Society for Catholic Theology
• Peter Hünermann at Katholischer Akademischer Ausländerdienst
• Peter Hünermann at BeWeB