His official car license plate bears the letters HH-SH – as if made for an auxiliary bishop who works in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. On Thursday, Hans-Jochen Jaschke celebrates his 20th anniversary as a bishop. This makes the 67-year-old the lone record holder in the north. No Catholic or Protestant bishop has ever been in office here so long.
Rich is the range of topics with which Jaschke has gained notoriety far beyond Hamburg. In the Catholic Bishops' Conference, he is responsible for interreligious dialogue and has thus, at the latest since 11. September 2001 a very explosive ie in his care. The theologian defends Muslims against the general suspicion of terrorist activities, but at the same time calls on them to distance themselves clearly from Islamist violence. Again and again Jaschke praises the good relationship between Catholics and Jews and calls for vigilance against any form of hostility towards Jews. Jaschke was born on 29. Born in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, in September 1941. After the expulsion, his family settled in Buckeburg, Lower Saxony, in 1945. Jaschke's theology and philosophy studies in Frankfurt and Munster were followed by his ordination to the priesthood in 1967. In 1974 he received his doctorate in Munich under Joseph Ratzinger, today's Pope Benedict XVI. Until 1983 he directed the Niels Stensen College in Munster, after which he was pastor in Quakenbruck. On 8. Jaschke received his episcopal ordination in Osnabruck on January 1989; after the establishment of the Archdiocese of Hamburg in 1995, he was appointed Episcopal Vicar for Schleswig-Holstein. In the Bishops' Conference, he is also responsible for the Federal Police and the Federal Border Guard. Jaschke can sufficiently prove his skill in ecumenical matters in the Nordic diaspora. Not only since the "ecumenical Catholic Day" in Hamburg in 2000 has the clergyman repeatedly appeared with the Protestant Bishop Maria Jepsen. The latter praises him for his enthusiasm for ecumenism. "I always liked the combination of joie de vivre and theological depth that I found in him," Jepsen congratulates on anniversary.
A welcome guest on the social scene A welcome guest on the social stage, he does not shy away from plain speaking. At the Katholikentag in Osnabruck, he was the one who, on the podium of the "Initiative Kirche von unten" (Church from below initiative), acknowledged painful mistakes made by the Catholic Church on the subject of sexual abuse by clergymen. He castigates any right-wing sentiment as a "brown swamp," but also warns politicians and society not to be blind in the left eye. On his anniversary, Schleswig-Holstein's Minister President Peter Harry Carstensen (CDU) attests to his negotiating skills and sensitivity. In this way, he had played a decisive role in the state treaty between Schleswig-Holstein and the Holy See, which was signed on 12. January is signed. Hamburg's First Mayor Ole von Beust (CDU) adds: "During these 20 years, the people of Hamburg have been able to get to know him as a theologically and philosophically highly educated man, who in this respect is in the best tradition of his church."During sermons, the man with the distinctive voice always keeps an eye on his wristwatch placed on the ambo; a good speech gets by even with little time. In the summer, Jaschke revealed to a tabloid that he had a beer after a bike ride around the Alster lake. In the fall, he expressed concern in the same newspaper about the church's failures in the face of the November pogroms of 1938. That was before the time of Hans-Jochen Jaschke. But what does that matter to one whose bishop's motto, "Until the day appears," spans entire eras.