Joachim Meisner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joachim Meisner (born 25 December 1933) is a Cardinal priest and Archbishop of Cologne in the Roman Catholic Church.
Born in Breslau, Lower Silesia, Meisner studied at the seminary of Erfurt, earning a doctorate in theology. Ordained a priest in 1962, he pastored in Germany.
In 1975, he was elected titular Bishop of Vina and auxiliary Bishop of Erfurt. He was elected as a delegate to the Fourth Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in 1977, where he renewed a friendship with Karol Wojtyla. After Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II, he appointed Meisner Bishop of Berlin in 1980, and proclaimed him Cardinal in the consistory of 2 February 1983, with the title Cardinal Priest of S Pudenziana.
| Styles of Joachim Meisner |
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| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | Cologne |
In 1988 after the death of Joseph Höffner, Meisner was promoted to the position of Archbishop of Cologne, a post he continues to hold. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI. He said of Pope Benedict "He [Pope Benedict] has the intelligence of 12 professors and is as pious as a child on the day of his first communion." [1]
