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updated 11:54 AM UTC, Mar 20, 2024

Passing of Viktrizius Veith OFMCap

Our brother Viktrizius Veith died in the infirmary of the friary in Münster, Germany on the morning of June 21, 2019. He was born together with his twin brother Stefan on October 6, 1934 in Waldmatt, near Bühl (Baden) and was given the baptismal name Adolf Hilarius. From 1945 to 1948 he attended the minor seminary of the Capuchins in Zell am Harmersbach, and from 1948 to 1954 the common high school in Bensheim, living in our friary of St. Fidelis in the same city of Essia (Hessen). After his examinations, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchins in Stühlingen, at the Swiss border, together with his twin brother. After making profession on April 24, 1955 he studied philosophy in Krefeld and theology in Münster. In 1960 the twins Viktrizius and Paulinus were ordained priests.

Br. Viktrizius continued his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he completed the doctorate in dogmatic theology in 1966 with a dissertation on the concept of redemption in St. Bonaventure. From 1966 to 1980 he taught dogmatic theology at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule (PTH) of the OFM and the Capuchins in Münster. Beginning in 1973 he also taught theological anthropology at the Athenaeum for Social Work, also in Münster.

Br. Viktrizius served as provincial minister of the then Province of Rhine-Westphalia from 1980 to 1982. At the general chapter of 1982 he was elected general definitor and at the same time appointed rector of the International College ‘San Lorenzo da Brindisi’ until the next general chapter (1988) when he was elected general vicar of the Order. In the course of this service, Br. Viktrizius visited many countries and provinces of the Order, always stressing in his talks and choices a commitment to a certain openness to the world and the risks of provincialism in the Order. When recalling his time in Rome, these were the two points he considered the most beautiful and important.

Returning in 1994 to the Rhine-Westphalia Province, Br. Viktrizius worked for some months in the pastoral team of the friars in Offenburg. He was then guardian (1995-2001) and vicar (2001-2003) of the friary of Dieburg, where he was also very involved in pastoral work. After a brief stay in the friary of Werne, in 2004 he took on the pastoral care of the Franciscan sisters in Reute, where he remained until 2015. His health situation having become more delicate, Br. Viktrizius was then transferred to Zell, closer to home, where he helped in the Marian shrine and also wished to be buried next to his twin brother Paulinus, who had died on June 17, 2003. Towards the end of 2018, Br. Viktrizius asked to move to the infirmary of the friary of Münster where he died on June 21, 2019.

In Father Viktrizius, the German Capuchins and the whole Order have lost a confrere who guided and formed the Province and the Order with his intellectual clarity, his fraternal kindness, and his always edifying good humor.

The Capuchin friars of Münster

Last modified on Friday, 28 June 2019 11:12