BUCHINGER, MICHAEL. – German theologian and preacher, born in Colmar in 1520 and died there in 1571. After studying in Heidelberg and obtaining his bachelor’s degree at Friburgo in Br. in 1539, from 1542 to 1569 he exercised his ministry in various places in Germany: he was in Molsheim and Strasbourg; in 1564 he was parish priest at Wolsheim, from where he moved to Schlettstadt and finally to Colmar, where in 1569 we find him serving as a preacher. In defense of the authority of the papacy, he sketched a history of the Church, asserting its apostolicity in the uninterrupted succession of the pontiffs from s. Pietro to Paolo IV. Without excessive critical pretensions, and with the fervor of an orator more than the precision of a critic, he seems to aim more at making an impression on the heart than at bending reason. Likewise, in his works of preaching, he alternates admirably between the warmth of the orator and the coolness of the apologist.
He wrote: De imaginibus, ieiunio, Eucharistia (s. l. 1543); De mysterio altaris (Colonia 1555); Ecclesia (s.l. 1556), republished under the title Historia ecclesiastica nova (Magonza 1560); in German, Sermoni sul Decalogo, vungeli delle domeniche e feste dei Santi (3 vols., s. l. 1567–70); De Missae sacrificio (Anversa 1588).