SCHMIDLIN, JOSEPH

SCHMIDLIN, JOSEPH. — Missionologist, born at Kleinlandau (Alsace) on 29 March 1876, died in the Schirmeck concentration camp in 1943. Ordained a priest in 1899, from 1914 to 1937 he was ordinary professor of ecclesiastical history and missionary science at the University of Münster in V.
Under the impetus of Fr. R. STREIT, KARL (v.) O.M.I. and Fr. Friedrich Schwager S.V.D., he entered the field of missionary science. With a brief interruption, he was director of the Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft from 1911 to 1937. He wrote: Einführung in die Missionswissenschaft (2nd ed., Münster 1925), Katholische Missionslehre im Grundriss (2nd ed., there 1923), Katholische Missionsgeschichte (Steel 1925), translated into Italian by Fr. G. B. Tragella (3 vols., Milan 1927–30), and Das gegenwärtige Heidenapostolat im Fernen Osten (2 vols., Münster 1928). He was also an active director of the Scientific Commission of the International Institute for Scientific-Missionary Research. With the Institute’s assistance, it was possible to publish the volumes of Fr. R. Streit’s Bibliotheca Missionum, the collections Missionswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen und Texte (14 vols.) and Missionswissenschaftliche Studien (7 vols.); to subsidize several investigative journeys and organize the academic missionary congresses up to 1932. He may be regarded as a co-founder of missionary science. He also produced the Papstgeschichte der neuesten Zeit (4 vols., Munich 1933–39, French version of volume I in two tomes by L. Marchal, revised by L. Cristiani, Lyon 1938–40), which covers the period from Pius VII to Pius XI and is intended as a continuation of Pastor’s Storia dei Papi.