SCHMIDLIN, JOSEPH. - Missiologist, b. at Kleinlandau (Alsace) on 29 March 1876, d. in the Schirmeck concentration camp in 1943. A priest in 1899, from 1914 to 1937 he was ordinary professor of Church history and of missionary science at the University of Münster in Westphalia.
Under the impulse of Fr. R. Streit (v.) O.M.I. and of Fr. Friedrich Schwager S.V.D. he entered the field of missionary science. He was director of the Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, with a brief interruption, from 1911 to 1937. He wrote: Einführung in die Missionswissenschaft (2nd ed., Münster 1925), Katholische Missionslehre im Grundriss (2nd ed., ibid. 1923), Katholische Missionsgeschichte (Steyl 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 help it was possible to publish the volumes of the Bibliotheca Missionum of Fr. R. Streit, the collections Missionswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen und Texte (14 vols.) and Missionswissenschaftliche Studien (7 vols.); to subsidize certain research journeys and to organize the academic missionary congresses up to 1932. He can be considered a co-founder of missionary science. To him is also owed the Papstgeschichte der neuesten Zeit (4 vols., Munich 1933-39, French version of vol. I in two tomes by L. Marchal revised by L. Cristiani, Lyon 1938-40), which runs from Pius VII to Pius XI and is intended as the continuation of Pastor's History of the Popes.
Bibliography3 works
Giovanni Rommerskirchen