STÖCKLEIN, JOSEPH

STÖCKLEIN, JOSEPH. — Jesuit, military chaplain, missiologist, born in Öttingen (Bavaria) on 30 July 1676, died in Graz on 28 December 1733.

Having entered the Order in 1700 and been ordained a priest, he was assigned to the so-called military missions, that is, as military chaplain to the imperial troops, first during the War of the Spanish Succession, then in the Serbian campaign (1714–18) with Prince Eugenio di Savoia, to whom he was very dear. During the period 1720–23 he was rector of the College of Vienna; subsequently, worn down in health, he moved to Graz for lighter duties.

(Alinari photograph)
STOFFE – The Empress Teodora and her retinue in the act of entering S. Vitale, whose doorway is adorned with a rich textile. Note the empress’s purple mantle and the embroidered garments of the principal ladies. Sixth-century mosaic – Ravenna, basilica of S. Vitale.

His name is linked not only to the publication of the oratorical works of Fr. Gerardo Pauli (2 vols., Augusta-Graz 1728), the finest preacher of the time in the Austro-Hungarian province, but also to the publication of a collection of missionary reports, which he chose to entitle Neuer Welt-Bott and which contains a very considerable number of original letters from Jesuit missionaries in the two Indies from 1642 to 1726. The collection, begun in 1726 and carried out with careful selection and a genuine historical-critical sense, still constitutes an exceptionally valuable and irreplaceable source for the history of the missions, and was received with acclaim, awakening many missionary vocations and, in Protestant circles, many conversions. Of the 40 parts making up the Welt-Bott, S. had published 24 by the time of his death. His third successor in the enterprise, Fr. Franz Keller, recounted his life in the appendix to part 29 (no. 527, Vienna 1755): Leben und Taten, Reisen und Missionen R. P. Josephi S., ... in dem Kaiserlichen Kriegsheer im Reich und Ungarn Missionarii..., etc.).