STÖCKLEIN, JOSEPH. - Jesuit, military chaplain, missiologist, b. at Öttingen (Bavaria) on 30 July 1676, d. at Graz on 28 Dec. 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 in the War of the Spanish Succession, then in the Serbian campaign (1714-18) with Prince Eugene of Savoy, to whom he was very dear. In the period 1720-23 he was rector of the College of Vienna; then, his health worn out, he moved to Graz to lighter duties.
His name is linked not only to the publication of the oratorical works of Fr. Gerardo Pauli (2 vols., Augsburg-Graz 1728), the best preacher of the time in the Austro-Hungarian province, but also to the publication of a collection of missionary reports, which he wished to entitle Neuer Welt-Bott, containing a very considerable number of original letters of Jesuit missionaries in the two Indies from 1642 to 1726. The collection, begun in 1726 and carried out with diligent selection and a true historical-critical sense, still constitutes today a very precious and irreplaceable source for the history of the missions, and was received with praise, awakening many missionary vocations and, in the Protestant field, many conversions. Of the 40 parts constituting the Welt-Bott, S. had published 24 at his death. His third successor in the undertaking, 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.).
Bibliography3 works
Celestino Testone