Friedrich Wetter


Friedrich Wetter is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, from 1982 to 2007. He was Bishop of Speyer from 1968 to 1982. Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 1985.
At age, Cardinal Wetter is the oldest living cardinal from Germany.

Early life and ordination

Born in Landau, Wetter studied in Landau and then, from 1948 to 1956, at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology and in the Gregorian University in Rome, where he obtained a doctorate in theology. In 1953, he was ordained a priest in Rome.
After being chaplain for two years in Speyer, teaching in the seminary in the same city for another two years, and being assistant parish priest for a year in Glanmünchweiler, he became Professor of Fundamental Theology in Eichstätt for five years and Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in 1967, a post he held for only one year before being appointed bishop.

Bishop

He was Bishop of Speyer and became Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1982.
, 1997

Cardinal

He was made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1985, with the title of Cardinal-Priest of Santo Stefano Rotondo. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict accepted his resignation on 2 February 2007.

Views

Rights of Catholic politicians

Cardinal Wetter criticized in 2004 the Italian government's withdrawal of its nomination of Rocco Buttiglione to the European Commission.

Liturgical abuses

In an open letter in 2004, Wetter wrote that anonymous informers reporting liturgical abuses would labour in vain in the Archdiocese of Munich. "Blackening people's names, especially when the talebearer wishes to stay anonymous, will not get anyone anywhere in our archdiocese," Wetter warned. His comments followed the promulgation of the Vatican instruction on abuses in the liturgy, Redemptionis Sacramentum.