Fr Pirmin Spiegel to succeed Prof Josef Sayer as Director General of MISEREOR in March 2012
(Aachen/Fulda, 7 October 2011) There will soon be a change at the top of MISEREOR. At its Autumn Plenary Assembly in Fulda, the German Bishops' Conference named Fr Pirmin Spiegel the next Director General of the Catholic development agency.
Spiegel will officially take over from Prof Josef Sayer in March 2012. The German Bishops' Conference decided a number of years ago that the term of office of the Directors of the German Catholic relief and development agencies ends when office-holders reach the age of 70. Assisted by the two Managing Directors Dr Martin Bröckelmann-Simon and Thomas Antkowiak, Sayer has been Director General of MISEREOR since 1997.
The news of Spiegel's appointment was greeted with great joy and gratitude at MISEREOR. A statement issued by the Board of Directors on Friday said that 'The appointment of Fr Pirmin Spiegel means that a priest with a wealth of experience in Church development cooperation and committed to the option for the poor will take to the helm of our development agency. From his work in the field, he is very familiar with the difficulties faced by the poor and has had first-hand experience of their situation over the course of many years.' The statement went on to say that not least because of his many years' experience as a parish priest, Fr Spiegel is also familiar with the current challenges of pastoral care in Germany. 'This makes him eminently suitable for the post of Director General and the task of helping us pave the way towards a sustainable future for MISEREOR. We and the staff at MISEREOR are delighted that with Fr Spiegel's appointment, the work and commitment of our agency will continue to develop in the spirit of poverty reduction and justice in the world.' The Board of Directors also said that as a Church agency, MISEREOR has been working hard in the field of development cooperation since 1958 to help ensure a decent life for all in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. To this end, MISEREOR works with over 2,500 partner organisations in the Global South, which explains why reliability and continuity in the agency's work with the poor, its partners in the South, and parishes, dioceses, civil society, and politicians in Germany are of key importance.
MISEREOR Bishop Werner Thissen, Archbishop of Hamburg, says that what he most admires about Spiegel is his spiritual depth, his closeness to the poor, and the fact that he is equally at home in the Universal Church and the Church in Germany. 'Prelate Sayer has set standards during his many years of service as Director General. I have no doubt that his successor will continue this successful work,' says Thissen.
Fr Spiegel was born in Großfischlingen in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1957. From 1990 to 2003 and again from August 2010, he worked as a missionary in Brazil. Right from the early days of his work there, he came in contact with MISEREOR. The family agricultural school he set up in Capinzal/Lima Campos in 1995 was co-funded by MISEREOR. In 1981, before he had completed his studies, Fr Spiegel spent several months in Piauí in Brazil where he stayed with Norbert Herkenrath, who was a parish priest there at the time and was appointed Director General of MISEREOR a year later.
Fr Spiegel, who himself comes from a farming family, studied philosophy and theology in Frankfurt/St. Georgen and was ordained priest on 7 June 1986. He worked as chaplain and parish administrator in Kaiserslautern and as chaplain to the CAJ (the German branch of the Young Christian Workers) in the Diocese of Speyer until 1990. After that, he worked until the year 2000 as a priest in three parishes comprising 67 communities across three districts in Lima Campos (Diocese of Bacabal) in the Brazilian federal state of Maranhão. He was given leave to train lay missionaries in Maranhão and beyond until 2003. In 2004, Fr Spiegel returned to Germany, where he served as parish priest in the parish cluster of Blieskastel-Lautzkirchen until 2010. In the summer of 2010 he returned to Brazil once again to train and support lay missionaries in various countries in Latin America.
