{"id":2534,"date":"2015-06-15T15:37:12","date_gmt":"2015-06-15T15:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bkpdefunts.smainternational.info\/?p=2534"},"modified":"2015-06-15T15:37:12","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T15:37:12","slug":"le-pere-josef-gaspard-zimmermann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/?p=2534","title":{"rendered":"Le P\u00e8re Josef Gaspard ZIMMERMANN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Missions Africaines<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"ZIMMERMANN<\/td>\nn\u00e9 le 28 f\u00e9vrier 1849 \u00e0 Weggis
dans le dioc\u00e8se de Lausanne (Suisse)
membre de la SMA le 18 d\u00e9cembre 1875
pr\u00eatre le 29 septembre 1876
d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 le 19 juillet 1921<\/td>\n		\n

1876-1884 Lyon, professeur
qu\u00eateur en Rh\u00e9nanie
1880, 6 mois \u00e0 Porto-Novo
1884-1909 Cork, fondateur
1909-1921 missionnaire en G\u00e9orgie, Savannah<\/p>\n

d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 Savannah, USA, le 19 juillet 1921,
\u00e0 l’\u00e2ge de 72 ans<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Le p\u00e8re Josef Gaspard ZIMMERMANN (1849 – 1921)<\/p>\n

A Savannah (U.S.A.), le 19 juillet 1921, retour \u00e0 Dieu du p\u00e8re Josef Zimmermann, \u00e0 l’\u00e2ge de 72 ans.<\/p>\n

Josef Zimmermann naquit \u00e0 Weggis, dans le dioc\u00e8se de B\u00e2le (Suisse), en 1849. Il fit ses \u00e9tudes \u00e0 Lucerne puis \u00e0 Saint-Maurice en Valais. Il fit sa philosophie et suivit des cours de sciences \u00e0 l’universit\u00e9 d’Innsbruck (Tyrol). En 1874, apr\u00e8s avoir pass\u00e9 un an au grand s\u00e9minaire de Mayence, il arrivait \u00e0 Lyon aux Missions Africaines. Il fit le serment en 1875.<\/p>\n

De faible sant\u00e9, l’abb\u00e9 Zimmermann fut envoy\u00e9 \u00e0 notre maison de Nice o\u00f9 il fut ordonn\u00e9 pr\u00eatre en 1877. En septembre de la m\u00eame ann\u00e9e, le p\u00e8re Zimmermann \u00e9tait nomm\u00e9 professeur de dogme \u00e0 Lyon. En f\u00e9vrier 1880, il partait pour quatre mois visiter les missions du B\u00e9nin et du Dahomey. A son retour, il fit plusieurs tourn\u00e9es de qu\u00eates en Alsace et dans les pays de langue allemande.<\/p>\n

En janvier 1883, le p\u00e8re Zimmermann est nomm\u00e9 sup\u00e9rieur de Cork. Actif et z\u00e9l\u00e9, il va \u00eatre l’\u00e2me et le grand b\u00e2tisseur de l’\u0153uvre des Missions Africaines en Irlande, et cela pendant 28 ans. Le p\u00e8re Devoucoux lui laisse, \u00e0 Blackrock Road, un coll\u00e8ge et une \u00e9glise.<\/p>\n

Le p\u00e8re Zimmermann va ouvrir Wilton et, par son amiti\u00e9 avec le Comte Blake, il va pr\u00e9parer les donations de Ballinafad et de Kilcogan. Il sut attirer \u00e0 la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des bienfaiteurs insignes et gagna la confiance de l’\u00e9piscopat irlandais. Devant les difficult\u00e9s des s\u00e9minaristes \u00e0 s’adapter au grand s\u00e9minaire \u00e0 Lyon, le p\u00e8re obtint, apr\u00e8s bien des demandes, de cr\u00e9er un grand s\u00e9minaire en Irlande. Il obtint aussi l’\u00e9rection de l’Irlande en province ind\u00e9pendante.<\/p>\n

A Rome, on savait reconna\u00eetre la grande comp\u00e9tence et le savoir-faire du p\u00e8re Zimmermann dans les choses mat\u00e9rielles, mais on ne lui reconnut pas la m\u00eame capacit\u00e9 pour la formation et le gouvernement spirituel de ses sujets. Aussi, d\u00e8s 1910, le p\u00e8re Zimmermann fut-il supplant\u00e9 \u00e0 la t\u00eate de l’Irlande par le p\u00e8re Kyne qui deviendra provincial en mai 1912<\/p>\n

Gr\u00e2ce au p\u00e8re Zimmermann qui sut doter l’Irlande de toutes les maisons dont elle avait besoin, la province prosp\u00e9ra. Le sacrifice qui lui fut impos\u00e9 en 1911 d’avoir \u00e0 quitter l’Irlande fut aussi une source de gr\u00e2ces pour la province.<\/p>\n

Le p\u00e8re Zimmermann passa les dix derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es de sa vie dans les missions pour les Noirs en G\u00e9orgie. Il sut se d\u00e9vouer jusqu’\u00e0 la fin. Les confr\u00e8res irlandais, parfaitement conscients de la dette de reconnaissance qu’ils devaient \u00e0 celui qui avait \u00ab\u00a0fait\u00a0\u00bb leur province, auraient d\u00e9sir\u00e9 que le p\u00e8re Zimmermann v\u00eent parmi eux achever sa vie, mais la mort surprit le p\u00e8re avant qu’il p\u00fbt r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette invitation.<\/p>\n

Father Josef Gaspard ZIMMERMANN (1849 – 1921)<\/p>\n

Joseph Zimmermann was born at Weggis, in the canton of Lucerne, in the diocese of Bale, Switzerland, on 28 February 1849. He died in Savannah, Georgia, U.S.A., on 19 July 1921<\/p>\n

Joseph Zimmermann was born into a farming family. He was the second-born of a family of four girls and six boys. He received his secondary in Lucerne, and St. Maurice en Valais and then proceeded to the university of Innsbruck (Tyrol) where he followed courses in philosophy and science. In 1874, having spent a year in the major seminary of Mayence, he arrived at Cours Gambetta, Lyon, to join the S.M.A. He took his oath of membership on 18 December 1875. Being of weak health he was then sent to the S.M.A. house at Nice. He was ordained a priest in the seminary chapel at Nice, by the local bishop, Jean-Pierre Sola, on 29 September 1876.<\/p>\n

In November of the same year Joseph was sent to the major seminary at Lyon to teach dogmatic theology. In February 1880 he spent four months visiting the Society’s missions in the Bight of Benin and in Dahomey. On his return, armed with first-hand experience of Africa, he was assigned to collect funds on behalf of the Society in Alsace and in the German speaking countries. In January 1883 Joseph was named superior of the S.M.A. branch in Cork. There, over 28 years, he built up the work until it was of sufficient importance to be given semi autonomous status as a Province of the Society. When he came to Cork his predecessor, Francois Devoucoux, had already opened at Blackrock Road a secondary school for aspirants to the Society (an apostolic school), and also a public chapel. Fr. Zimmermann developed the work, building a chapel in Wilton in 1896, transferring the apostolic school to Wilton in March 1889 and introducing O.L.A. sisters (founded by the S.M.A. Superior General, Augustin Planque) from France in 1887.<\/p>\n

The most significant developments took place after 1899 when the financial position of the branch was significantly improved due to the benefactions of a man who was later to be made an honorary member of the Society: Llewellyn Blake, one of the Blakes of Galway, who owned two large estates (in Galway and Mayo), and who in his earlier years had served as an officer in the Connaught Rangers). He was to give to the Society a considerable sum of money for the education of priests and also his two properties of Ballinafad and Cloughballymore (Kilcolgan). Fr. Zimmermann won the support of very many smaller benefactors. He was also successful in attracting support for the missionary cause from among priests and bishops. He was anxious that the Irish branch of the Society should train its own students and assign them to missions specifically allocated to that branch indeed his great object was to have the Irish branch erected into a full Province of the Society and to have leading members of the Irish Church involved in the work of that Province, so that the S.M.A. would become the arm of the Irish Church in Africa. His superiors in Lyon were less than enthusiastic about such schemes which they felt (and not without some justification) might breach the unity of the Society.<\/p>\n

In the event Fr. Zimmermann took his case to Rome, going there on several occasion between 1905-1910 asking for permission to train priests in Ireland, for specific mission fields, and petitioning also for Provincial status. While admitting his excellence in financial and administrative matters his superiors in Lyon cast doubts on his ability to form good priests or to provide them with good spiritual guidance. They would certainly have liked to replace him but Rome (in the face of pressure from Zimmermann’s Irish supporters such as Cardinal Logue, Bishop Thomas O’Callaghan of Cork, Bishop Browne of Cloyne, Archbishop John Healy of Tuam, Count Blake and many others) refused to sanction his withdrawal. Eventually after the affair had become something of a cause celebre in Rome, it was decided that Fr. Zimmermann should indeed have his Province but that his superiors should be given authority to replace him.<\/p>\n

Hence Fr. Zimmermann was withdrawn (1910) and reassigned to the U.S.A. while Stephen Kyne, superior of the Liberian mission (which was given to the Irish Province as its first mission), was nominated first Provincial (15 May 1912). Joseph Zimmermann spent the last 10 years of his life in Savannah, Georgia, in an African-American parish entrusted to the Society by Bishop Benjamin Keiley. The parish, named after St. Anthony, was situated at 112 Fell Street. At the time of his death, in 1921, he had been invited by the Irish Province (now successful and expanding) to come to spend his last days in Ireland. Unfortunately he died before he could respond to the invitation. Joseph Zimmermann is recognised by Irish members of the Society as the founder of their Province.<\/p>\n

He is buried in Savannah, Georgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Missions Africaines n\u00e9 le 28 f\u00e9vrier 1849 \u00e0 Weggisdans le dioc\u00e8se de Lausanne (Suisse)membre de la SMA le 18 d\u00e9cembre 1875pr\u00eatre le 29 septembre 1876d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 le 19…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-necrologe-sma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}