Peter Joseph Kentenich, SAC (16 November 1885 – 15 September 1968) was a German Pallottine priest and founder of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement. Kentenich was a theologian, educator, and founder of a Catholic movement, whose teachings underwent a series of challenges from political and ecclesiastical powers. The process for his beatification was opened in 1975.
Early life
Childhood
Kentenich was born on November 16, 1885, in Gymnich, Erftstadt near Cologne, and baptized "Peter Josef Kentenich" on 19 November at the parish church of St.Kuniberts. His father was Matthias Köp, a manager on a farm in Oberbolheim, where his mother Katharina Kentenich was one of the domestic staff. Because his parents never married, Joseph was born at the house of his maternal grandparents, Anna Maria and Matthias Kentenich, where he spent the first years of his life. In 1894 Kentenich was sent to St. Vincent orphanage in Oberhausen.
Entrance into the seminary
In 1897, Kentenich expressed the wish to become a priest for the first time. Two years later, he entered the Pallottines minor seminary in Ehrenbreitstein. In 1904, he entered the novitiate of the Pallottines in Limburg an der Lahn. However, he faced difficulties because of his intellectualist character. He was obsessed by the philosophical question: "Is there a truth, and how to know it?". He strove for perfection, but felt an incapacity to love God and his neighbor. He later noted that his devotion to Mary allowed him to overcome this crisis and discover the personal love of God.
In his first talk, he said to his students: "I am at your disposal with all that I am and all that I have: my knowledge and my ignorance, my competence and my incompetence, but especially my heart... We will learn to educate ourselves under the protection of Mary, to become strong, free and priestly men." This was the first milestone of the foundation of the Schoenstatt Movement. The speech Kentenich delivered on this occasion is considered the Schoenstatt Movement's Foundation Act. The organisation was named after its place of origin, a word meaning "Beautiful Place".
Several of the seminarians died during World War I. The Servant of God Joseph Engling was killed on 4 October 1918 by a shell in Northern France,
His opposition to Nazism attracted persecutory reactions towards him. Father Kentenich said about the swastika: "We, it is the Cross of the Christ that we follow." About Nazism, he said, "I see no place where the water of baptism could run there".
Arrest by the Gestapo
Once in power, the Nazis classified Schoenstatt as one of their main opposition groups. On 20 September 1941, Kentenich was summoned by the Gestapo. During the interview, the officers quoted some of his private words which had been reported by an informer: "My mission is to reveal the inner emptiness of National Socialism, and by there to defeat it." The police imprisoned him for a month in what had previously been a Reichsbank vault. In December, Bishop Gabriel Piguet, a French prisoner, secretly ordained a seminarian from Schoenstatt (now Blessed Karl Leisner). Suffering from tuberculosis, Leisner would celebrate only one Mass before dying a few weeks after the camp was liberated; he was beatified by John Paul II on 23 June 1996.
On 6 April 1945, upon the arrival of American troops, the prisoners are released. On 20 May, at the feast of Pentecost, Father Kentenich returned to Schoenstatt. He immediately restarted his work, in order to establish a barrier against those whom he considered the biggest dangers to the world: communism in the East, and practical materialism in the West. The experience of deportation helped him teach his disciples on how to maintain inner freedom. Schoenstatt priests Albert Eise (who died of illness while in Dachau) and Franz Reinisch, (who was executed by the Nazis) were invoked as heavenly protectors by all members of the Movement.
International development of Schoenstatt
In March 1947, Kentenich was received in a private audience by Pope Pius XII. He thanked the Pope for the publication, two days earlier, of the constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia, which created the Secular Institutes.thumb|401x401px|One of the more than 200 Schoenstatt Shrines in the worldIn October 1948, the Holy See erected in a Secular Institute the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary. At the same time, Kentenich traveled to Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, the United States, and Africa to establish the movement there, with the construction of replicas of the Schoenstatt Shrine, training centers, and religious houses.
Exile
At this time concerns were raised that the role of the founder was deemed too exclusive. The Bishop of Trier, in whose diocese Schoenstatt is located, ordered a canonical visitation. The visitor, auxiliary Bernhard Stein, praised the movement, but made some criticisms pertaining to the perceived lack of autonomy regarding the sisters.
In 1953, it was suggested to Pope Pius XII that he dissolve Schoenstatt; he declined. The question was raised if the movement should be integrated into the Congregation of the Pallottines, or retain its autonomy. The superiors of the Order advocated for the first option, but other Pallottines agreed with Father Kentenich that Schoenstatt should be fully autonomous. In 1962, under the intervention of several bishops, John XXIII entrusted the case to the Congregation for Religious.
thumb|463x463px|Fr. Kentenich at his arrival in Schoenstatt after the exile
Return from exile
In December 1963, Pope Paul VI appointed Bishop Höffner, from Münster, as moderator and protector of Schoenstatt. A new apostolic visitor was appointed, who delivered a favorable report. In 1964, under the unanimous opinion of the German bishops, a papal decree declared the separation of Schoenstatt from the Pallottines.
In October 1965, Kentenich was reinstated at the direction of the Movement. Now in his eighties, he was received by Paul VI a few days after the closing of the Second Vatican Council. He predicted that the council "will bear fruit, but will have first negative effects, because of the uncertainty of large sections of the hierarchy, clergy and laity about the image of the Church... This uncertainty can be overcome by turning our eyes to Mary, the first image and Mother of the Church.). This was influenced by the same inscription engraved on the tomb of Cardinal Gaspard Mermillod, Bishop of Geneva (Switzerland) who was exiled from his own country for 11 years in the 19th century, for refusing to adhere to a national church separated from Rome.
Beatification process
The process for his beatification was opened on 10 February 1975 in the Diocese of Trier. Life-size sculptures of Kentenich, created by American artist Gwendolyn Gillen, now stand outside Schoenstatt chapels in Lamar, Texas, Pewaukee, Wisconsin, Rome, Puerto Rico and many other countries.
On 3 May 2022 the Bishop of Trier announced that the process had been suspended because of allegations of abuse.
Investigations into accusations of sexual abuse
In July 2020, Alexandra von Teuffenbach, a former professor at the Pontifical Lateran University and the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, alleged that Kentenich manipulated and coerced community members, specifically from the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, into sexually inappropriate conduct. Von Teuffenbach cited particular accusations found in documents of the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after Pope Francis had allowed the consultation of documents concerning the pontificate of Pius XII. She also claimed that these accusations were the reason for Kentenich's investigation by Fr. Sebastiaan Tromp (Apostolic Visitator from the Holy See), in the 1950s and eventual separation from the Schoenstatt Movement during his exile from 1951 to 1965.
The possibility of sexual or psychological abuse was strongly denied by the General Presidency of the Schoenstatt Movement. In a formal statement the movement indicated that the allegations had long been known about and the fact that Kentenich was reinstated from exile by the Vatican in 1965 was evidence that the allegations were not considered true. It was also stated that at the opening of Kentenich's process of beatification in 1975 a nihil obstat ("no obstructions") was granted by the church and that this would not have been granted if the previously known accusations were found to have any substance.
The Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary also released their own formal statement. The Sisters emphatically rejected the accusations and said that "successive generations of our community have experienced the founder as an authentic and credible personality.” As with the statement from Schoenstatt's General Presidency, the Sisters noted that they were already aware of the allegations made against Kentenich and emphasized that when he was reinstated as the founder and returned from his exile in 1965, all accusations had already been considered by the Church and deemed insufficiently substantiated to make a formal accusation.
A few days after the reports and responses, the postulator of Kentenich's cause and key representatives of Schoenstatt met with Bishop Stephan Ackermann of the Diocese of Trier. The result was an announcement of an independent commission of historians, organized by the diocese, to review the beatification process of Kentenich. It will also be the task of the commission "to reconcile the newly found material with what has already been gathered and evaluated from other archives by the previous commission." At the end of their work, the commission "will write a report in which a statement will also be made about the personality and spirituality of Fr. Josef Kentenich as depicted in the collected documents."
Reacting to the announcement, Fr. Juan Pablo Catoggio (international president of the Schoenstatt Movement) issued a statement addressed to the “Schoenstatt Family throughout the world”, saying that “we very much welcome this decision of the bishop," since in this way "the clarification of the questions regarding the person and actions of Father Kentenich” can be found.
Fr. Eduardo Aguirre, postulator for the cause of beatification of Kentenich, pointed out that Kentenich was not formally accused by the Holy Office (at that time the highest tribunal of the Church), at any time before, during, or after the exile for immoral conduct of any form, including the mention of sexual misconduct or deviance of any kind. Aguirre claims that "any assertion to the contrary is simple false."
On 3 May 2022, the Bishop of Trier announced that Kentenich's sainthood process had been suspended because of the allegations of abuse.