{"id":23711,"date":"2017-07-17T07:15:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T07:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=23711"},"modified":"2017-07-18T07:07:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T07:07:05","slug":"lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d &#8211; ACN international"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Eart<\/span>h, <span style=\"color: #000000;\">but gained one in Heaven\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>The Pontifical Foundation <strong>Aid to the Church in Need<\/strong> (ACN) is deeply touched by the death of Joachim Cardinal Meisner. ACN mourns a highly valued friend. The retired Archbishop of Cologne died unexpectedly on 5 July at the age of 83 years, as he prayed the breviary before the celebration of Holy Mass. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Cardinal Meisner shared a lifelong and intensive friendship with the founder of ACN, Father Werenfried van Straaten OPraem. For both of them, concern for the oppressed and suffering Church behind the Iron Curtain and worldwide was a matter of the heart. They were both joined by their love of and loyalty to the Pope, especially the holy John Paul II. With him they collaborated intensively \u2013 in different positions but united in their mission. They were both joined by their love of the truth of the Gospel and of clear, unmistakable words. The one gave inspiration, the other gave orientation in a sea of opinions and slogans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As a native of Silesia, Cardinal Meisner shared the fate of millions of Germans who were driven from their homeland. A fate that moved our founder Father Werenfried, exactly 70 years ago, to satisfy the bodily and spiritual hunger of the uprooted with a gigantic aid action. Among those uprooted was Joachim Meisner, as he himself repeatedly recounted. As a 14-year-old in his diaspora in Thuringia, he heard for the first time of the \u201cBacon Priest\u201d Werenfried van Straaten. A Dutchman\u2019s support for his former German enemies after a war, the scars of which had not yet healed, moved him so much that he cut out a photo of the founder of ACN and hung it on the wall of his bare mansard room beside those of the bishops Alojzije Stepinac and J\u00f3zsef Mindszenty \u2013 both martyrs of Communist oppression of the Church behind the Iron Curtain. Looking back, Meisner once acknowledged: \u201cThe great work, ACN, is not firstly to be counted among the big relief charities of the Catholic Church in Europe, but rather it belongs among the spiritual movements that emerged in the Church after the disaster of the Second World War.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">When the young refugee Meisner became a priest and bishop in the dictatorship of the GDR, he and the \u201cBacon Priest\u201d met frequently. Together they sought to aid the oppressed Church in Communism and in many other regions of the world \u2013 as discretely as possible but as concretely as necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">When the wall and barbed wire came down, Cardinal Meisner was already Archbishop of Cologne. His joy at the regained freedom was mixed with anxieties about godlessness, moral arbitrariness and a materialism that neglects humanity. This insight, together with concern for the new evangelisation of Europe, was a further unifying bond between Cardinal Meisner, Pope John Paul II and Father Werenfried.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Every year until his retirement in 2014, the Archbishop celebrated a memorial service in Cologne Cathedral on the anniversary of Father Werenfried\u2019s death. In one of these sermons he said: \u201cGod\u2019s instruments are often poor and held in contempt. Almost no one knows their names. But they achieve great things when they have faith. With the Grace of God we have discovered such a giant of God\u2019s Realm as Father Werenfried.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In 2016, Cardinal Meisner was a guest of ACN for the last time. At a day of encounter in Cologne he spoke about the meaning of the Marian apparitions of Fatima for the fall of the Berlin Wall. This too was a subject that united him, as a former Bishop of the divided city of Berlin, with the Pope from Poland and the \u201cBacon Priest\u201d from the Netherlands. May the fact of his death in the Year of Fatima represent his personal fulfilment of the promise in which he believed throughout his life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Following the death of our founder, Joachim Cardinal Meisner requested a pen as \u201cheirloom\u201d. With it he wrote in ACN\u2019s guestbook: \u201cDo not become an authority that simply administers donors\u2019 money for the recipients, but remain a movement that calls people to come closer to God and thus also closer to others. For every co-worker, their lives must not be separated into private and public spheres, such as even some politicians in Christian parties demand for themselves. \u2026 The Christian view of humanity knows no such differentiation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>ACN International<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h6>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d &nbsp; The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is deeply touched by the death of Joachim Cardinal Meisner. ACN mourns a highly valued friend. The retired Archbishop of Cologne died unexpectedly on 5 July at the age of 83 years,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d - ACN international - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d - ACN international - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d &nbsp; The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is deeply touched by the death of Joachim Cardinal Meisner. ACN mourns a highly valued friend. The retired Archbishop of Cologne died unexpectedly on 5 July at the age of 83 years,...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-07-17T07:15:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-07-18T07:07:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"5760\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"3840\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ACN Malta Media\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ACN Malta Media\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/\",\"name\":\"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d - ACN international - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-07-17T07:15:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-07-18T07:07:05+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg\",\"width\":5760,\"height\":3840},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d &#8211; ACN international\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/\",\"name\":\"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\",\"description\":\"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2\",\"name\":\"ACN Malta Media\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93fb625be2ad6b7f825159f4ef11b098?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93fb625be2ad6b7f825159f4ef11b098?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"ACN Malta Media\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/author\/admin2\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d - ACN international - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d - ACN international - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","og_description":"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d &nbsp; The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is deeply touched by the death of Joachim Cardinal Meisner. ACN mourns a highly valued friend. The retired Archbishop of Cologne died unexpectedly on 5 July at the age of 83 years,...","og_url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/","og_site_name":"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","article_published_time":"2017-07-17T07:15:07+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-07-18T07:07:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":5760,"height":3840,"url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"ACN Malta Media","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"ACN Malta Media","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/","url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/","name":"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d - ACN international - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg","datePublished":"2017-07-17T07:15:07+00:00","dateModified":"2017-07-18T07:07:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-celebrates-a-Memorial-Mass-for-Father-Werenfried.jpg","width":5760,"height":3840},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/17\/lost-advocate-earth-gained-one-heaven-acn-international\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u201cWe have lost an advocate on Earth, but gained one in Heaven\u201d &#8211; ACN international"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website","url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/","name":"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","description":"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2","name":"ACN Malta Media","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93fb625be2ad6b7f825159f4ef11b098?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93fb625be2ad6b7f825159f4ef11b098?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ACN Malta Media"},"url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/author\/admin2\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23711"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23787,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711\/revisions\/23787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}