The city of Innsbruck will name the square after the first dean of theology
Innsbruck, March 11, 2022 (KAP) With the unanimous decision of the Innsbruck city senate, a “Univ.-Prof.in Dr.in Pissarek-Hudelist-Platz” will be created in the Tyrolean state capital, which will be named after the first dean of the Innsbruck Catholic Theological Faculty will is. Specifically, it is the area north of the connecting route from the elementary school in the inner city to Prof.-Franz-Mair-Gasse, as the diocese of Innsbruck announced on Thursday. The theologian Herlinde Pissarek-Hudelist (1932-1994) was the first woman in the world to become dean of a Catholic theological faculty at a university.
In the justification for this decision, the responsible Innsbruck city councilors referred to Pissarek-Hudelist’s outstanding scientific work: “In the field of theology, they worked primarily on women’s issues and are still regarded as important representatives of feminist theology,” say city councilors Uschi Schwarzl and Elizabeth Mayr. The application will then be presented to the City Council for approval.
The scientific legacy of Pissarek-Hudelist is still very present in Innsbruck: “Sophia forscht”, a group of women working in science at the Catholic Theological Faculty in Innsbruck, has already organized six annual guest lectures, each with a philosopher or theologian.
Recognized religious education teacher
Herlinde Pissarek-Hudelist was born in 1932. In 1950 she began studying theology at the Theological Faculty in Innsbruck and completed her doctorate in 1960 with Hugo Rahner. She works there at various institutes as a university assistant, including with Karl Rahner and Josef A. Jungmann, and worked as a freelancer for the “Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie”. In 1959 she married the psychologist Theodor Pissarek. There are four children from the marriage. In the course of her professional career, she teaches religious education at nine types of schools. From 1978 she took on practical school exercises at the Faculty of Theology and in 1981 became a contract teacher in university service. In 1984 she became the first full professor and director of the newly established Institute for Catechetics and Religious Education.
The committed mediation and elementarization of theological thinking and the seriousness of life situations are carried out in her work in religious education. From the early 1980s she became increasingly enthusiastic about feminist theology. For the academic years 1989-1991 she was elected Dean of the Theological Faculty Innsbruck, making her the first woman in this role worldwide. This was followed by re-election for a second term of office from 1991-1993. Her term of office was characterized by efforts to achieve broad-based cooperation and consensus. Herlinde Pissarek-Hudelist died on June 19, 1994 after a long and serious illness. (Information: www.uibk.ac.at/theol/sophia/pissarek.html)