A South Tyrolean in the Jachenau: Pastor Peter Rechenmacher died

Created: 05/21/2022, 1:00 p.m

By: Andreas Steppan

The former Jachenau pastor Peter Rechenmacher died in his homeland.

© KN

Pastor Peter Rechenmacher, who worked in St. Nikolaus in der Jachenau from 1999 to 2008, died in his native South Tyrol at the age of 85.

Jachenau –

The Jachenau Catholics have experience with pastors from different regions – and they get along very well with everyone.

Before the current pastor Father Gracious from India, Willi Milz from the Rhineland looked after the congregation.

His predecessor, in turn, was the South Tyrolean Peter Rechenmacher.

After retiring in 2008, he returned to his homeland.

He died there on April 25 at the age of 85.

If you ask around among the Jachenau parishioners, they paint a picture of Peter Rechenmacher as an accessible and popular clergyman who is open to innovations, but who also had rough edges, did not keep his opinions secret and knew how to get his way – with a mixture of a certain severity and mischievousness.

He was a perfectionist, in whose services the processes were right from start to finish.

For the first time, girls were also allowed to serve with Pastor Peter Rechenmacher

The most important project of his time in Jachenau was the renovation of the parish church, which he promoted with great enthusiasm.

But also some processes renewed arithmetic makers.

Under him, girls were also allowed to serve in the Jachenau for the first time - which briefly led to a reservoir of up to 50 altar boys and girls.

He also introduced new routes for supplications or the custom of shaking hands in the sign of peace.

In terms of language and mentality, the South Tyrolean got along well with the people of Jachenau, quickly integrated into village life and was present at all club annual days.

The pastor, who took his dachshund for a walk, soon became just as much a part of village life as his housekeeper Miss Hilde.

When Rechenmacher came to Jachenau in 1999, he was already an experienced clergyman at the age of 63.

He was born on September 23, 1936 in Goldrain in Vinschgau and grew up in neighboring Kortsch.

After beginning his postulancy with the Comboni Missionaries in Bamberg in 1956, he returned to the Comboni Mission House in South Tyrol in 1958 after taking his final vows.

On June 29, 1961, Peter Rechenmacher was ordained a priest in Brixen.

Also active as a missionary in Africa

From 1963 to 1970 he was a missionary in South Africa, after which he became rector in the Comboni Missionaries' Heart of Jesus Missionary House in Milland, a district of Brixen.

In 1973 Rechenmacher went to Innsbruck to study and then to Augsburg, where he first worked for the missionary office of the diocese of Augsburg and then as a priest and pastor, with Jachenau being the last station before his retirement.

He then returned to South Tyrol, where in 2009 he was appointed pastor for the parish of Tarsch in the municipality of Latsch.

Rechenmacher spent the rest of his life in Brixen and, since last year, in the Jesuheim in Cornaiano.

The pastor always returned to visit Jachenau.

Most recently, the people of Jachenau celebrated his 80th birthday with him in the Jachenau inn in 2016 and gave him a landscape painting to commemorate his former place of work.

An eight-strong delegation from Jachenau drove to South Tyrol to attend Pastor Rechenmacher's funeral.

You can find more current news from the region around Bad Tölz at Merkur.de/Bad Tölz.