The Bishop of Hildesheim, Mons. Dr. Heiner Wilmer SCJ, has been elected on February 24, 2026, as the new president of the German Episcopal Conference. He thus succeeds Mons. Dr. Georg Bätzing in the position and will exercise the presidency for the next six years.
According to the German Episcopal Conference, Wilmer will assume the public representation of the German episcopate, a function that corresponds to the president according to the statutes of the body.
Ecclesiastical and Academic Background
Heiner Wilmer was born on April 9, 1961, in Schapen (Emsland). In 1980, he entered the congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (SCJ) and made his perpetual profession in 1985. He was ordained a priest on May 31, 1987, in Freiburg.
Between 1987 and 1993, he completed studies in Rome and Freiburg. Subsequently, he held various positions as a teacher and trainer in Meppen, Vechta, and in the Bronx neighborhood in New York. Later, he was director of the Gymnasium Leoninum in Handrup.
Between 2007 and 2015, he served as provincial of the German province of the Priests of the Sacred Heart in Bonn and, subsequently, until 2018, he was superior general of the congregation in Rome.
On April 6, 2018, he was appointed Bishop of Hildesheim by Pope Francis and received episcopal ordination on September 1 of that same year.
Since September 2021, Wilmer has chaired the Commission for Social and Societal Issues within the German Episcopal Conference. He was also president of the German Justice and Peace Commission from 2019 to 2024.