His Excellency Johan Bonny |
|
---|---|
Bishop of Antwerp | |
Province | Belgium |
Diocese | Antwerp |
Installed | 4 January 2009 |
Predecessor | Paul Van den Berghe |
Other posts | Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity |
Orders | |
Ordination | 20 July 1980 |
Consecration | 4 January 2009 |
Personal details | |
Born |
Gistel |
10 July 1955
Nationality | Belgian |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Coat of arms |
Johan Jozef Bonny (Oostende, 10 July 1955) is the 22nd Bishop of Antwerp, Belgium.
Johan Bonny was born in Moere (Gistel) in 1955. He is the oldest of five children from a farmer's family. He is the son of Gustaaf Bonny and Marie-Jeanne Lootens. He went through primary school in Eernegem and Moere. He took the lower secondary education at the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Gistel College and higher secondary education at Sint-Janscollege in Meldert . After his school in 1973 he went to the Bruges seminary.
On 20 July 1980, he was ordained priest by Msgr. Emiel-Jozef De Smedt, then Bishop of Bruges. Bonny helped founding the community of l'Arche in Moerkerke and remained attached to it as a priest.
In 1982 he obtained a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Then Msgr. De Smedt appointed him archivist and professor to Bruges seminary, where he taught Church History, Dogmatic theology, Ecumenism and spirituality. At the same time, he worked with the renowned expert in Christian mystics Albert de Blaere. He defended in 1988 a doctorate on the Flemish mystic John of Ruysbroeck, entitled "Het ghemeyne leven in de werken van Jan van Ruusbroec" (English: The "ghemeyne leven" in the works of John of Ruysbroeck). In 1985 Msgr. Roger Vangheluwe appointed him director of the department of theology and, in 1991, spiritual director of the Bruges seminary.