Funny that there are so many docs writing novels or poems… I too! As for me: I’m MD (specialized in hearing disorders), psychologist, statistician and theologist (you surely don’t believe it, but it’s true). – I wrote several novels, however, all of them in German. Among those published there is one dealing with a specifically medical subject: “The Dissection Course” – a kind of thriller.
Manfred Lütz (born March 18, 1954 in Bonn) is a German psychiatrist, psychotherapist, Roman Catholic theologian, Vatican advisor, and author. He headed the Alexianer Hospital in Cologne from 1997 to 2019.[1]
Lütz studied medicine, philosophy, and Catholic theology in Bonn and Rome. He obtained his medical license in 1979 and his diploma in Catholic theology in 1982. During his studies, he became a member of the KDStV Bavaria Bonn in the CV.
Social Commitment
Manfred Lütz founded the inclusive youth group “Brücke-Krücke” in Bonn in 1981, in which disabled and non-disabled young people and young adults from Bonn and the surrounding area work together without professional supervision.[3][5] Since then, Lütz has volunteered for the initiative,[6] which is affiliated with the Catholic Youth Agency in Bonn. He organizes annual trips and participates in events. The group includes approximately 200 disabled and non-disabled people.
Church and Vatican Advisor
Pope John Paul II appointed Lütz a consultant to the Congregation for the Clergy in 2003.[7] In the same year, he organized a congress in the Vatican on the topic of “Abuse of Children and Young People by Catholic Priests and Religious.”[3] From 2006, he was part of the Pastoral Office’s working group in the Archdiocese of Cologne, responsible for processing and investigating cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy and lay people in pastoral ministry.[8] Lütz himself served under three popes until 2016 as a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.[9] He contributed as an advisor to the creation of the Youth Catechism, Youcat.[10] He was a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life from the beginning of the 2000s, and a full member from 2004, to whose board he was appointed in March 2005 for a term until 2010.[12] After the restructuring of the Academy as part of the Curia reform, he was reappointed as a full member by Pope Francis in 2017 and is considered a supporter of the opening and renewal of the body implemented by the Pope.[13]
Pope Francis appointed him a member of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life on October 6, 2018.
Author and Media Presence
After his essay “The Blocked Giant: Psycho-Analysis of the Catholic Church” (1999), which received primarily internal attention, Manfred Lütz has been active as an author for a wider audience since 2002 and has gained greater recognition through several bestsellers.[2][3][9][16] In his books, he addresses general topics of lifestyle and modern culture, religion, and the conditions in the Catholic Church and psychiatry from the perspective of a psychotherapist, sometimes with humor and satirical slant. Manfred Lütz has also been active and in demand for many years as a lecturer, speaker, and interviewee. Lütz has also occasionally performed as a cabaret artist since 2006.[17] He has frequently participated in television programs as a discussion partner on psychiatric and psychotherapeutic topics and took part in prominent talk shows as a church expert in the run-up to the conclaves of 2005 and 2013.[18][19][20] In March 2013, he accompanied the live broadcasts of the papal election at the 2013 conclave and the subsequent events of the inauguration of the new pope in Rome as a commentator for ZDF and Phoenix.
Manfred Lütz’s best-known book is entitled “Crazy! We Treat the Wrong People. Our Problem Are the Normal People” (2009), the paperback edition of which spent 106 weeks on the Spiegel bestseller list.[22] In 2013, it resulted in a television show with the Cologne cabaret artist Jürgen Becker.[23] His book “Bluff: The Falsification of the World” (2012) was also at the top of the Spiegel bestseller list.[16] Other frequently cited books are “Lust for Life: Against Diet Sadists, Health Craze, and the Fitness Cult” (2002), “God: A Short History of the Greatest” (2007), and “How You Will Inevitably Become Happy: A Psychology of Success” (2015). In 2016, he published a volume of conversations with the Auschwitz survivor Jehuda Bacon. His 2018 book The Scandal of Scandals was one of Herder Verlag’s two best-selling titles in 2018.
In various articles, for example in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Lütz emphasized in 2010 that abuse by Catholic priests was worse than any other abuse, but at the same time rejected the idea of scapegoating the church and ignoring the social context of the 1970s. He sees the left-wing scene as the cause of the abuse. On the contrary, he argues that the “structures of the church are even helpful” when it comes to solving cases of abuse.[25] Society as a whole bears responsibility here.[26] In 2018, he commented on the so-called “MHG study”[27][28] published by the German Bishops’ Conference, calling it “spectacularly unsuccessful.”
Paolo Mantegazza (October 31, 1831 in Monza, Austrian Empire – August 28, 1910 in San Terenzo) was an Italian neurologist, physiologist, and anthropologist, as well as a prominent physician and consciousness researcher. Mantegazza published several works on the effects of psychotropic plants on human consciousness, numerous other scientific writings, and several novels that were bestsellers in their time but have since been largely forgotten.
Mantegazza first studied medicine in Pisa and Milan, graduating in Pavia in 1854. He then traveled to India and South America, where he practiced medicine in Argentina and Paraguay. In 1858, he returned to Italy and worked as a surgeon in Milan. In 1860, he was appointed professor of pathology at the University of Pavia, where he founded the first Institute of General Pathology in Europe.
In 1870, Mantegazza became a professor of anthropology at the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence. There he founded the Museo Antropologico-Etnografico di Firenze (Anthropological and Ethnographic Museum) and, in 1871, the journal Archivio per l’Antropologia e l’Etnologia, which is still published today, with Felice Finzi. At that time, culture and science in Italy were far more influenced by the Catholic Church than they are today. Mantegazza was repeatedly attacked by ecclesiastical circles, particularly because he was an advocate of Darwinism and an atheist.[2] From 1868 to 1875, he had a lively correspondence with Charles Darwin.
Pioneer of psychedelic Drug research
During his several years working as a doctor in South America, Mantegazza observed the habit of local coca farmers chewing the leaves of the coca bush. In the “service of science” he began to imitate them, taking three daily doses of three grams of coca leaves. In 1859 he published the work Sulle virtù igieniche e medicinali della coca e sugli alimenti nervosi in generale (On the Hygienic and Medicinal Benefits of Coca and Nerve Food in General), for which he received an award and which caused a sensation both in Italy and abroad. Due to the fact that Mantegazza distinguishes between coca and cocaina in his writings, it is assumed that he had already extracted the alkaloid cocaine from the coca leaves and taken it himself in 1859. Mantegazza is therefore often associated with cocaine in literature, but his interest in the effects of psychotropic substances went much further, and he published numerous works with treatises on the intoxicating effects of various drugs such as alcohol, mate, guarana, opium, hashish, kava and ayahuasca (agahuasca), and classified them according to their effects in 1859, more than sixty years before Louis Lewin made his classification in his 1924 work Phantastica.
Sexual science
Almost forgotten, but outstanding in his time, were his numerous publications in the field of sexology, which only emerged later: Fisiologia del piacere (1854); Fisiologia dell’amore (1873); Igiene dell’amore (1886); Gli amori degli uomini – Saggio di una etnologia dell’amore (1886) and Fisiologia della donna (1893) – in which he summarized observations, his own experiments and anthropological-ethnological results of extensive collections, research and travels in the sense of a “phenomenology of heterosexual love… which is unparalleled in the history of sexology.” At just 22 years old, he wrote “Fundamentals of Edonology or the Science of Pleasure” (today understood as hedonism) and spoke out against “false puritans” and the “murky, stinking fog of hypocrisy” (Volkmar Sigusch in: Deutsches Ärzteblatt 7/2007 – see web link).
“Wherever a beautiful woman appears, all human energies bubble from their battle-tested sources: Everything best and worst in man springs forth to pay homage to her or to insult her with envy.” (Paolo Mantegazza, The Concept of Woman Through the Ages, Nuova Antologia, January 15, 1893)
Politics
From 1865 to 1876, Mantegazza was a deputy from Monza in the Italian Chamber of Deputies and, from 1876, a senator in the Kingdom of Italy.
After the “United Internet Team Germany” won its first match race against the “China Team” in the Louis Vuitton Act 6 for the 32nd America’s Cup in Malmö, Sweden, an accident occurred aboard the “GER-72.” Crew member Christian Buck was at the masthead hoisting the mainsail. While lowering the sail, the 27-year-old lost control due to the strong waves and was thrown into the diver.
Immediately after the accident, Christian Buck received medical treatment on board from a doctor on the team and was then taken by tender and ambulance to the University Hospital in Lund.
Fortunately, after initial medical examinations, his injuries appear to be less severe than expected. The extent to which further medical treatment is required is currently unclear. Christian Buck is conscious and his condition is stable.
The sailor from Rostock is not in critical condition, but will remain in the intensive care unit overnight for further medical observation.
Skipper Jesper Bank and syndicate chairman Uwe Sasse were accompanied to the hospital by two crew members after the accident.
His family was also informed immediately after the accident. His brother, who is currently in Malmö, is also in the hospital.
Helmut Fleischer (born 22 March 1964) is a former German football referee.
Fleischer lives in Dresden. He holds a doctorate in medicine and worked for the Bundeswehr as an orthopedic surgeon with the rank of senior medical officer.
Fleischer has been a DFB referee for SV Hallstadt since 1990. He has officiated matches in the 2nd Bundesliga since 1991, and in the Bundesliga since 1995. Fleischer was a FIFA referee from 2000 to 2006 and participated as a referee in the 2001 European Under-18 Football Championship in Finland and the 2000 European Under-16 Football Championship in Israel.
On May 30, 2009, he refereed the DFB Cup final between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Werder Bremen. On April 3, 2010, he officiated his final Bundesliga match, between VfB Stuttgart and Borussia Mönchengladbach. In April 2010, he accepted a position as a doctor in the United States and has not been available as a referee since then.
Originally from Basel, he has lived in Central Switzerland for over 45 years. As a qualified eye surgeon, he runs the Zentravis eye practice at Bahnhofplatz in Lucerne and is a co-founder of the Sursee Eye Day Clinic. He also initiated an optical chain with the integration of ophthalmic diagnostics into the eyewear business and a so-called one-price policy, Doctor-Eyepoint. “Central Switzerland is a paradise. Being able to live and/or work here is a privilege.”
He builds model trains in H0 and H0m scales with the themes of Göschenen and Disentis (planned). He likes steam locomotives and steamships and is a member of the Lake Lucerne Steamship Company. He sings in the Basel Theater Choir (due to lack of time…). He enjoys hiking, skiing, cycling, concerts and cinema, as well as traditional and popular Swiss folk theater. He shoots videos, edits, and creates his own soundtrack. He also enjoys cooking, spending time outdoors and playing games like “The Settlers of Catan…”
