Josip Stadler

Career Stadler was ordained a priest in Rome on June 6, 1868, after which he returned to Zagreb where he worked as a professor at a seminary and later a university professor at the Catholic Faculty of Theology of the University of Zagreb. Pope Leo XIII named Stadler as the first archbishop of Vrhbosna in Sarajevo. Under his direction, the Cathedral of Jesus' Heart was built, along with the seminary and church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. In Travnik he helped build the gymnasium and seminary, as well as many churches and women's seminaries throughout the country.

Stadler founded the women's order of the Servants of the Infant Jesus with the intention of helping impoverished and abandoned children and others. He sent a plea to Vienna, to Franziska Lechner to send nuns to Sarajevo. With help of Ivana Zorman, hedmistress of orphanage in Trieste he formed the orphanages Betlehem and Egipat for children and a home for the elderly. Stadler invited Serbs to engage in a theological discussion and to consider the possibility of unifying the two churches, but his proposal was firmly rejected.

Canonization and legacy During Pope John Paul II's visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina on 12 April 1997 the pope prayed at Stadler's grave. The process for Stadler's canonization began in Sarajevo on 20 June 2002.

Stadler was proclaimed Honorary citizen of Slavonski Brod (2023).

Works Following is a partial list of works authored by archbishop Stadler: Logika, Zagreb, 1871 Poslovice: pučka mudrost, Danica ilirska for the year 1873, Zagreb, 1872 Theologia fundamentalis: tractatus de vera religione, de vera Christi Ecclesia et de Romano Pontifice complectens, Zagreb, 1880 Theologia fundamentalis: tractatus de traditione, Scriptura et analysi fidei complectens, Sarajevo, 1884 Filosofija u 6 svezaka [Philosophy in 6 volumes] I. Logika, dio prvi: Dijalektika [Logic, Part One: Dialectics], 1904 II. Logika, dio drugi: Kritika ili noetika [Logic, Part Two: Criticism or Noetics], 1905 III. Opća metafisika ili ontologija [General Metaphysics or Ontology], 1907 IV. Kosmologija [Cosmology], 1909 V. Psihologija [Psychology], 1910 VI. Naravno bogoslovlje [Natural Theology], 1915