On Saturday, November 22, 2025, Fr. Reinhard Neudecker, S.J., returned to the house of the Father. Born in Langenbrück (Upper Silesia) on March 23, 1938, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1959.

He earned a doctorate in Theology from the University of Innsbruck (1971) and a second in 1978 from the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati (USA), specializing in rabbinic literature. From 1978 to 2013, he was Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, achieving the rank of Professor Emeritus in 2008. He held numerous visiting professorships, including at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the University of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, and the Munich School of Philosophy, as well as in the United States, the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea, and Japan. He also published numerous works in the fields of rabbinic literature and interreligious dialogue.

Deteriorating eye health forced him to return to Germany in 2013, where he was finally admitted to the Pedro Arrupe community in Unterhaching.

We accompany him with prayer, grateful for his generous service, and we remember him with the last lecture he gave at the Gregorian University, hosted by the Cardinal Bea Center for Judaic Studies.