Herbert Leuninger (8 September 1932 – 28 July 2020) was a German Catholic priest and theologian. He was a human rights activist for asylum in Germany, a co-founder and speaker of the organisation Pro Asyl, helping refugees, and a member of the board of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles. He is remembered as a "loudspeaker" of refugees.^[1]

Leuninger was born in Cologne-Ossendorf, the second of three children of Alois and Elisabeth Leuninger from Mengerskirchen, Westerwald, where he grew up;^[1] his brother Ernst Leuninger [de] also became a priest and theologian.^[1] His uncle Franz Leuninger was a Christian trade unionist active in the German resistance to Nazism, who was executed on 1 March 1945 at the Plötzensee Prison.^[1][2]

After his Abitur at the Gymnasium Philippinum Weilburg [de], Leuninger studied philosophy and theology. He was ordained as a priest in Limburg Cathedral on 8 December 1958. He assisted in a parish in Frankfurt-Nied, and then was chaplain (Kaplan), from 1959 in Oberlahnstein and later at the Antoniuskirche [de] in Frankfurt's Westend, then as parish priest in Kriftel. In 1970, he was appointed youth pastor (Jugendpfarrer) for the Main-Taunus district. He served as the advisor for migration questions (Migrationsreferent) to the Bishop of Limburg from 1972 to 1992,^[2][3] under bishops Wilhelm Kempf and Franz Kamphaus. Leuninger served as a member of the board of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles based in London.^[4]

In 1986, he founded with Jürgen Micksch and others in Frankfurt Pro Asyl, a human rights organisation for refugees seeking asylum in Germany.^[5][2] He served as the organisation's spokesman until 1994,^[5] then as its referent for Europe until 1998.^[2][1]

Besides dealing with questions of the Church and theology, Leuninger was involved with topics related to asylum in Germany, such as Integration von Zugewanderten [de] (integration of immigrants), Fremdenfeindlichkeit (Xenophobia, literally: hostility towards strangers], and Multikulturelle Gesellschaft [de] (multi-cultural society) and published on these areas.^[3]

Leininger died after a short illness in Limburg at the age of 87.^[5][1][2]

• 1991: Wilhelm Leuschner Medal [de] of the state of Hesse^[5]
• 1998: Walter-und-Marianne-Dirks-Preis [de], with his brother Ernst Leuninger^[1]