About me
I am writing about knowledge and faith, about certainties and hopes, from my Christian perspective. Since my birth in 1956 in Linz, Austria, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Christian faith constitute my institutional and existential surroundings. In 1981 I had graduated from the Medical School of the University of Vienna, Austria and in the same year I entered the Jesuit order. The formation at the Medical School gave me a scientific understanding of human nature and without that kind of empirical, scientific knowledge I would not have wanted to deal with theological questions of transcendence and metaphysics.
My philosophical studies of Kant and Hegel introduced me to the rational investigation of faith convictions, worldviews, and the limits of knowledge. I further insisted that the investigation of my emotional life was of the same importance as my rational reflections. I learned from holistic concepts of medical anthropology that my personal integrity functions as a net of a variety of collaborating health aspects: there are physical health, psychic well-being, social participation, ecologic and economic sustainability, cultural development, and spirituality. Personal integrity comes first, faith follows facts of nature. Religious faith cannot substitute for the absence of health, well-being, and the holistic integrity of my person. Without personal dignity and freedom, without enjoying the rule of Human Rights law in my social community, nurturing of authentic faith is impossible and culturing authentic spiritual experiences is very difficult.
From 2002 to 2021 I experienced the conflicts of interest between State and Church institutions as professor at the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck, Austria. In 2009 I left the community of the Jesuit College in Innsbruck and concentrated my energy on writing the Trilogy “Theologizing of a Christian. Human Rights and the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. Trilogy I–III”. In the summer of 2021, the Trilogy got published: DOI 10.15203/99106-051-2. Vol. I 348 pages, volume II 444 pages, volume III 514 pages. Open Access Publication. The same year I retired from university and married my wife, Sabine Moser. We are living happily between misty hills which discreetly protect soft valleys full of carefully cultivated sunny vineyards. This is north of the Danube, in the vine-culturing regions of Austria’s beginnings in the Middle Ages of Central Europe’s way to modern identity. Here women, men and queer have built their habitations and settlements from stone age to contemporary Anthropocene; cultures encountered each other peacefully and during wars, and the people bear life’s seasons of good and bad times with resilient serenity.