I was born in Austria in 1952 and raised as a Catholic. At the age of 15, I joined a group of KSJ (Catholic Student Youth). Via this group I found a book that gave me the miracle of a personal faith.
Two years later, I had the chance to stay in the USA for a year. I lived with a family and attended school. Having studied the violin in Austria, I became the concert master of the school’s orchestra.
After returning home, I finished secondary school and did my military service. I also enrolled to study theology at a seminary.
But before starting my studies, I got to know Moral Rearmament through a friend of mine, who was planning to go to Caux for the summer conference of 1972. As I had wished to meet a more intensive Christian group that summer, I thought: „Maybe this is it”, and went with him to Caux. Only to find out on the way there that my late uncle, Dr. Karl Mitterdorfer from the South Tyrol, who had been MP and later senator in Rome, had already had contact with MRA and that it had changed his life to a certain degree. Arriving in Caux, I took in the wonderful atmosphere (both physical and metaphoric!). Starting to have guidance, very soon a thought came to me: "Stay one year with Moral Rearmament “! This I did. I cancelled my other plans, went to Germany for a few months and then to Tirley Garth, the MRA centre in the English countryside, where I stayed from 1972 to 1974. I worked in the garden (in the team of Jim Wigan), and in the second year with electric installations there.
Then I was invited to join the international MRA team in Brazil. We were based in Petropolis, near Rio de Janeiro. I picked up many impressions and experiences. But then, I had a nervous breakdown and went back to Austria. I did one more year of work with MRA (in Switzerland, working with the Caux publishing house Caux Editions). Then came another health crisis, tuberculosis of the lung, which took me out of my MRA-path again. After my recovery, I took up my original plan of entering the seminary and studying theology.
Having completed that, I then joined the Jesuits, did my training there (2 years of noviciate), and was ordained priest in 1988. I worked in a school, then in two parishes, then in pastoral care in a church and a hospital. Since 2023 I live and work in Vienna.
Besides chaplaincy in a confessional hospital, I am free to work with music: I compose songs, make CDs and booklets, play different instruments and organize multiple concerts. The aim is to help people open up their hearts to God.
