2023-08-12 15:24:33
Hundreds of companions, supporters, wards, politicians and his family said goodbye to Wolfgang Pucher, Graz’s “chaplain for the poor”, on Saturday in the St. Vinzenz Church in Graz-Eggenberg and then at the St. Leonhard Cemetery. Pucher died on July 19 at his holiday destination in Croatia, aged 85. The pugnacious founder of VinziWerke had an impact far beyond Graz with this facility, which particularly looked after the homeless.
From 8:00 a.m. it was possible to say goodbye to Pucher and write in a book of condolences in “his” St. Vincent’s Church. In keeping with his spirit, a donation box was also available for the VinziWerke. From the early hours of the morning until the requiem at 2 p.m., hundreds of people had come to the Vinzenzkirche – mostly on foot, by bicycle or with the tram, which has a stop on Vinzenzgasse. Silent or in silent prayer, but many crushing a tear or two, the mourners bowed in front of the coffin with the mortal shell – candles and wreaths and the book of condolence showed how much the work of the pastor reached beyond Styria: In the latter was opened Written in German and Slovak, among other things, his wards were primarily Roma from the Slovak village of Hostice, who asked for money in public places in Graz. With them, Pucher then developed the VinziPasta job project – noodles that Roma women made in Hostice and that have been sold in Graz food markets and the Vinzimarkt for years.
Federal President Alexander van der Bellen and Vienna’s Mayor Michael Ludwig had sent wreaths – to appreciate the commitment of the deceased and his many comrades-in-arms in Graz, Styria and also Vienna, where Pucher and the Vinzenzgemeinschaft had founded emergency shelters for the homeless. Acolytes kept vigil at the coffin. The visitors to the mourning event were colorful and varied from all walks of life and social classes, just like Pucher’s work: people in jeans and shorts with T-shirts came, as did citizens, young and old, dressed all in mourning black. Burning candles were placed on the coffin – one of them in the colors of Croatia, Pucher’s beloved holiday destination. The book of condolences was adorned with hearts and words such as “God blesses me a thousand times over” or in awkward writing simply “Dear Wolfgang, thank you for your commitment” or “Thank you for having succeeded in making St. Vincent’s Church shine.”
The Styrian diocesan bishop Wilhelm Krautwaschl conducted the requiem before Pucher was buried by Visitator Eugen Schindler from the Lazarists in the late afternoon in the VinziDorf cemetery in St. Leonhard – near the emergency shelter he had founded. During the Requiem, Krautwashl said: “A great man has preceded us into the kingdom of God. Wolfgang Pucher lived God’s approach to people often expressed in the last few days. He saw the ‘on the fringes’ quite consciously – and thus took a measure of our Christianity for himself, for his life and his ministry”. – “We can gratefully give him back into the hands of God, with a weeping and a joyful eye, because his works will continue to exist,” says Krautwaschl.
The funeral sermon was held at the request of the deceased by university chaplain Alois Kölbl, who was sure that Pucher would have been happy to see the large and varied mourners. “‘I ask forgiveness from the bottom of my heart from everyone who has lost faith in God or the Church through me,’ writes Pastor Wolfgang Pucher in a very touching way in his spiritual testament,” said Kölbl, who once inspired the parish youth of Pucher had been. As a large and colorful congregation, one is a picture of hope, mourning the pastor, the friend, the companion, the relative, the “Voda” – as Pucher was happy to be called in his Vinzidorf. Pucher coined the term ‘ugly poverty’ for his life’s work, said Kölbl. “Poverty, which does not appear in the conventional image of social devotion and care, or is suppressed because it is the fault of one’s own, ungrateful or caught in insoluble entanglements. It was very concrete, human destinies that affected Pastor Pucher when he left the ministry fifty years ago in the parish of St. Vinzenz and promised in his first sermon on June 3, 1973, ‘to be there for everyone – but first and foremost for those who need me the most,’ Kölbl recalled. “Dear Wolfgang, we wish you to see the mercy of God. The kind, the merciful, the loving God will meet you with open arms and give you life in abundance.”
LH Christopher Drexler (ÖVP) paid tribute to the “great, good, argumentative people”, the “pedagogues of charity”, the people who were distinguished by the absence of resentment. If you want to continue to honor him, then it is important to continue his “look at the fringes” of society. VinziWerke chairman Peter Pratl quoted: “There’s no such thing as impossible. This sentence stands for the work of Wolfgang Pucher like no other.” A total of 40 facilities and projects, the VinziWerke, were created as a result of his initiative, in which people experience a “tiny” piece of hope even after his death. His actions, following the example of St. Vinzenz von Paul, left traces beyond the Styrian borders. Pucher founded factories in Vienna and Salzburg. “Dear Wolfgang, your unexpected going home to God leaves a big gap. On behalf of all employees, I promise you that we will continue your Vinzi works with full commitment.”
The requiem was broadcast on YouTube and could also be seen in the vicarage garden, Pucher’s valued meeting place. City politicians such as KPÖ mayor Elke Kahr or state politicians with social affairs councilor Doris Kampus or former LH Hermann Schützenhöfer (ÖVP) and SPÖ former mayor Alfred Stingl came together here, as well as a number of Greens, ÖVP and SPÖ politicians. Pucher gave the last escort, among others, to Salzburg Archbishop Franz Lackner, the Tyrolean diocesan bishop Hermann Glettler, the evangelical superintendent Wolfgang Rehner and Mayor František Rácz from Slovakian Hostice and the entrepreneurs and philanthropists Hans Roth (Saubermacher) and Martin Essl – as well as those to whom Pucher’s work applied – the residents and users of the many Vinzi facilities.
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