LINZ. Father Friedrich Sperringer SJ, church rector of the old cathedral in Linz, died on December 26th, 2021 at the age of 78 in the religious clinic of the Sisters of Mercy.
Father Friedrich Sperringer SJ was born in Vienna in 1944 and lived in the Viennese parish Alt-Ottakring as a child and adolescent. After primary school, he went to the commercial academy and completed the first section of an economics degree. In 1965 he entered the order. This was followed by a three-year internship as an educator at the Kollegium Kalksburg in Vienna, then studying philosophy in Munich and theology in Innsbruck. In 1974 he was ordained a priest and after completing his studies worked as an educator in Kalksburg for four years.
From 1981 to 1997 P. Sperringer was first chaplain and then pastor in the Viennese parish of Lainz-Speising. He then worked for 16 years as a provincial economist and until summer 2018 rector of the Jesuit Church and superior of the Jesuit community at Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz in Vienna. In 2018, despite his advanced age, he went to Kosovo, where he was Vice-Superior of the small community at the Loyola High School in Prizren and devoted himself to the study of the Albanian language with great enthusiasm. Accordingly, he was troubled by the unexpected withdrawal of the Jesuits from Kosovo.
In the summer of 2019 he moved to the Jesuit community in Linz and has been the church rector of the Old Cathedral in Linz since August 1, 2020.
The Requiem will be celebrated on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 1 p.m. in the Council Memorial Church, Kardinal-König-Platz 1, 1130 Vienna. Then the burial takes place at the Lainzer Friedhof. A personal farewell in the church is possible from 11 a.m.
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