Image: HELMUT FOHRINGER (APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)
The 84-year-old suffered a medical emergency while on vacation in Croatia and could not be saved despite immediate help, the broadcast said. In Graz and other cities, he initiated accommodation and support facilities for the homeless and the poor and has received several awards for his social commitment.
Wolfgang Pucher was born on March 31, 1939 in Hausmanstätten near Graz to a family of craftsmen. After graduating from high school in 1958, he entered the Lazarist Congregation in Graz and was ordained a priest in 1963. After a period as a chaplain and educator, Pucher worked from 1969 to 1973 at the Austrian St. George’s College in Istanbul. From 1973 he was pastor in Graz-St. Vincent. In 1990 the youth Vinzenzgemeinschaft Eggenberg was founded, in 1991 Pucher started an uncomplicated and efficient aid project with the “Vinzibus”, which distributed food donations to the needy every evening. 1993 followed in Graz-St. Leonhard the “VinziDorf”, where homeless people found a home in construction containers. Similar initiatives in Graz districts and other Austrian cities followed.
The pastor was particularly concerned with the Roma from Hostice in Slovakia, who came to Graz as beggars. In order to give them the opportunity to earn money at home, he started the “VinziPasta” project, a pasta factory in Hostice, with which the local women earn money at home. His resistance also caused a stir when the state of Styria issued a ban on begging in 2011. Pucher had himself reported and supported other suspects until 2013 when the ban was overturned by the Constitutional Court.
After he was awarded the “Essl Social Prize” for his life’s work at the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg in 2012, he used the prize money of one million euros for an innovative form of residential care for the homeless in the city of Salzburg. In 2013 he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a priest and his 40th anniversary as a parish priest. In 2015 he received the Silver Decoration of Honor for services to the Republic of Austria.
In 2017, the VinziTel emergency shelter developed into the Solido project, which supports adult individuals and families who are homeless.
Source: Nachrichten
