The author and journalist Heribert Prantl remembers his friend Pastor Franz Gasteiger. The two had known each other since their student days. The priest who died in an accident in January was a “life coach” for him, says Prantl.
Schwaig/Munich - His popularity was enormous, the consternation over his cruel death was boundless: On Epiphany, retired pastor Franz Gasteiger (83) was so seriously injured in a Christmas tree fire in his house that he died two days later. Heribert Prantl learned about the tragedy in Munich. What many people didn't know: Gasteiger and the renowned journalist, editorialist and author were close friends for decades. So closely that Prantl Gasteiger dedicated his recently published book “Winning Peace – Unlearning Violence” after he gave the farewell speech at the memorial service. We visited the 70-year-old in his apartment in Munich and talked to him about Gasteiger.
“We first met in the 1970s at the University of Regenburg when we were both doing our doctorates,” remembers Prantl – one in theology, the other in law, history and philosophy. It was in the library that Prantl was browsing. “Our first contact quickly became more intense and we quickly noticed how well we got along.”
Gasteiger and Prantl, one a pastor, first a judge and then an SZ journalist, the other, became conversation partners and advisors. “Yes, for me he was also a life coach who was there at all the important celebrations,” says Prantl, referring, for example, to his daughter’s wedding, which Gasteiger celebrated.
The two found common ground at the church level; Gasteiger came from the Association of Catholic Youth and Prantl was involved with Kolping. “We didn't see each other that often, just a few times a year. “But we were always very close,” says Prantl. They met regularly before Christmas and discussed Prantl's editorials, which he tailored specifically to the holiday each year. Gasteiger was an advisor and source of inspiration, but never an editor. Prantl remembers a conversation that took place several years ago and it was about angels. “We talked about who or what an angel is. A personal bodyguard? A crisis manager? And then they agreed “that angels are people who can break the circle of unforgiveness,” Prantl reflects. “And then we were right in the middle of politics.” He appreciated this thoughtfulness “in Franz.” You first approached a topic and then delved deeper into it in your thoughts.
That's how it was before Gasteiger's last Christmas, which no one could have guessed at the time. Four weeks earlier, both of them were having dinner at Weinhaus Neuner. “He was so happy and full of enthusiasm.”
Prantl found out about Gasteiger's death from relatives of his partner Christl ("a wonderful woman"); later the airport priest Franz Kohlhuber called him. Prantl remembered the exchange about the angels: “Where were the angels with Franz on the evening of his death? Where were they during this Christmas tree disaster?” And comes to the conclusion: “The angel we wish for is a cipher for the wish to be protected.”
Prantl appreciated his friend for his “theological courage and modernity”. Gasteiger was always loyal to the church, but repeatedly deviated from classical theological teachings. Prantl knows that Gasteiger's relationship with Pope Benedict was distant. “On the one hand, he was proud that a German was at the head of the Catholic Church, but Franz viewed the fact that Joseph Ratzinger had allowed the church to slip into such a conservative position with skepticism.”
The sexual abuse in the church and the way it was dealt with “hurt him tremendously,” his companion knows. Above all, Gasteiger was touched by the fact that the offenses had also discredited so many blameless and highly committed pastors. “That was a fiasco for Franz.” Both would have liked the abuse to have been dealt with uniformly across Germany and not in each diocese on its own.
With heart and soul, Prantl remembers, Gasteiger was the first airport priest in Erdinger Moos. “He was in love with his airport until the end.” Such an airport is essentially its own community with a completely heterogeneous audience: returning employees and travelers looking for a place of peace and spirituality. Prantl himself finds the airport chapel to be a place of well-being.
Gasteiger was also unconventional as a person. “He acknowledged his support for his partner Christl, but always without provoking him.” He certainly found it easier as an airport priest than in a rural community. “He loved to live outside the classic structures.”
And Gasteiger loved the large community, for example when he was a guest at parties and went from table to table to get people to know each other,
At the very end of the conversation, Prantl returns to the angels: “For me, Franz was a kind of angel who accompanied me for decades.”