Hermit and at the same time web stars and lecturer, Pellegrino and yet in love with the home which has become his retreat for the year. A man who summarizes many lives, “all at the service of God”. We are in the upper Val d’Angrogna, southern area of the province of Turin. Of this specific ridge it is said that the hens eggs roll immediately downstream, so much is steep. On a spur is the house of Don Johannes Maria Schwarz. As a priest of Liechtenstein ended up on this isolated natural balcony, with an unparalleled view, it is true curiosity.
From the valley bottom, the car struggles for a good half hour along a road in the woods all in the elbow, with climbs that would delight the organizers of the Giro d’Italia. Wonderful panoramas, to be enjoyed in the silence of these meadows which now report that our destination is not far away. The car stops here, the rest becomes on foot and, while we arrange Goffi to avoid sliding on the ice slabs, we see a man with a long and black tunic go up from the path. It is not a hallucination.
Born in 1978, Johannes grows with his family in Linz: “Like a sort of eco-hyppie, long-haired blondes and puppet shows around the streets”, He tells in the heat of the room on the ground floor, heated by a wood stove, designed and built by him, a bit like everything around us.
In the summer of his 15 years, Johannes leaves at the last minute for a trip to Italy together with a friend. Assisi is one of the stages and, once he came out of the Porziuncola«Nothing was more as before. My conversion took place at that moment, inside that narrow space, “he says. “I put on my knees and ten minutes later, when I got up, I was a different person.” Years later he returned to the places of St. Francis in what, he says, “to rethink us today was my first pilgrimage”.
Shortly after part PEr Australia, A one -year trip alone. Then the studies take a clear direction: Theology in the Austrian Certosa di Gaming and doctorate at the Faculty of Lugano, where he begins to learn the excellent Italian he uses today.
(Free photo Johannes Maria Schwarz, Claudio Geymonat)
Read the complete interview with Johannes Maria Schwarz on the number of believing in distribution in newsstands and religious bookstores from Thursday 20 March and in the parishes from Saturday 22 March. Or buy a digital copy on newsstandsanpaolo.it
