Alexander Tschugguel

Tschugguel was born in 1993 in Vienna and is a member of the von Tschugguel family, an old Tyrolean family that are part of the Austrian nobility. The family, originally of knightly status, was elevated to baronial status in 1705.[2] His father, Walter Tschugguel, is a doctor in Vienna.[3] Tschugguel was baptized and raised in the Lutheran faith.[4] The Tschugguel family was historically Roman Catholic, until Tschugguel's great-grandfather converted to Lutheranism from Catholicism.[5] When he was fifteen years old, Tschugguel converted to Roman Catholicism.[6] He is a Traditionalist Catholic and attends the Tridentine Mass with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.[7]

Coat of Arms of the Tschugguel family

Tschugguel was married in 2019 in a wedding celebrated by Athanasius Schneider, the auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mary Most Holy in Astana.[7]

In March 2020, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, Taylor Marshall reported that Tschugguel had contracted SARS-CoV-2, was "in a bad way," and had been hospitalized.[8][9] He was hospitalized at Kaiser-Franz-Josef Hospital in Vienna and recovered a few weeks later.[3]

Tschugguel began working for the conservative political organization Tradition, Family and Property when he was sixteen years old. He has worked with conservative politicians Ewald Stadler and Beatrix von Storch, as well as political activist Hedwig von Beverfoerde, to protest and campaign against abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and the inclusion of gender studies and sex education in schools in Germany and Austria.[7]

Tschugguel opposes immigration reform and allowing Muslim refugees into Austria and Germany. He claims to be a patriot and a monarchist.[10] He is a spokesperson for the Young European Student Initiative, a non-partisan independent initiative of Christian and conservative university students.[11] In 2013 he helped Ewald Stadler found The Reform Conservatives, an Austrian conservative political party focused on reversing the Maastricht Treaty and abolishing the European Parliament.[12][10][13]

In 2014 Tschugguel co-organized a bus tour in Germany with von Beverfoerde to support traditional marriage. In 2018 and 2019, he was the co-organizer of the Vienna March for Life.[14][15] In May 2019 he organized Rosary for Austria, a Latin Mass and prayer event at the Karlskirche.[7]

On 21 October 2019 Tschugguel and an accomplice stole five statues, reportedly of the Inca fertility goddess Pachamama, from the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina and threw them from the Ponte Sant'Angelo into the Tiber.[16] The statues were on display as part of the Amazon Synod taking place in the Vatican.[17] He came forward on 4 November 2019 in a YouTube video.[18][19] Tschugguel, who had removed the statues believing them to be a violation of the First Commandment, received support from various high ranking Church officials after the incident, including Bishop Anthanasius Schneider, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, and Cardinal Walter Brandmüller.[20][21] Tschugguel's actions were criticized by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, who called the act "scandalous and outrageous."[22] Since coming forward, Tschugguel went on a speaking tour in the United States organized by LifeSite News, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, and Taylor Marshall.[23] In an interview published on 27 March 2020, it was revealed that Tschugguel and Marshall conspired originally to remove a tree planted in the Vatican Gardens during the Amazon Synod. When the fertility statues were displayed in the churches of Rome, Marshall, in Texas, instead paid the airfare for Tschugguel to come from Vienna to jettison the statues. Marshall would go on to edit and publish video footage of the removal and throwing of the statues on an anonymous YouTube channel.[3]

Tschugguel founded the St. Boniface Institute in 2019, with the goal of fighting paganism and globalism within the Catholic Church and to "rally those who do not want to bow down to 'Mother Earth'."[24] The institute is named for Saint Boniface who, according to tradition, cut down Donar's Oak and used the wood to build a church.[25] Through the institute, Tschugguel connects different Traditionalist Catholic communities throughout Europe with each other.[3]

In a public address in 2019, Tschugguel criticized the United Nations and the European Union for their focus on climate change, calling it an agenda pushed by "leftist politicians, communist NGOs, and skillfully radicalized young teenagers from Scandinavia." He went on to praise United States president Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, calling the action "true statesmanship", and called into question the Church and other international institutions' focus on the Amazon.[23]

In December 2019 Tschugguel organized a prayer protest outside of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. The protest was in response to the cathedral hosting the Life Ball, an LGBTQ-friendly annual charity event to raise money for HIV and AIDS awareness.[26] Tschugguel was thanked by retired Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for organizing the protest.[27][28]

On 18 January 2020 Tschugguel protested alongside von Beverfoerde, retired Archbishop Viganò, Roberto de Mattei, and Gabriele Kuby in Munich, asking Pope Francis and the German Bishops' Conference for "clarity and coherence" and to end "dissimulation and deception" in the Catholic Church in Germany. The group organizing the silent prayer protest, acting under the name Acies Ordinata, included 130 members of Catholic laity from Germany, Austria, Italy, Brazil, Chile, Canada, and the United States.[29]

• St. Boniface Institute