Born on 22 June 1804,[1] Neunburg vorm Wald, he was ordained on 4 August 1829, aged 25 as a priest of Regensburg, Germany by Cardinal Antonio Saverio De Luca.

On 29 December 1833, aged 29, he joined the Order of Saint Benedict (OSB) and later became Abbot of St. Michael's Abbey at Metten.

For the maintenance of the lesser seminaries of the diocese which had been obliged to receive an exceptionally large number of candidates to the priesthood, he founded St. Corbinian's Association, and erected a lesser seminary in Freising.

He introduced into his diocese the devotion of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and instituted pastoral conferences of the clergy.

[3] The last years of his episcopate were embittered by the support which the Bavarian Government, under the leadership of Lutz, minister of worship, gave to the Old Catholic movement, whose most zealous champions were resident in Munich.