His mother was a relative of the Trappist abbot Franz Pfanner, and Max Joseph was himself a cousin of the epic poet Hermann Lingg.

By 1863 Max Joseph had begun a second degree in law, which he completed in 1869 with a doctorate on the topic of the education of King Alfonso XII of Spain.

Despite what was seen in reactionary Bamberg as his comparatively liberal time as a student, he was able to assert himself and in 1902 was appointed Bishop of Augsburg by Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria.

Lingg's episcopal consecration was conferred on 20 July 1902, by the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Franz Joseph von Stein.

He expanded the diocese by increasing the deaneries from forty to sixty, and in 1910 founded the Dillinger seminary as well as several new churches, among them the modern Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Augsburg.

Lingg died in 1930 after a working trip to the pension home Ulrichsheim, which he founded on his former parental estate in the Füssen district of Bad Faulenbach.