A conservative Austrian pastor who created a controversy by suggesting that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because of the city's sins said Sunday he will ask the pope to rescind his appointment as auxiliary bishop.Pope Benedict XVI's recent promotion of The Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, to the new position in Linz, Austria's third largest city, sparked an outcry among Catholics who warned it could prompt people to leave the church.
"Regarding the fierce criticism, I am in prayer and, after consulting the diocesan bishop, I have decided to ask the Holy Father in Rome to take back my promotion as auxiliary bishop," Wagner said in a statement released by Linz Diocesan Bishop Ludwig Schwarz.
Schwarz declined to comment to The Associated Press about Wagner's decision, but said more information would result from an extraordinary meeting of Austria's bishops in Vienna on Monday.
The meeting was announced on Friday by Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a top Catholic official in Austria, to discuss widespread objections to the Vatican's appointment of Wagner.
Wagner, among other things, has questioned whether the "noticeable" increase of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina — which devastated New Orleans in 2005 — was a result of pollution caused by humans or the result of "spiritual pollution."
He also characterized Harry Potter novels as "Satanism."
Wagner's promotion was one of two recent controversial decisions by the Vatican.
In an interview with Swedish state TV broadcast Jan. 21, British Bishop Richard Williamson said only about 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust, none of them gassed.
The Vatican said Benedict did not know about the Williamson's views when he agreed a short time later to lift his excommunication.
Williamson and other bishops had been consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent.
The Holy See said that removing the excommunication did not mean the Vatican shared Williamson's views.
Williamson has apologized for causing distress to the pope, but has not recanted.
He said he would correct himself if he is satisfied by the evidence, but insisted in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that examining it "will take time."
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(Source: AP)