The Austrian priest who founded a group of clergy who question church teaching on celibacy and women's ordination has downplayed Pope Benedict XVI's denunciation.
The Rev. Hellmut Schueller said Benedict was merely asking for reflection on whether their disobedience can help reform the church.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Schueller noted that Benedict didn't forbid what the dissident priests were doing or advocating.
In his Holy Thursday homily, Benedict said the dissidents of the Pfarrer Initiative claim to be motivated by concern for the church.
But he suggested that in reality they were just making "a desperate push to do something to change the church in accordance with (their) own preferences and ideas."
The Pfarrer Initiative is at www.pfarrer-initiative.at