Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has said the time has come to "make a decision" on the Call to Disobedience made by the Austrian Priests' Initiative (API) in June 2011.He made the remarks in an interview with the US Catholic News Agency published in Vienna on the Monday after Pentecost.
He said: "So far, we have not undertaken sanctions, as we continue to believe in the possibility of personal dialogue."
But he want on to say that there was now a danger that "the faithful will become confused".
In his opinion the members of the API were for the most part older men who believed that liberalising measures would once again fill churches.
Cardinal Schönborn said one had to accept that "secularisation" was behind falling Mass attendances, and reforms proposed by the API would do nothing to address this.