There is open rebellion among the clergy
of Austria's Catholic Church.
One highly placed man of the cloth has
even warned about the risk of a coming schism as significant numbers of
priests are refusing obedience to the Pope and bishops for the first
time in memory.
The 300-plus supporters of the so-called Priests' Initiative have had
enough of what they call the church's "delaying" tactics, and they are
advocating pushing ahead with policies that openly defy current
practices.
These include letting non-ordained people lead religious
services and deliver sermons; making communion available to divorced
people who have remarried; allowing women to become priests and to take
on important positions in the hierarchy; and letting priests carry out
pastoral functions even if, in defiance of church rules, they have a
wife and family.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Vienna's Archbishop and head of the
Austrian Bishops' Conference, has threatened the rebels with
excommunication.
Incidentally, those involved in the initiative are not
only low-profile members of the clergy.
Indeed, it is being led by
Helmut Schüller — who was for many years vicar general of the
archdiocese of Vienna and director of Caritas — and the cathedral pastor
in the Carinthian diocese of Gurk.
The issues that supporters of the initiative want addressed may be
revolutionary, but they are by no means new: they constitute basic
questions that have been around for a long time but have never been
addressed by church officials.
The initiative's supporters are demanding that parishes openly expose
all things forbidden by the church hierarchy, thus putting a stop to
hypocrisy and allowing authenticity of belief and community life to
emerge.
The appeal for "more honesty" made to the world's youth by Pope
Benedict XVI in Madrid last week left a sour taste in many mouths in
Austria, where some say that honesty is a quality the church hierarchy
has more of a tendency to punish than reward.
Open Pressure and Disobedience
Particularly affected are some 700 members of an association called
Priester ohne Amt (Priests Without a Job) who wish in vain to practice
their ministry because they have a wife and children and stand by them.
Priests who break ties with loved ones, on the other hand, are allowed
to continue working.
According to the initiative's founder Schüller, only openly disobedient
priests and pressure from both priests and laity can force the hierarchy
to budge.
Although the problems have been out there for decades, he
says, the church keeps putting off doing anything about them. Schönborn
stated that the critics would have to "give some thought to their path
in the church" or face unavoidable consequences.
On the other hand,
Anton Zulehner, a priest who is one of the most respected pastoral
theologians in Austria, believes that this time the church is not going
to get away with diversionary tactics.
Twenty years ago, Austria, nominally at least, was 85% Catholic. Today,
in the city of Vienna, Catholics account for less than half the
population while rural parishes are melting away.
Various scandals have
rocked the Catholic Church in Austria, among them child-abuse charges
against former Vienna Archbishop Hans-Hermann Groër and the nomination
of a series of reactionary priests to the rank of bishop.