Novus ordo heresy heats up in Austria

[Mornac]

Austria’s Cardinal Schönborn seeks dialogue with Catholic rebels

NOV 13, 2011

The leader of Austria’s Roman Catholic Church has faced down calls for radical change from priests and lay people, saying dialogue was useful but calls for disobedience should be challenged.  “We are in talks and will remain in talks because I and the bishops are still convinced that a lot can and must be cleared up by dialogue,” Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said on Friday after a four-day meeting of bishops.

Catholic rebels in Austria have been making increasingly strident calls for “disobedience” and changes in the Church, after record numbers of Austrians deserted it last year, many of them in response to allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

Some lay people say they will start celebrating Mass when a priest is unavailable, and hundreds of disgruntled priests have publicly challenged Church teaching on celibacy, ordination of women, and giving communion to Protestants and remarried Catholics.

Schönborn, a former student and close associate of Pope Benedict, told a news conference he did not look kindly on such open revolt. To speak of celebrating the Eucharist without having a priest conduct the sacrament “is an open break with a central truth of our Catholic faith” that goes far beyond merely questioning Church structures, he said. Addressing the priests’ call, he said: “Disobedience is a fighting word that cannot go unchallenged.”

The Church has quietly been working for years on how to handle remarried Catholic divorcees, he added, while taking a hard line on defending priestly celibacy. “This question is not going to be decided in Austria and everyone involved has to live with this response,” he said.

The cardinal has already made clear he would not lead Austrian Catholicism into breaking away from the Vatican by letting clergy flout Church rules.

Reformist Austrian Catholics have for decades challenged the conservative policies of Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, creating protest movements and advocating changes the Vatican refuses to make. A record 87,000 Austrians left the Church in 2010.

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/11/13/austrias-cardinal-schonborn-seeks-dialogue-with-catholic-rebels/

[notoc]

You are wrong on the percentage.  A piss poor try at deception on your part.

nope ... http://www.steuer-forum-kirche.de/church-tax-short.pdf

Unless you meant i was trying to deceive you by quoting 8% instead of 9%? Is that what you meant?

[ivanm]

nope ... http://www.steuer-forum-kirche.de/church-tax-short.pdf

Unless you meant i was trying to deceive you by quoting 8% instead of 9%? Is that what you meant?

The amount is a percent of the income tax due and not a percent of the taxable income.  Quite a difference.

[notoc]

Sorry Ivan, I meant to say 8% of gross income tax ... it was a mistake, plus I should have said 9%, so two errors ... but I certainly wasn't purposely out to deceive you.

So under the German system my tax bill would be close to 50% of earnings ... so you are quite correct, the Church would only take 9% of half my gross income.

This is an 'opt-out' rather than an 'opt-in' tax ... we appear to have very different views on what constitutes fair taxation. If I were a German Catholic, I would feel very uneasy that my income, rather than going towards charitable work, was in effect helping to foot the legal cost and fines resulting from child abuse.

[Mornac]

Austria's dissident Catholics urged to "maintain church unity"

Nov 17, 2011 by Jonathan Luxmoore

November 17 (ENInews)--Austria's Roman Catholic bishops have rejected a call by dissident church members for laypeople to begin presiding at Mass when parishes have no priests, but the bishops also pledged to maintain a dialogue over possible changes in church life.

In their 10 November declaration, the bishops rejected a 5 November call by Austria's We Are Church movement for laypeople to preside at Mass and celebrate the Eucharist. The bishops were also reacting to a July "Call to Disobedience" signed by 250 of Austria's 4,200 Roman Catholic priests, urging the ordination of women priests and distribution of Communion to non-Catholics and remarried divorcees.

The bishops said Austria's dioceses were "taking opportunities to innovate" in response to "real and serious problems," and were confident they would "find answers to the questions asked today." However they added that the summons to disobedience had "triggered alarm and sadness," and "left many Catholics shaking their heads."

"Some demands allied with this call for disobedience are simply unsustainable -- the call for a Eucharist without the Blessed Sacrament openly breaches the central truth of our Catholic faith," the bishops' conference said.

Josef Pumberger, news editor of a Vienna-based Catholic news service and a prominent lay expert, said some reforms are necessary and laypeople need to be involved. But the bishops are drawing a line, he said in an interview with ENInews on 17 November. "Certain things are against Catholic theology and church law and won be accepted by the church here -- such as celebration of the Eucharist by laity," he said.

The bishops also urged dissident priests and lay Catholics to "show goodwill and a sense of compromise" and avoid demands which "contradict the church's identity and put its unity seriously at risk."

Hans Peter Hurka, We Are Church's chairman, told ENInews that Austria's bishops had pledged to hold a dialogue with Catholic clergy, but had rejected calls for a discussion of New Testament guidelines.

He added that 505,000 Austrians had signed the movement's founding petition in 1995, adding that recent opinion surveys suggested 80 percent now backed its demands.

"All of this is seen as irrelevant by the bishops -- they don't seem to realize the train has already left and they're still standing on the platform," the lay Catholic said. "The situation is now beyond church control and the dangers of a schism are very real."

Formed in 1995, We Are Church is linked to similar groups in other countries, including Germany, Ireland and the United States, and calls on its website for a "fraternal church" and "full equality of women," as well as a "free choice of celibate or non-celibate lifestyle" and "positive evaluation of sexuality." Four-fifths of Austria's 8.1 million inhabitants identify as Roman Catholic.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-11/austrias-dissident-catholics-urged-maintain-church-unity

[Mornac]

Pope leads Easter rituals, slams reformists' calls to ordain women
 
Apr 5, 2012

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday marked the first of a series of traditional Easter rituals with a mass during which he criticized a group of Austrian clerics championing the ordination of women as priests in the Catholic church.

Benedict did not directly name the so-called Pfarrer-Intiative (Priest's Initiative), which in recent years have also been pushing for the admittance of married men into the priesthood.

But in his homily - which dealt with the renewing by priests of their vows, including celibacy and obedience to Catholic teaching - Benedict noted how a 'a group of priests from a European country' have 'issued a summons to disobedience.'

These priests were 'disregarding definitive decisions' taken by the church including those on the question of the ordination of women which, Benedict said, had been 'irrevocably' rejected by his predecessor as pope, the late John Paul II. 'The church has received no authority from the Lord,' to ordain female priests, Benedict said, citing John Paul.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1696334.php/Pope-leads-Easter-rituals-slams-reformists-calls-to-ordain-women

[Mornac]

Austrian cardinal overrules priest, allows gay Catholic to serve on parish council

By Associated Press,
April 2

VIENNA — Austria’s cardinal has overruled one of his priests and is allowing a gay Catholic to serve on a parish council.

Florian Stangl lives in a registered domestic partnership. The 26-year-old was overwhelmingly elected to the council recently, but it was overruled by the priest — a decision initially backed by the archdiocese.

Such councils include lay people and discuss local church and parish affairs.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn changed his mind over the weekend after hosting Stangl and his partner for lunch, declaring Stangl to be “at the right place.” Despite his close ties to his one-time professor, Pope Benedict XVI, Schoenborn has voiced an open mind to such taboo issues as priestly celibacy.

Church teaching holds that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” but that gays should be treated with dignity and respect.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/austrian-cardinal-overrules-priest-allows-gay-catholic-to-serve-on-parish-council/2012/04/02/gIQAxgs9qS_story.html

[Mornac]

Austrian Priest resigns after overruling by cardinal on homosexual in parish council

by Hilary White, Rome Correspondent
Apr 11

VIENNA, April 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Coming only a few days after Easter, the resignation of Father Gerhard Swierzek, the pastor of a parish in the Archdiocese of Vienna, has been hailed by homosexualist activists in the Catholic Church as a victory. Fr. Swierzek had refused to allow an active homosexual, Florian Stangl, who is living in a legal registered partnership with another man, to sit on the parish council in the town of Stützenhofen.

The Austrian Independent reported Tuesday that Fr. Swierzek has asked his superiors for another assignment. He said he was “saddened” that the cardinal archbishop of Vienna met with Stangl and his partner but had refused to meet with him about the situation.

The German language Catholic news service Kreuz.net quoted Fr. Swierzek saying “I have a priestly conscience and I respect divine and ecclesiastical law.” He explained that he could not remain active in a parish, whose members “wanted their right at any price”.

He cited the teaching of the Church according to Pope John Paul II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexual behaviour. “Living in sin is not considered to be the norm in a Catholic Church community,” he said. “It is much more the task of a priest to bring a sinner to penance.”

Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.

Last week, Christoph Schönborn, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna overruled his priest and his own previous position, saying that Stangl’s election to the parish council was upheld.

At first the cardinal had appeared to support his priest, but announced a few days later that, having had lunch with Stangl and his partner, he had changed his mind. Stangl, a 26 year-old social worker, had received 96 out of 142 votes in a recent parish council election. “This man is at the right place,” the cardinal said.

A statement was later posted on the cardinal’s blog, saying, “…There are many parish councilors whose lifestyle does not in every way conform to the ideals of the Church.

“In view of the life-witness that each of them gives taken as a whole, and their commitment to the attempt to live a life of faith, the Church rejoices in their efforts. She does not thereby call the validity of her ideals into question.”

After his lunch with Stangl, Schönborn said he was “deeply impressed by his faithful disposition, his humility, and the way in which he lives his commitment to service.

“I can therefore understand why the inhabitants of Stützenhofen voted so decidedly for his participation in the parish council.”

A visitor at one of the Easter Masses in the tiny town of Stützenhofen told radio station Ö1 that the cardinal’s decision was “proof of the Austrian Church’s willingness to become more modern and open,” according to the Independent.

The head of the outlawed group, New Ways Ministry appears to agree. The renegade priest, Francis DeBernardo, who directs the group, said the cardinal’s position supported their own, “that no one in the church follows all of the church’s principles, and that it is their total life commitment, not their adherence to litmus tests, which qualify them for church leadership”. 

New Ways Ministry encourages homosexual Catholics to maintain their lifestyle and attempts to convince the hierarchy of the Church to accept it.

“He is saying that he will not treat LGBT people any differently than anyone else,” DeBernardo continued. It describes itself as “a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics,” that was banned by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999.

The group’s two directors, Fr. DeBernardo and Sr. Jeannine Gramick, were prohibited from engaging in any ministry with homosexuals. Their support for the homosexualist movement within the Church resulted in their being declared “ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes”.

“By taking this time to meet and listen to a gay man’s experience, the Cardinal is a model for all church leaders.  Personal encounter was the way of Jesus and should be the way of Catholic leaders. It is the best way to break stereotyping and prejudices that may exist in one’s mind,” DeBernardo concluded.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/austrian-priest-overruled-by-cardinal-regarding-homosexual-on-parish-counci

[ivanm]

Sorry Ivan, I meant to say 8% of gross income tax ... it was a mistake, plus I should have said 9%, so two errors ... but I certainly wasn't purposely out to deceive you.

So under the German system my tax bill would be close to 50% of earnings ... so you are quite correct, the Church would only take 9% of half my gross income.

This is an 'opt-out' rather than an 'opt-in' tax ... we appear to have very different views on what constitutes fair taxation. If I were a German Catholic, I would feel very uneasy that my income, rather than going towards charitable work, was in effect helping to foot the legal cost and fines resulting from child abuse.

If a country depends heavily on the churches to do philantrophic work then maybe diverting taxes to them for that purpose is legit.  Here in America it was once thought that religious institutions could more efficiently dispense charity than the government could, but it did not fly due to the separation of church and state principle.  There were churches that refused to participate for fear the government funds would have strings attached.

I think the idea was tried under former President Bush, the previous president.  I think the idea makes sense from a fiscal pov but it wasn't acceptable politically.
In other words, why not distribute charitable funds in the most efficient manner, and why not let the churches do it because they live closer to the needy  than the government does.

[johnhp]

If a country depends heavily on the churches to do philantrophic work then maybe diverting taxes to them for that purpose is legit.  Here in America it was once thought that religious institutions could more efficiently dispense charity than the government could, but it did not fly due to the separation of church and state principle.  There were churches that refused to participate for fear the government funds would have strings attached.

Actually it doesn't fly, even though it is done, because the government is much better than churches at addressing poverty.  How could you not know that?

[Mornac]

04/17/2012

“Dear Joe: This is wrong - you are going against the Council”
Controversial open letter to the Pope from an American theologian and former colleague of then-Professor Ratzinger at the University of Tübingen. “Joseph, return to your reforming spirit!”

alessandro speciale
vatican city
 
It starts off with a friendly “Dear Joe,” but this is not a letter from a long-lost colleague wanting to get back in touch. Leonard Swidler, Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University in Philadelphia, put pen to paper to write an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI, who was a colleague at the University of Tübingen, Germany in the late 60s and early 70s. Swidler was a Visiting Professor, while Ratzinger was Professor Ordinarius. But, Swidler says, a relationship of “collegiality” arose between them.
 
And this is why – after the “call to disobedience” from the Austrian parish priests and Benedict XVI’s response in his Holy Thursday homily – he is frankly expressing his concern for “signals that are in opposition to the words and spirit of Vatican Council II” coming “of late” from the chair of Peter.
 
The U.S. professor reminds the pope that, as a “leading young theologian” at the Council, he had “helped to move our beloved Catholic Church out of the Middle Ages into Modernity.” In Tübingen, Swidler recalls, Professor Ratzinger, Hans Küng, and other colleagues from the Faculty of Catholic Theology “publicly advocated…the election of bishops by their constituents, and…limited term of office of bishops” in the faculty journal, Theologische Quartalschrift .
 
“Now,” writes the American theologian, “you are publicly rebuking loyal Catholic priests for doing precisely what you earlier had so nobly advocated. They, and many, many others across the universal Catholic Church, are following your youthful example, trying desperately to move our beloved Mother Church further into Modernity.” “Desperately,” he repeats, because “in your own homeland, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe, the churches are empty, and also are so many Catholic hearts when they hear the chilling words coming from Rome and the ‘radically obedient’ (read: ‘yes-men’) bishops.”
 
Swidler reminds his former colleague, “Joe,” that at Vatican Council II, he was one of the theologians who had promoted Pope John XXIII’s appeal to update “by the reforming spirit of returning to the energizing original sources (resourcement!) of Christianity (ad fontes!—to the fountains!).” “Those democratic, freedom-loving sources of the Early Church,” he notes, “were exactly the renewing ‘sources,’ the ‘fountains,’ of renewal that were spelled out in detail by you and your Tübingen colleagues.”
 
The pope’s former colleague asks him to return to the “reforming spirit” of his youth: “Joe,” he concludes, “I urge you to return to your reforming fountains: Return ad fontes!”
 
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/benedetto-xvi-benedict-xvi-benedicto-xvi-14403/

[Mornac]

Easter hijinks at the Hartberg Parish in the Diocese of Graz-Seckaudiocese:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P9qrQpEBu0&feature=player_embedded
	Small | Large

!

[Mornac]

Austria: What happens when a bishop wants to retire
The Archbishop of Salzburg, Alois Kothgasser, is in a hurry to retire

Giacomo Galeazzi
vatican city
4/28/12

Kothgasser is 75 and in a hurry to retire. He has asked permission to pope Benedict XVI who has already met with him about a potential successor. Mgr. Manfred Scheuer’s allure as a candidate for this See grows. He is 57 years old and bishop of Innsbruck, he is also negotiating with the Austrian rebel priests to avoid a schism. Mgr. Manfred Scheuer is playing a pivotal match for the Austrian Catholic Church and has shown a certain amount of openness towards some of the requests of the “disobedient” clergy. In his opinion the seven points of the ‘Appeal to Disobedience’, promoted by the priests who support the “Pfarrer-initiative”, should be viewed individually and not as a package: for example, since there is “real need” for change on the matter of divorcees who have remarried, perhaps they could be allowed to receive the holy communion under certain conditions. “I hope the Church will carry on dealing with this matter in the years to come” said Mgr. Manfred Scheuer . He also suggested taking into consideration whether it might be “necessary from a pastoral point of view” to let “lay people deliver sermons during the Holy Communion”

The main candidate to this prestigious See in Salzburg is on the frontline, facing an explosive situation. In Austria (like in Ireland, Belgium and Germany) after the scandal of paedophilia in the clergy exploded in 2010, groups of priests kept and still keep pressuring Rome asking for reforms on matters like the abolition of the vow of celibacy, the ordination of women as priests and allowing divorcees who have remarried to take the Holy Communion. There is the risk that something may happen in central and northern Europe. Some people in the clergy fear this ‘something’ to be another schism like the Lefebvrian one, but of opposite character.

At the centre of all the protests is Austria, where a priests’ movement begun in 2006 (the «Pfarrer Initiative», the priests’ initiative) keeps growing. The movement published an “Appeal to Disobedience” demanding, as mentioned earlier, the ordination of female priests, the possibility of giving the Holy Communion to people who have divorced and remarried, the abolition of the vow of celibacy and the awarding of a more prominent role in the Church’ rites to lay people. The Pfarrer Initiative has greatly tested the diplomatic abilities of cardinal Christoph Schoenborn , archbishop of Vienna, who commented on the matter with the following statement: “If in our diocese here I would step out of line with the community of the Catholic Church then I would lead our diocese into a schism”. The pope’s first ever address to the Austrian clergy during the Maundy Thursday Mass in St. Peter basilica was a clear sign of the climate of anxiety felt in the Apostolic Palace because of the protest.

Benedict XVI said: “Recently a group of priests from a European country issued a summons to disobedience, and at the same time gave concrete examples of the forms this disobedience might take, even to the point of disregarding definitive decisions of the Church’s Magisterium, such as the question of women’s ordination, for which Blessed Pope John Paul II stated irrevocably that the Church has received no authority from the Lord.” The pope wondered further, “Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church?”, his answer to that question was a “no”.

In those same days, the Vatican asked the Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery, leader of the Association of Catholic Priests (Irish association linked to the Austrian one) to put his work on the Redemptorist Reality monthly magazine on hold. The Association then published a statement of dissent and made public a poll showing that the large majority of Irish Catholics are in favour of married priests and the ordination of women. Meanwhile, “For the purpose of avoiding confusion among the Christian people,” various national bishops' conferences (beginning with Spain's) have specified that 'the “We are Church” trend, despite its name, is not an ecclesial group nor has it received any approval or canonical recognition.”

It is “a civil association which, since 1995, has brought together some groups of Christian origins who share an attitude against the Magisterium and discipline of the Church." In addition, the “We are Church” movement makes affirmations and claims that “are clearly separate from the teachings of the Catholic Church, and wound and harm ecclesial communion.” Therefore, it is necessary for “all Catholics to live within their communities in communion with the whole Church (pastors and faithful), being aware that the positions of the “We are Church” trend not only do not help, but seriously hinder the path of authentic ecclesial renewal postulated by the Second Vatican Council”. This ultra-progressive movement “We are Church” that it intends to promote in the country liturgical ceremonies in which laypeople act as priests, praying and simulating the celebration of Mass.

“Ecclesiastical law forbids it,” Hans Peter Hurka, the leader of “We are Church” and promoter of the reformist manifesto “Call to Disobedience”, admits. Therefore it can be said that the revolt within the Austrian clergy now openly violates the rule of clerical celibacy and admits to communion remarried divorcees. If to this, one now adds the “Lay Mass”, it seems evident that the rupture with Rome places the dissident priests outside the Church.

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/austria-vaticano-vatican-papa-pope-el-papa-14666/