AUSTRIA
National Catholic Reporter
[link to Austrian Bishops’ Conference and to the pastoral letter]
by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Oct. 26, 2012
Vienna Austria —
In a 15-page pastoral letter, which Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna admitted was the “outcome of intensive dialogue with Rome,” the Austrian bishops insist that renewal of faith in full communion with the pope and the church’s magisterium, and with special emphasis on church unity, is the only way out of the stalemate between the bishops and the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, which demands far-reaching structural church reforms.
The pastoral letter, titled Jahr des Glaubens or “Year of Faith,” has a special chapter on the ongoing deadlock in the Austrian church since the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, which has more than 400 members, published its “Appeal to Disobedience” in June 2011. The initiative, which has the support of a large number of Austrian lay Catholics, calls for radical church reforms, including the ordination of married men and women.
Schönborn, president of the Austrian bishops’ conference, presented the pastoral letter at a news conference in Vienna in the first week of October, before he headed to Rome for the 2012 Synod of Bishops, which has the theme “the new evangelization” or reviving Christian faith in increasingly secular societies. The synod coincides with the opening of a special “Year of Faith,” which runs from Oct. 11, 2012, to Nov. 24, 2013, which also has focus on “the new evangelization.”
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