MASSACHUSETTS
Catholic Culture
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has forbidden a speaking appearance by a dissident Austrian priest at a local parish.
Father Helmut Schüller, the leader of the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, was scheduled to speak in July at St. Susanna’s parish church in Dedham, a Boston suburb. Father Schüller is making a tour of the US, speaking in several cities about the Austrian group, which brought together several hundred Austrian priests in a “Call to Disobedience,” a vow to ignore Church teachings on several controversial issues.
Last year, on Holy Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI lamented that “a group of priests from a European country issued a summons to disobedience,” saying that such an action damaged the unity of the Church and the cause of true reform. Although he did not name the group, Pope Benedict clearly had the Austrian Priests’ Initiative in mind. Later, in November, the Vatican announced that Schüller—a former vicar general of the Vienna archdiocese—had been stripped of his title of “Monsignor” because of his leadership role in the dissident group.
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