Catholic Church in Austria falls apart - sort of

[Tender Branson]

Austrian priests defy Catholic Church, clash with Cardinal Schönborn looms



(Reuters) - Dissident Austrian priests defying their Catholic Church with calls for married clergy, women priests and other reforms enjoy wide public support, according to a new poll on a dispute that could lead to their dismissal.

Three-quarters of people polled in the traditionally Catholic country backed the priests' "Call to Disobedience," a manifesto that Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn compares to a football team refusing to play by the rules.

The revolt, openly supported by 329 priests, threatens a split in the Austrian Church weeks before Pope Benedict's Sept 22-25 visit to neighbouring Germany. Benedict, 84, grew up in Bavarian villages close to the Austrian border.

Rather than simply appealing for reforms, the dissidents declared they will break Church rules by giving communion to Protestants and remarried divorced Catholics or allowing lay people to preach and head parishes without a priest.

Schoenborn has hinted they would be disciplined if they do not back down in the coming weeks. "This cannot go on," he told the Vienna daily Der Standard. "If someone has decided to go down the path of dissent, that has consequences."

Dissident leader Rev Helmut Schueller, who as Vienna vicar general was Schoenborn's deputy from 1995 to 1999 and once led the Austrian chapter of the international Catholic charity Caritas, has said he has no intention of giving up.

He says many priests are already quietly breaking the rules anyway, often with the knowledge of their bishops, and his campaign aims to force the hierarchy to agree to change. About 8 percent of Austrian priests have supported his movement.

SOLID SUPPORT FOR SCHUELLER

Reformist Austrian Catholics have repeatedly challenged the conservative policies of Benedict and his late predecessor Pope John Paul in recent decades, creating grass-roots protest movements and advocating changes the Vatican refuses to make.

Paul Zulehner, a leading Catholic theologian, said the Church must act urgently if it wants to avoid a confrontation. "It could come to a crash, to a split," he told Austrian radio.

The survey published this week by the Oekonsult polling group showed 76 percent of Austrians queried supported Schueller and his colleagues. Some 85 percent said the Church should not do anything to drive away its reform-minded members.

While the poll was not limited to Catholics, 70 percent of the respondents said the Church and its leaders were "a very important moral authority" for them. Some 66 percent said they liked Schoenborn personally.

Schueller is now a parish priest and university chaplain in Vienna. If he is dismissed, 97 percent of those polled said, a "very large wave" of people leaving the Church would follow.

A record 87,000 Austrians left the Church in 2010, many in reaction to sexual abuse scandals there.

In the past year, over 800 people have registered complaints of molestation by priests after the sexual abuse scandals rocking the Church in Ireland, Belgium and other European countries also broke out in Austria.

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/08/31/austrian-priests-defy-catholic-church-clash-with-cardinal-schonborn-looms

It's about time this backwards club called Roman-Catholic Chruch is reformed ...

[Tender Branson]

The latest Market poll for the newspaper Standard is a devastating sign towards the Pope:

86% of Austrians favor Catholic priests getting married, just 6% are opposed.

83% say that women should become priests, with 9% opposed.

"Does the Catholic Church nowadays have the right answers for people ?"

  2% Yes, absolutely
11% Maybe
32% Not
51% Absolutely Not

What kind of religious person are you ?

21% engaged Catholic
50% Catholic in name only
18% were Catholic, but left the Church
11% I´m not associated with the Catholic Church

http://derstandard.at/1313025308549/Religion-und-Politik-Mehrheit-vertraut-der-Kirche-nicht-mehr

[Tender Branson]

But I think this type of action is effectively meaningless, the market for choice already exists. Why didn't these priests just go for Protestant ordination instead? Austria is still about 5% Protestant after all, and that number would be a lot higher if all these "Catholics" that had such issues would just leave and join a church that better reflects their values like so many American Catholics do.

That is hardly an option either. The Austrian Catholic Church charges you 1.1% of your monthly income in Church Tax, the Evangelical Church charges you 1.5% - so I guess many people are just leaving the Church alltogether.

There are many taxes and fees in Austria that suck money out of your pocket, so quitting the Church is one of the first and best things to do. I save myself about 250€ (360$) with this each year.

I won't marry anyway (and in the extremely unlikely event that I do, you can go to the registrar's office to register the marriage).

So what else is your benefit to remain in the Church ? It's better to invest the 250€ in a NGO, instead of a dictatorial, oppressive and backwards regime in the Vatican.

[Tender Branson]

Ah yeah I forgot about your church tax thing like Germany. If the "Evangelical Church" is the Lutherans that seems kind of silly to charge more, but I suppose they have fewer members and those might be a bit more dedicated.

How progressive is the Evangelical Church? If they are and tolerant like the Church of Sweden, or at least as much as the ELCA, I'd be willing to pay the tax. If not...well then hopefully there's some unregistered hipster church somewhere in Austria.

Yeah, you could become a Mormon, Muslim, Jewish etc.

But I don't know if you have to pay church tax when you register there.

BTW, leaving the Catholic Church is far more easier here in bigger cities than in smaller towns. if you leave it, the priest will normally read the names of those who left during the Sunday mass ...

Not a good thing if the people speak about this behind your back (even though it's only old people these days who visit the mass, but nonetheless this reminds me of the time between 1200-1700, when they talked about "witches and red-haired women" ...

[Tender Branson]

No party wants to abolish the tax?

It`s a non-issue. The Church Tax is not a state-tax. It's directly paid to the Church. If you don't want to pay it, just quit the church. In that sense, the Church is just a club which needs membership fees. If you don't want to be in that club, get out. Why would the Church provide services to you, if you don't pay anything to them ?

[Tender Branson]

"Catholic Church in Austria falls apart - sort of"

I wrote this headline, because the final result of what the dissidents will achieve with their demands is very unknown at this point. "Catholic Church in Austria falls apart" is not only taking place because of their actions now, but it's a steady phenomenon because of the actions from within the Church: boring masses, abuse scandals, backwards ideological thoughts that have nothing to do with modern life anymore etc.

In the end, the Catholic Church will do with the dissidents what they have always done in the past: enforce their dictatorial nature and try to quiet or shut out the dysfunctional dissidents. The Catholic Church to me is nothing more than the Borg Collective, with the Pope being the Borg Queen who orders to wipe out dysfunctional drones. Like in "Unimatrix Zero", where Borg drones are infected with a "individuality-virus", the Borg Queen doesn't hestitate to destroy Borg Cubes with tens of thousands of drones on board, just to eliminate the individual "voices", a strategy very similar to the situation of the structure of the Catholic Church in general and in Austria. No matter how many "enlightened" Austrians quit the Church each year, 60.000 or 80.000 or 100.000, the leadership refuses to change their course and supersedes the revolt that is going on within. Instead they strive to assimilate more drones, mostly in poor countries like the Congo etc., people who are too weak and too uneducated to resist. Once people get to know about this dictatorial system, they quit - and quit on masse. Therefore, education is power.