Cardinal Schönborn Compares Dissident Priests to Poor Employees

Editor: Interesting, someone else has pointed out that these priests who disobey their superiors would be immediately fired.  Good job Mirus, you finally located this story.   Archbishop Nienstedt who heads the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul made a similar analogy between business, but he refuted it saying that he doesn't have that kind of relationship with his priests.  We think the kind of relationship either prelate has with his priests is largely contingent on the level of orthodoxy.  If you're heterodox, but not very noisy or outspoken, you are awarded the appearances of Catholic orthodoxy, and then can continue spreading your errors and Sunday morning Catholicism from the pulpit, but if you're orthodox and outspoken, look out.  All of a sudden the Mitre comes out and the prelate becomes the very soul of authority and weighs down on the poor offending priest with whatever he has in his administrative tool kit to send the offender packing.

Of course, some people too are allowed to return home after a period of time and things have cooled off.



[Catholic Culture] Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna plans to meet with a group of dissident priests , sometime in late August or September. Why is he waiting so long?

When the Initiative of Parish Priests was launched in Austria in June, Cardinal Schönborn waited a few days before issuing a public statement. He explained that he was shocked by the group’s bold statement, which called for open defiance of Church teaching and discipline. The cardinal said that he took a few days to get over his initial shock and anger before responding. Then he spoke in carefully measured tones:

“The open call to disobedience shocked me,” Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna said in a July 7 letter, noting that many professionals would have “long since lost their jobs” if they had called for disobedience. Reminding priests that they had freely promised obedience to their bishop at ordination, he asked, “Can I rely on you?”

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