Pope Well-Informed About "Crisis" in Austria Says Foreign Minister

Edit Almost no one in the media is talking about the many priests and laity who are obedient in Austria. The Austrian Foreign Minister, Micheal Spindelegger has said that during a private audience, Pope Benedict and he discussed the present "crisis" of the Catholic Church.

Vatican City (kath.net/KNA)  Bendict XVI has informed Foreign Minister Micheal Spindelegger about the present crisis of the Catholic Church in the Alpine Republic.  The Pope is very well informed about the situation of the Church in Austria, said Spindelegger after his audience in Rome on Wednesday. One theme was also the reform initiative of priests.  Benedict XVI invited the foreign minister to a quarter hour private meeting after the his weekly general audience.

Schindelegger won't name any details. "I have given my appraisal as an Austrian Catholic and the Pope has given his as Supreme Head of the Catholic Church", said the politician of the Austrian Peoples' Party (ÖVP).  Benedict XVI is very well informed about the Austrian sitiation.

At the end of July a group of clerics under the leadership of the former Archdiocesan Rector Fr. Helmut Schüller have declared their "disobedience" against Rome.  In a clarification the clergymen desire, among other things, that married men as well as women are permitted to be priests.  In the declarations it goes: "The Roman Refusal of long necessary Church reforms and the inactivity of the Bishops allow us, no, compel us, to follow our consciences and take indepdent action."  One must "give a sign" and oppose prohibitions from Rome.

The signators desire that "good willed" faithful must not be refused Eucharist.  These are some remarried and divorced, members of other Christian churches and "case by case" even those who have left the Church.  In addition, these priests want educated laypersons as well as religious instructors to be able to preach and to be able to reduce the number of Masses they are required to celebrate because of the [alleged and manufactured] priest shortage.  Austrian Bishops have condemned this affront. [Even the Bishop of Linz]

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