Old Liberal Bishop Fires Pastor for Being Actually Catholic: He Refused Calvinist Hand Communion

Old Liberal Bishop and Father Sterninger Foto © wranafoto

Edit: gasp, he put too much emphasis on the Blessed Virgin Mary!

[Neudau] Conservative minister was recalled after crash with parts of his parish at his own request. In a letter to the people, Kapellari hopes for a new beginning, Sterninger will not return to the Eastern Styria after a break.


Six weeks after taking over as pastor, Conrad Sternfeininger of Neudau, Burgau and Woerth's term is already over. Between the prevailing stresses as a conservative clergyman and much of the parish there had been a lot of tension. Now Bishop Egon Kapellari has responded and the priest - on its own request, as it is being described - is dismissed. In a letter to the parish Kapellari hopes for a new beginning, Sterninger will not return to the Eastern Styria after his break. The recent Neudauer Sunday Mass was held Auxiliary Bishop Franz Lackner.

As a "demagogue and self-promoter" is how Franz Glaser, Mayor of Burgau-Neudauberg, described the priest. He got upset with absurd images, refused people Communion in the hand. "He wanted an exaggeration of Mary," says Neudaus local Chief Wolfgang Dolesch. The resistance was massive. [Was it really?]

In a letter to the parish councils to Kapellari had turned, it was followed by a crisis summit on site. The church then declared reason was a top priority, Dean Josef Reichshoffer speaks of a "diocesan intervention".

Sterninger himself wanted to give an opinion. The search for a successor, writes Kapellari, will not be known for a month.

Link to original Neudau Paper...