Rome's Massive Critique of the Absent Catechesis in Austria

The Rome Bulletin of the Ad Limina Visit of the Austrian Bishops
Contains a Massive Critique of their Activity,
Despite Schönborn's Portrayals. 

Episcopal Whitewash

Cardinal Schönborn is the white washer of his own failings. Just as he explains  the ad limina visit to Rome, as if the Holy Father had just held a contented little chat with the Austrian bishops.

Bulletin of Rome

The Bulletin of Rome for ad limina visit of the Austrian episcopate (VISITA "ad Limina Apostolorum" DEI PRESULI DELLA Conferenza Episcopale DELL'AUSTRIA, 01/30/2014 ) already significantly different, sounds like omission within the Church and diplomatic courtesies.

Subsequently, this is [our translation] the original text (in italics) with explanations of the underlying statements.

VISITA "ad Limina Apostolorum" DEI PRESULI DELLA Conferenza Episcopale DELL'AUSTRIA, 30/01/2014

Dear Brothers,

I am pleased that I will blessed through this intense encounter with you as part of your ad limina visit of the fruits of the Church in Austria and that I should give her something. I thank your President, Cardinal Schönborn for the courteous words that assure me that we will go the way of the proclamation of salvation in Christ together. Each of us is from Christ, the only mediator of salvation, the Church opens up its priestly work according to the senses after and thus helps to make the love of God in the world again presently.

• Welcome and approval from the Holy Father that the Church in Austria, according to Cardinal Schönborn, still remains  united with Rome. Apparently assurance by Cardinal Schönborn was necessary to reduce doubt in the Vatican.

Eight years ago the Austrian Bishops' Conference made a pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, on the occasion of the ad limina visit and met for consultations with the Roman Curia for the last time. On this occasion, most of you also met my esteemed predecessor, Benedict XVI., who was then only a few months in office. The immediately following years were marked by a sympathy on the part of the Austrians for the Church and for the Successor of Peter. This was evident for example in the Pope's visit to mark the 850th anniversary of the Shrine of Mariazell in 2007 despite the bad weather, it received a  very warm reception by the general public.

• Looking back on the visit of the Holy Father in 2007 in Mariazell, in the framework of which the first pastoral visit to the faithful in St. Pölten Bishop Kurt Krenn, whose death was particularly noticed the Vatican which took place in the wake of the ad limina visit, took place.

This was followed by a difficult phase for the Church, whose symptom is among other things, a downward trend in the percentage of Catholics in the total Austrian population. This trend has several causes and has been ongoing  for several decades.

• Despite the visit of the Holy Father goes under the leadership of Cardinal Schönborn of the loss of faith has "jumped".

The development must not be viewed passively, but must rekindle our commitment to the new evangelization which is always necessary.

• Significant rebuke of the Holy Father for the inaction of the Austrian bishops, especially the lack of new evangelization is criticized. The charge of "inaction" of the bishops against the ongoing wave of withdrawals is hardly more evident.

On the other hand, a constant growth of solidarity is to be observed, Caritas and other aid agencies are rewarded with generous gifts. The contribution of religious institutions in the field of education and health is widely appreciated and represents an enduring nature of society in Austria

• The Holy Father in questions of infanticide in the womb, the only possible Catholic position (the strict rejection) represents has, in the case of Caritas apparently not aware that has done exactly this: Caritas has provided cash payments for infanticide.

We must be thankful to God for what the Church in Austria does for the salvation of the faithful and for the benefit of many people, and I myself would like  to express my thanks to each of you and through you to the priests, deacons, religious and committed lay people who willingly and generously in the vineyard the Lord's work.

• The Pope thanked the Catholics loyal to Rome ("the vineyard of the Lord")  for their deeds.

However, we can not manage what has been achieved and existing merely the God field must be continually revised and ordered to make it bear fruit in the future. Church is not to be manage, but beyond, to be missionary, bring to the people the light of faith and the joy of the gospel.

• Again   Pope Francis blames the bishops, not to be  just church-administrators  and calls for increased proselytizing.

Let us not forget that the driving force behind our commitment as Christians in the world is not the idea of ​​philanthropy, an indeterminate humanism, but a gift of God, namely, the gift of a child of God, which we received in baptism. And this gift is also a vocation. God's children do not hide, they carry the joy of their child of God into the world.

• The bishops should not only avoid Christianity in terms of philanthropy and an indeterminate humanism, but to wear this as a gift and mission of God "into the world".

And that also means to strive to live a holy life. We are also guilty before the Church, which, as we witness in the Creed, is sacred. Sure, "the Church includes sinners in her bosom," as formulated by the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium, 8). But the Council says in the same place, that we should not put up with sin, namely that "Ecclesia sancta simul et semper purificanda," the holy Church is to be cleaned again and again. And that means that we make our own cleaning - should be constantly striving - in the sacrament of reconciliation.

• The Church in Austria of course includes sinners. The Second Vatican Council explicitly requested  their cleansing. Here, for example,  are included the actions of the "Cardinal of Stützenhofen", as he drove a faithful  parish out of his parish with an aberrosexual council president, instead of calling upon  the "gay" Parish Council to amend its life.

Confession is the place where we experience God's merciful love and meet Christ, who gives us the strength to repentance and new life.  And if we want as the pastors of the Church to be influential in rediscovering this wonderful Sacrament for believers, we must sensitively stand at their side and just let them feel the love of the Good Shepherd in this gift. So I beg you, be not weary to invite people to encounter Christ in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.

• Rome sees a massive maladministration in this area of the now largely missing exercise of confession  in Austria and calls on the bishops to pay more attention to the " sacrament of penance and reconciliation. "

An important field of our work as pastors is the family. She is at heart of the evangelizing Church. "The Christian family is indeed the first community, whose task it is to proclaim  the Gospel to adolescent people and to lead them through a progressive education and catechesis to a fully human and Christian maturity" (Familiaris Consortio, 2).

• The Church in Austria lacks the faith formation of the younger Catholics. In particular, the value of the Christian family is insufficiently taught.

The ground on which a harmonious family life can unfold is primarily the marital fidelity. Unfortunately, we see in our time, that in the countries of the Western world, marriage and the family are going through a deep inner crisis. " In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is particularly serious because the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with others despite our differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith to their children." (Evangelii Gaudium, 66).

• The lack of faith formation in the Church in Austria leads to the fact that the family no longer performs its function in the  fulfilling the passing on of faith.

Globalisation and modern individualism promotes a lifestyle that is very difficult to develop the stability of the bonds between people and the development of a culture of the family is not opportune. Here, a new mission field for the Church appears, for example, in family circles, where space for relationships are  created among people and relationships with God, where a real community can grow, each assumes the same manner and does not include elite groups, heals wounds, builds bridges, sincerely   searches for marginal people and assists to "bear one another's burdens" (Gal 6:2).

• The bishops devote too little of the missionary work in the field of family and do too little against the destruction of marriage and family .

The family is therefore a priority place of evangelization and the living transmission of the faith. Let's do everything, to have prayer in our families, to learn the faith as part of daily life and  pass on. The Church's concern for the family begins with a right preparation and support of spouses as well as with the faithful and clear explanation of the Church's teaching on marriage and family. As a sacrament, marriage is a gift of God and a mission is at the same time. The love between two spouses is sanctified by Christ, and the partners are called to bear witness to this holiness through their loyalty and nourishing  each other.

• Again, the Holy Father emphasized that the bishops do not strive sufficiently to develop the transmission of the faith in the family . It starts in the lack of preparation for marriage. The bishops are asked to reinforce the obviously missing "faithfulness to marriage and family and a clear explanation of the Church's teaching." The  issues of divorce and remarriage are addressed here.

Starting from the family, the domestic Church, we turn briefly to the parish, the large field which the Lord has entrusted to us, to make it fruitful with our pastoral work. The priests, the pastor should  again and again be aware that his task of leadership is a deeply spiritual ministry. It is always the pastor who leads the parish in which he counts on the support and the valuable contribution of different employees and all believers at the same time.

• The neo-Protestant model of Schönborn and his anti-Rome-apologists, for example, with respect to the "diocesan process APG2.1" with the transfer of functions of the priest to lay is rejected. Rather, it is to ensure that the parish leadership is done only by the priest, the faithful are selected for individual tasks to support it.

We should not run the risk of obscuring the sacramental ministry of the priest.

• The sacramental service is reserved to the priest. A clear rejection of the "Viri probati" dreams of the left-wing Catholics and lay replacement models instead of Holy Masses celebrated by priests.

Our towns and villages there are bold and shy people, there are missionary and sleeping Christians. And there are the many who are looking, even if they do not admit it. Everyone is called, everyone is sent. But it is not to say that the location of this call is only the parish center. It is not said that his moment is necessarily the cozy parish event. The call of God can reach us just as much on an assembly line and in the office, in the supermarket, in the stairwell, thus in the places of everyday life.

• The bishops are again called to be missionary. They may endeavor to step up efforts to forms of faith transmission also outside of the parishes.

Speaking of God, the message of God's love and   salvation from Jesus Christ to the people is the responsibility of every baptized. And this includes not only speaking with words, but in all affairs and doings our whole existence must speak of God, even in the most insignificant things. Then our testimony is true, then there will always be new and fresh even in the power of the Holy Spirit. To succeed, the talk of God must be speaking with God first of all to be the encounter with the living God in prayer and sacrament. God will not only be found, but He makes himself in His love to go and meet the seeker. The man who clings to the love of God, of course, to be open to the hearts of others for divine love to show them that only in communion with God is the fullness of life. Especially in our time when we are seeming to be a "little flock" (Luke 12:32) , we are called to be disciples of the Lord, to live as a community, the salt of the earth and light of the world (cf. Mt 5:13-16).

• Here is where what is probably the most unbridled abandonment of the Church is addressed, which, according to the opinion of Rome, the bishops have initiated insufficient measures. So Vienna has only a population of 37 percent of the population. Cardinal Schönborn nevertheless expressed satisfaction, apparently because the outflow has retained its galloping "trend".

Mary, who is our mother and your as Magna Mater Austriae is especially revered, that she may help us, so that we can open fully to the Lord and are able to open up the way for others to the living and life-giving God.

From the Vatican, on 30 January 2014

Schönbornitudes of the Ad Limina Visit

And how did Cardinal Schönborn spin the talks with the Holy Father?

He explains in the news program "Zeit im Bild 1" (State Radio ORF) on 27 January 2014: "People live together, then   eventually come children, but then they decide get married, then they are married civilly and some make still another step and get married in Church. And he (the Pope) has said, this is a way because you can feel people are underway and he greatly  encouraged us to accompany people ".

 Schönborn's Anti-Catholic Family Model

Had the statements come from his predecessor as chairman of the Austrian Bishops' Conference, Bishop Weber, one would have to find an explaination in  a lack of intellectual strength.

However, this is not possible with Cardinal Schönborn.

This leaves the accusation of intended distortion of papal statements, the just demanded a missionary  approach regarding marriage and family and not an idle, merely passive accompaniment!

Link to Kreuz.net...