Stift Melk -- A Visitation is Long Overdue

How Catholic is Melk Abbey? A papal visitation could clarify this issue. At the latest after Eugen Drewermann has held the annual retreat for the Convention, it would be timely.

A commentary by John Graf

Melk (kath.net / jg)
The announcement was so implausible that you could easily have taken it for a joke at first glance. Eugen Drewermann has held the annual retreat for the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Melk. Meanwhile, reports have been confirmed.

 Drewermann has already lost the authorization teach in 1991  at the Catholic Faculty of Paderborn and to preach in 1992.. In the same year the Paderborn Archbishop Johannes Degenhardt suspended him suspended from the priesthood. In 2005 he resigned from the Catholic Church. In the program "People in Maischberger" he described this step literally as a "gift of freedom to myself" on his 65th birthday. In the same year he signed a public call to vote for the Left Party.

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Nevertheless, Melk Abbot Georg Wilfinger invited him to hold the annual retreat for the monks of his monastery. Exercises, said spiritual exercises are there for faith, to deepen their relationship with God, to find clarity about one's personal journey with God. How is it that a retreat preacher like Drewermann could succeed, who felt his withdrawal from the Catholic Church as a liberation?

According to reports, Drewermann has even   celebrated the Eucharist in the context of the retreat. Abbot Wilfinger must have  at least known that if he has not even been there. The Rule of St. Benedict says of the abbot: "Therefore, the Abbot should only teach and preach that which is the law of the Lord" (Chapter 2) Georg Wilfinger has not met this point  and thus also has not complied with his responsibility towards his brothers.

Involuntarily there is a comparison with the Franciscans of the Immaculate. In this community, sectarian or schismatic tendencies are suspected. Therefore the need for an Apostolic Commissioner as part of a visitation was assumed. 

A similar approach seems appropriate in the case of Melk Abbey. Which hired an apostate priest from the church for the guidance of an annual retreat and who  also celebrated the Eucharist, should at least  be placed under guardianship as mentioned against Franciscan Congregation. Anyone familiar with the current spiritual and disciplinary situation of Melk Abbey a little, will find more reasons for a visitation.   

Since the monastery does not belong to the diocese, the local bishop has no direct handle on this. But there are points of contact between the Stift and the diocese. The Abbey serves 23 parishes in the diocese of St. Pölten and Vienna. The bishops Küng and Schönborn can not be indifferent to what  the monastery in their parishes. The Rule of Benedict even provides an involvement of diocesan bishops, if an abbot does not meet the requirements. "But if (which God forbid) the whole community should agree to choose a person who will acquiesce in their vices, and if those vices somehow become known to the Bishop to whose diocese the place belongs, or to the Abbots, Abbesses or the faithful of the vicinity, let them prevent the success of this conspiracy of the wicked, and set a worthy steward over the house of God. "(Chapter 64) It was time. © Photo: wikipedia/ludger1961/gemeinfrei