The Last: Faithful Auxiliary Bishop Laun Dismissed on 75th Birthday

Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun at the "Demo for All". On October
he became 75 and was retired by Pope Francis on the same day.

(Vienna) Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg yesterday, the 100th anniversary of the last Marian Apparition in Fatima. Thus, in the German-speaking world, an outstanding figure holding the bishop's office has lost his office, who dared to raise his voice against the prevailing Zeitgeist. Above all, he is the last of a remarkable attempt at a course correction in the Church of Austria.

The Moral Theologian belongs to the Order of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales (OSFS). In 1995, Pope John Paul II appointed the son of an atheist who had converted to the Catholic faith as titular bishop of Libertina and auxiliary bishop of Salzburg. Libertina is a vanished bishopric of the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis, which belonged to the church province of Carthage and was located in present-day Tunisia. By the Islamic conquest of North Africa it vanished and is what could be seen as a reminder with regard to today's Islamization of Western Europe. Recently the City Council of the Austrian capital Vienna published figures showing that the Muslims in the age group 0 - 10 years already account for almost 30 percent.

On the very day of his 75th birthday, Monsignor Laun was dismissed from office. You could say someone was in a hurry. In fact, Laun was the last remaining representative of a series of episcopal appointments with which Pope John Paul II wanted to achieve a renewal of the Catholic Church in Austria through a change of course. The fact that he would never be anything more in the Austrian Church was established in the second half of the 1990s.

The attempted course correction by John Paul II

When John Paul II became pope, the revival of Modernism in the German-speaking world was already in front of everyone's eyes. Parallel to the Second Vatican Council, an unprecedented decline of the Catholic Church took place. John Paul II wanted to counter this erosion process. It is known from the history of the Church that real renewal, owing to the hierarchical composition of the Church, takes place only through a traditionally coherent action from below and above.

For this reason, John Paul II wanted to give a new episcopate to Austria. Bishop's appointments are the only, really substantial possibility for the Pope to intervene in a local church. Since appointments are rare, however, this path takes a lot of time, which is not always sufficient.

In the Apostolic Nunciature in Vienna, especially Titular Archbishop Michele Checchini it was rumored that the main driving force in the background was the Austrian Curial Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler.

In the middle of the eighties, Monsignor Egon Kapellari, Bishop of Gurk-Klagenfurt, was appointed a "conservative" or "best" Bishop of Austria in 1982 by John Paul II. His appointment had still prepared Cecchini's predecessors.

The Cecchini era ...

With Nuntius Cecchini then it happened in one fell swoop from 1985 on. The most important personnel decision in the Church of Austria, the appointment of the Archbishop of Vienna, was the prelude to the day, when Cardinal Franz König, who was still omnipresent at that time, was sitting. He was followed by the Benedictine Hans Hermann Groër from Göttweig Abbey. The consequence was an outcry of the "modern". The Church is threatening a "reactionary turnaround," a "return to the past." From the first day onwards irreconcilable barriers were set up against the new Archbishop whom John Paul II had raised to the rank of Cardinal.

In 1987, he was assigned an auxiliary bishop, the professor of systematic theology, Msgr. Kurz Krenn.

In 1988, with an official appointment at the beginning of 1989, Msgr George Eder was appointed Archbishop of Salzburg and with that two of Archbishop seats of Austria were held by newly appointed men. As Primas Germaniae, Eder was allowed the purple.

In the same year, the appointment of Monsignor Klaus Küng, the first Opus Dei representative on a bishop's chair in the German-speaking world, followed the Bishop of Feldkirch. Each appointment triggered violent counter-campaigns by the left-wing Church circles, which found reflexive support for Church-hostile media.

In the same year the already over 79 year old Cecchini was replaced as nuncio. He was followed by Donato Squicciarini and a first toning down of the original line. Auxiliary Bishop Kurt Krenn was removed from Vienna in 1991, where he hoped to be one of the future Archbishops, and was appointed Bishop of St. Pölten. On the same day, the Dominican scholar, Christoph Schönborn, was appointed an auxiliary bishop for Vienna. The other appointments were listed under the keyword "moderate conservatives" and remained rather colorless. Only in Salzburg, at the request of Archbishop Eder, with the appointment of Andreas Laun, was there an appointment in the Cecchini line.

... and their end

In the same year, however, the attempt of John Paul II experienced a severe setback, which was soon to turn out to be an end. In March, one person made vague accusations of sexual abuse against Cardinal Groër. The background is still highly opaque. The media fell with pleasure on the matter, and the progressive Church circles sniffed out a unique opportunity. From this an efficient, albeit rather unholy alliance was formed, which successfully blew death on the prince of the Church.

On the 13th of April of that year, Auxiliary Bishop Schönborn was appointed Archbishop-Coadjutor. It was clear at the latest that he and not Bishop Krenn would be next Archbishop of Vienna. With the effect that Cardinal Groër was made archbishop emeritus on 14 September, the Feast of the Crucifixion. In 2004 Bishop Krenn was struck down with a few other ingredients under the pressure of a staged campaign. The two main phrases of the course correction, which John Paul II had tried, had been chased out of office with shame and disgrace. Groër because of his rank and Krenn due to his outstanding intellect and his pugnacity, were feared by their opponents.

The Church referendum and the 500,000 signatures had caused fear. Squicciarini was not Cecchini. From then on, Vienna's new Archbishop, Schönborn, had a weighty word to say, also in the case of episcopal appointments.

When Alois Kothgasser was appointed Bishop of Innsbruck in 1997, Laun's career as the Auxiliary Bishop in Salzburg had already reached its final destination. The wind had turned. With the appointment of Kothgasser in November 2002 as the successor of Archbishop Eder, it was firmly established.

Voice against the Zeitgeist

Particularly active in matrimonial and family pastoral care, Auxiliary Bishop Laun, for more than 20 years as a bishop, defended the Catholic morality and natural law in an area which is receiving an ever more dangerous bombardment of a de-Christianizing the world and under the pontificate of Pope Francis within the Church, is sometimes called into question by the highest authority. That even brought Laun in 2017 a criminal complaint by homophilic SPD deputies. The Catholic doctrine has become so intolerable to many.

Laun has referred to the affliction of many faithful priest as an "inner-Christian persecution by Christians."

He also courageously raised his voice for unborn children as an auxiliary bishop. This is a theme that the dominant Zeitgeist has forced under a bell of silence. In the German-speaking world, the Catholic Church has also largely adhered to this taboo since the 1980s. Laun always consciously broke this wall of silence. Whoever has heard him speak about the unborn and the natural order knows what a weighty voice the Church has in him and yet instead of helping him gave him a muzzle.

This last happened in October 2016 when he had to cancel his participation, including a speech to the Congress Defender of Europe in Linz, "at the insistence" of the new Archbishop of Salzburg, Franz Lackner OFM. As a new initiative, the Congress attempted to articulate a counter-position to the impending loss of identity through mass immigration, multiculturalism, Islamization and genderization. The political left saw this as a threat to their cultural hegemony, which had to be immediately stifled. Laun's recall is symptomatic of the new timidity of the Church towards the temporal spirit, which some already see as a complete capitulation, clearly like Goethe's fisherman: "Half he drew them, half he put them back."

Guardians for marriage, family and life

Laun himself formulated it a few days ago against the Salzburg Church newspaper Rupertusblatt as follows:

"He regards the guardianship as an order to the bishops to pay attention to what Catholics, theologians, religious instructors represent as the doctrine of the Church," as Laun says; 'And if necessary, they should also intervene to correct: lovingly, argumentatively, but also with courage and firmness'. Some people would have 'scolded' him if he had defended "delicate positions of the church", for example, in the area of Pro-​​life. 'I am truly sad about those defeats which people have added to my own Church.' Even with his criticism of the provisions allowing abortion in the first three months, he had encountered contradictions in Church circles - even among people who at that time had signed the popular move against this law. In short, when I was a bishop as guardian, I was not infrequently defamed and attacked."

The church has to talk "about God and not primarily about the climate and other fashionable themes", says Laun. It is always about "God or nothing," said the auxiliary bishop, referring to the title of a book by Cardinal Robert Sarah.

"Jesus has not brought eternal peace, not the healing of all the sick, not the overcoming of all famines or the prevention of natural catastrophes, but He has brought God."

As the publisher of the monthly Kirche Heute and his lectures, Laun goes beyond the borders of Austria and will certainly do so in the future as far as his health permits.

The last of a remarkable experiment

22 years ago, his appointment was part of a remarkable attempt to stop the decline of catholicity in Austria by changing the course of bishop's appointments. That his appointment was the last shows how long it has already been, that this attempt has failed. When Pope Benedict XVI In 2009, attempted to appoint the dogmatic theologian and country pastor, Gerhard Maria Wagner as auxiliary bishop of Linz, the alarm was sounded from the relevant side that the attempt to recover what had happened from 1985-1995 was imminent. It was immediately stifled in the bud. In Rome, cold feet were given to the published reaction. Even before Pastor Wagner could be ordained as a bishop and his office could be established, the appointment was again dropped. Five years later, Wagner described the state of the church in Austria with the words, "a pig stye which stinks".

As an auxiliary bishop, Laun could not change much, and he was not allowed to be more.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi 
Image: Demo for all

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link...

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Highest Religious of Austria Demands Women's Ordination With Church Rebels

Abt Christian Haidinger calls for end to discrimination against women by the Church

Edit:  "Non Serviam".

(Vienna) The senior abbot of the Austrian Benedictine Abbey of Altenburg, Christian Haidinger, feels himself called since his election as President of the Conference of Superiors of Male Religious Communities in Austria,  to publicly attack the Catholic Church and this, primarily on issues that do not concern him as a monk. In a study conference "Women in the Church. Equal dignity - Equal Rights"  Haidinger again renewed the call for women priests.

Abbot Haidinger  has presided over a Benedictine abbey till last March 14,  he is now Abbot President of the Austrian Benedictine Congregation and President of the aforementioned  Conference of Superiors of Austrian male  religious.  There is no higher religious in the Alpine republic. Elected on 25 November 2013,  as President of Major Superiors, he gave an interview upon his entrance in which he berated the Catholic teaching on marriage as a "disaster" and castigated the Church's handling of remarried divorcees as inhuman. He also called for the abolition of priestly celibacy and the admission of women to the priesthood. Amazing polemical, regarding women priests, even heretical statements that have nothing to do with  Benedictine monastic orders. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was habitually silent on the precipitation of the Abbot President.

Heretical  Trysts and disobedient initiatives with Abbot President

Then  Abbot Haidinger asserted this: the No to women priests, it will not stay. Haidinger  proposed to organizers with the suggestion that the religious "considers it not only possible but urgently desirable for"  women to be ordained. 

Relevantly positioned teams invited last Saturday in St. Pölten for the conference "Women in the Church. Equal dignity - equal rights ". The title was program. The result, which was reflected in a resolution at the end,  was already clear before the beginning. Invited were the heretical organization "We Are Church", the disobedient priests of the "pastor initiative", the left Catholic Catholic Women's Movement Austria (KFBÖ), the notoriously progressive St. Pölten "Forum XXIII.," The group "Priest Without Office" and the same spectrum belonging "Taxhamer Parish Council Initiative". The meeting was also included the "Fall Meeting of Reform Initiatives," which is referred to the left side of the Church itself.

Abbot President Haidinger was thus in a society that is more outside than inside the Church. The perspective can be turned around, making it clear how far heretical and  schismatic positions are penetrated into the Church, of course. Never the less it should be told how far these positions are already recognized in the Church in Austria, when  the bureaucratic, highest religious representative of Austria it taken into account, so  assuredly  moves in these circles and accepts its positions as its own.

I Am "Not Alone": Majority of Theologians for Women Priests, Bishops Also for Frauendiakonat

Event advertised on website of the Diocese of St. Pölten

Haidinger flirted in his talk with the new modesty. As the "little monk" he had nothing to propose to the   question of women, but then he did it. "The time will come when women will also get access to our Church offices, which are now reserved exclusively to men." The Abbot President portrayed himself as the preventive courageous sacrifice, for he foresees that he for his criticism and demands  must "take a beating". There's no sense that this is going to happen, for  In St. Pölten, Haidinger only met with vigorous applause.

But, as the Abbot President, he knew he is  "not alone" in his demands. Actually that is to say that a majority of theologians agree. He even knew of bishops who were in favor, "at least  to admit women to the diaconate." There are "theological reasons" for the admission of women to the ordained ministries. In addition, we have had "encouraging experience" with women in pastoral positions and finally there were "great theologians". There were hurdles but  Abbot Haidinger sees no obstacles for women priests only because of the predictable "great irritation" of the Orthodox, who would burden the ecumenical dialogue.  For his thesis, the abbot appealed to  Pope Francis before the Synod of Bishops  for a  "desired open and frank discussion" in the Church. The Pope himself spoke of a need to "deepen the woman question", said Haidinger.

In addition to the Benedictine Abbot President, the feminist theologian Grazer Frau Fischer spoke. Fischer is a member of the advisory board for the new translation of the "Bible in just language". Petra Steinmair-Pösel talked about "the current situation of young women and theologians in the Church" is based on "The latest material from the sociology of religion studies with Prof. (Paul) Zulehner".  Also, there was an "Experience Report of a Nun" by Sr. Maria Schlackl SDS from Linz, a "Salvatorian of the Passion".

Resolution Calls for "The End of Discrimination Against Women" by the Church

The study meeting called in the final resolution for an  "end discrimination against women" through and in the Church. Those present agreed that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is an "impermissible discrimination" is the true remedy it. Finally, women have "effected and inspired" the Church, which is why their exclusion from ordained ministries is untenable.

The resolution reads: "The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a discrimination that can not blame  Jesus for the argument that he  didn't grant them authority. Already, due to the natural divine law, no discrimination is inadmissible; to turn it off, it does not require any special authority. "

The "Fall Conference" demonstratively ended with a "celebration of the Word of God, which was headed by women". The venue was the formation house St. Hyppolit in the diocese of St. Pölten.

Of the said diocese and the competent diocesan Bishop Klaus Küng (Opus Dei) there has been no opinion on the meeting, the resolution and the appearance of Abbot President Haidinger. On the website of the Diocese the meeting was about the Catholic Women's Movement advertised in the official calendar of events. The Diocese of St. Pölten was headed, until 2004 by the late, militant Bishop Kurt Krenn, who braced himself against heretical positions and was brutally put down by the same circles.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: My district / Hilda Schwameis (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

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Bishop Kurt Krenn -- "Concern for the Church Determined His Life"

Edit: Today, and its vigil, is a day on which Austria has lost two great patriots and defenders of the Church.  Perhaps it is providential that Bishop Kurt Krenn now shares the day with Dietrich von Hildebrand, who passed away in 1977 on the 26th of January.  He was himself a tireless lion of the Faith, a polarizing figure and wrote:

The drivel of heretics, both priests and laymen, is tolerated; the bishops tacitly acquiesce to the poisoning of the faithful. But they want to silence the faithful believers who take up the cause of orthodoxy. [Thanks to societasregnumchristi.]

(St. Pölten) The Austrian Diocese of Sankt Pölten published an obituary by Bishop Klaus Küng on Former Bishop Kurt Krenn his predecessor, who passed away on Saturday at 20:17 after a long illness at the  age of 78.  Bishop Kurt Krenn was Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Vienna from 1987 to 1991  and from 1991 to 2004 the Diocesan Bishop of St. Pölten. Bishop Krenn, a staunch defender of the Church, then yielded, almost ten years ago, on the 29th of September 2004 when he was informed by the already seriously ill Pope John Paul II, that he wished for his resignation. Krenn obeyed, resigned, and has since led a reclusive life, increasingly marked by the illness of a broken fighter. A courageous warrior, on whom great injustice was inflicted, he was an intrepid Catholic voice that was brought too soon to silence. We document  the opinion of Bishop Klaus Küng on the death of Bishop Kurt Krenn.

"Concern for the Church has Determined his Life"

"Looking back on every life there is light and shadow," said Bishop Küng, "and sometimes it comes  in considering a controversial man  where one has to decide where the light ends and the shadow begins.  Bishop Kurt may have had weaknesses, his appearances and utterances must have irritated some people, yes, annoyed and offended. We also do not forget that his concern  for the Church and Her mission determined his life. In this respect, he can be a role model for each and every one of us."

Kurt Krenn was born on 28 June 1936 in Rannariedl (Upper Austria), the second in a family of six children of the teacher Karl Krenn, who died in the war. He graduated from elementary school in Oberkappel and high school in Schlierbach. In 1954 he entered the seminary Linz and studied theology first at the Philosophical-Theological Educational Institute Linz, then philosophy and theology at the Gregorian University and Canon Law at the Lateran University in Rome.

On 7 October 1962, he was ordained in the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome as a priest. This was followed by studies in Tübingen and Munich, where he worked from 1966 - 1970  as an assistant at the Faculty of Theology. 1970 - 1975 he was a professor of philosophy at the Philosophical-Theological College in Linz and for 3 semesters a lecturer at the Theological College of St. Pölten, 1975, he became appointed a full professor in the Department of "Systematic Theology" at the Faculty of the Catholic Theological Faculty at the University of Regensburg.

"As a professor, he was adored by quite a few," recalls Bishop Küng. "His manner of performance was distinguished by clarity and depth with the special ability to show the big picture as well as with references to  current problems. He had a very good memory and a brilliant  gift for formulation, was  very approachable in conversation, even with ordinary people. He was distinguished by his love for conversation. "

Krenn has eager to help  pastorally during  his time in Regensburg   in his home town, and was also there for the celebration of religious services and issues of special concern such as Pro-Life activities.

When Kurt Krenn was appointed on 3 March as the Auxiliary Bishop of Vienna in 1987, he experienced much resistance from the very beginning in which he did not shrink from confrontation. Entrusted with the fields of art, culture and science, he ably made his views known in lectures, sermons and interviews. "For him it was all about the mission of the Church as the herald of truth for the people of all times, even our time," says Bishop Küng. "Especially engaged, he defended the right to life of every human being from the moment of conception to natural death, trying to use every opportunity to study the role of the family in the development of society and the importance rooted in human nature itself, to explain  established human sexuality and to identify the correct understanding of conscience, especially in its relation to God's Commandments. The discussions, which he engaged, however, were often fierce."

Bishop Krenn's work as diocesan bishop of St. Pölten was then - probably just because of those  previous discussions - "very difficult," says Küng. " Bishop Krenn did  not succeed in defusing the resulting polarization with time. This has unfortunately played a role in reinforcing that over the course of years.. That is why it is still not easy, to do justice to his person, his efforts and his role. Those who knew him well know that he has not suffered just a little from the situation, it also shouldn't be overlooked that in the resulting tensions many others suffered as well. "

Link to Katholisches...

Link to photo of Dietrich von HIldebrand, taken from Legacy Project...

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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Thoughts of a Great Shepherd of the Church

With Catholic Joy

From the wealth of clear doctrinal answers, the steadfast Bishop Kurt Krenn, loyal to Rome, whom the church owes a lot to - this is an exemplary excerpt

Bishop Kurt Krenn: words
along the way,
thoughts of a shepherd of the Church,
St. Pölten St. Joseph Publishing,
ISBN 3-901853-04-9

The truth of Christ - Regardless of Majorities (p. 49)

In the religious field, democracy and truth are not necessarily connected with each other: one can err democratically and undemocratically, a majority still doesn't determine truth.

As Jesus once asked his disciples, who do they say He is, he got different answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or some other prophet.

It was reserved to Peter not to give answer for the polls but the true answer: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16, 13-19). On Peter, Christ founded his Church and their faith.



Marriage and Family - to murderous abortion and homo-perversion (p. 130)

Once it was hoped to reduce cases of abortion by unauthorized contraception, yet it is already evident now long the deceptive is the illusion of such a hope.

Sexuality is a gift from the order of the Creator, irrevocably linked to the married couple, was offered to children and young people as a social and cultural accomodation, that has long led it since on its own path of the destruction of souls and can not be controlled by the free gifts of contraceptives.

From the contempt of the Creator, which is described in Romans as the reversal of the truth of God into a lie:

Wherefore, God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness: to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause, God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts, one towards another: men with men, working that which is filthy and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness: full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity: whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Foolish, dissolute: without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death: and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.(cf. Rom 1, 24-32).

The Church, as Christ Wanted Her - to Obedience (p. 196)

In the background, faithful obedience is the reality of the Holy Trinity: one God in three persons, one God in three equals the Deity.

Also in the mysterious Trinity, between peers obedience is nothing more than love for each other, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Father, the difference of the same is and stands still not in the way of the most perfect union of equals.

Anyone who thinks theologically, can immediately understand those relationships of obedience just in the Trinity, the most perfect reality of all realities, not the preserve of dependence but love in the differences and yet the most perfect of all communities.

The Church, as Christ Wanted Her - the "Right to the Eucharist" (p. 221)

The Church recognizes the "right to Eucharist" not as a collective right of the community, but as a personal invitation to the faithful, who are in turn personally bound to the celebration of the Sunday mass.

Right now is the moment of truth that the faithful take their Sunday obligation seriously and conscientiously attend the Eucharist every Sunday and holiday.

An outward fulfillment of the Sunday obligation is not sufficient. It must bear the celebration of the liturgy in faith and reverence.

Beyond all activities and external forms, events filled with the inner grace of the Eucharist raise the faithful: the true consummation of the work of our redemption.

Religion is Not a Private Matter - for unborn life (p. 249)

Our least brethren and sisters, the unborn children, these may concern both  Church and State, who seeks or justifies seemingly licit means to eliminate the unborn. Christ suffers in the fetus in which the absence of love means death.

We appeal to the conscience of all educated people, which remains today in many systems of injustice as the only protection for our most vulnerable children of men.

We must always remember the truth about man and return to the truth of God. In this question there is no escape and deception.

It is Christians with conscience and fear of God, who must raise their voices.

Do not remain silent and also act in forming this question in your political judgment that is consistent with the teaching of the Church.

© kreuz-net.info, EMail: redaktion@kreuz-net.info, Impressum
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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