Vatican letter demands action on Austrian dissident priests’ group the day after Papal blast

ROME, April 7, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to inside sources, the head of the Austrian Catholic Church and cardinal archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn, was not informed ahead of time of Pope Benedict XVI’s intention to criticise a group of dissident priests in his sermon at St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday night.

Today it was revealed that Schönborn received a letter from the Vatican demanding action, after ten months of “discussion” between the cardinal and the group calling itself the “Austrian Priests’ Initiative.”

...Moreover, the Cardinal himself has also publicly called for the Church to acquiesce to the group's agenda.

He has admitted that the call for “reform” is common among clergy in Austria, and said that the Church does need some reform. He told Die Presse, “We, the bishops, often feel misunderstood in Rome; the priests think the same about their relationship with us.”

In 2010, Cardinal Schönborn criticised the Church for what he characterised as its refusal to accept homosexual relations. Schönborn told the far-left UK Tablet magazine that the Church should also consider allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion since “many people don’t even marry at all any longer.”

“We should give more consideration to the quality of homosexual relationships. A stable relationship is certainly better than if someone chooses to be promiscuous,” Schönborn said.

Schönborn has been at the centre of several scandals, many of which revolve around the aims of the homosexualist movement within the Church.

In 2006, it was revealed that the rector of his cathedral had instituted a para-liturgical ceremony to bless “couples, fiancés and people in love” including homosexual partners.

Speaking to the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, the rector, Fr. Anton Faber, said he regretted that “today there is no possibility in the Church to bless a union of people with homosexual feelings.”

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