In their latest newsletter, the 407 priests and deacons of Austria say: "We have been asked to revoke our 'Call to Disobedience' but cannot do so in good conscience as we continue to stand by its contents."
The priests are demanding reform or dialogue on the issues of priestly celibacy, women Communion for the divorced and remarried. They also want an enhanced role for the laity in the Church.
"Disobeying certain valid and strict church rulings and laws has for years been part of our life and work as priests. If we were to profess publicly that we did not think or act in this way that would only further exacerbate the discord in the Church and its pastoral work," they said in their letter.
Speaking this week in Dublin, where he was addressing a meeting of the Irish Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), Mgr Schüller told The Tablet that when he became vicar general in Vienna in 1995 – a post he held until 1999, working under Archbishop Christoph Schönborn – he had hoped for change in the Church in line with what was permitted by the Second Vatican Council.
"But now we have the suspicion that the Vatican wants the Church to go backwards," he said.
My comments: Many progressives believe that the Church is going backwards and that this is a bad thing. Yet they would have not said that in the 1960's when many progressive theologians wanted the Church to return to the early Church in terms of the hierarchy, the liturgy and lay involvement.
Occasionally, I've seen people exit an interstate realizing they've made a mistake and backing up in a dangerous way to get back on the right way. Actually all they needed to do was to get back on the on-ramp at the end of the exit they were on and integrate back onto the right road without causing an accident.
There is nothing wrong with going back to the right road, just do it safely. I believe what Pope Benedict is doing in his ministry is the safest way to do it. He is steering a huge ship which is the Church and going backwards is not an option, nor is any strong right turn, but merging back into our tradition is the best way to go even if it takes longer to do so, it's the safest.
4 comments:
I have said before that the future of the Church is in the past. That can be interpreted two ways: 1) the future of the Church as the True Church is in a return to the more traditional and historically organic theology and liturgy. 2) If the Church does not do the above and continues in the modernist, de-constructionist path, then the Church as the True Church has no future...it is in the past, as in gone. Then, Templar and I will have to find some Catholic Remnant in the catacombs somewhere the EF is practiced and there are real Catholics. Else, he and I will sit in the ruins with our 1962 Missals and pray Aves and the Fatima Prayer.
The statement from thepriests must suffer greatly from translation. They answer the question indirectly as to why they do not simply convert to the Epicopal Church as they have been consciously betraying the Catholic Church from within. So why not join the Nazi party and act from within to undermine that organization? Their actions are so selfish it is embarrassing.
rcg
"then the Church as the True Church has no future...it is in the past, as in gone. Then, Templar and I will have to find some Catholic Remnant in the catacombs somewhere the EF is practiced and there are real Catholics." ~pinanv525
Though I may only be in RCIA for the time being, I hope that I can get an invitation too.
The future is in the past and the past is in the future. Isn't it a desirable ideal that liturgy should take us outside of time into the Universal Reality of God's ultimate intervention into human history (through Jesus and his Sacrifice for our salvation?)
Shouldn't liturgy be neither "early Church" antiquarian nor up-to-date, streamlined, utilitarian and rationalistically modern?
Doesn't the long-view of Church history show that the main "interstate" of liturgical tradition is that road upon which the Church traveled through most of its history and that we sorely need to get back (yes, "back!") onto that road of organically developed liturgical tradition (and continue to develop from that authentic source) rather than continue to experiment with a liturgical "road" that has proven to be 40 years of wandering in a liturgical desert for the Church?
Yes, we need to slowly and safely ease our way back onto the right path but it should be (ultimately) the road of real continuity (which involves a real reconnection with our past)and not a parallel road of new construction based on some elements of the past (reclaimed materials?) as well as modern rationalistic and minimalistic innovations.
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