Latest update posted today 14th April
Austrian Priest resigns after being overruled by Cardinal Schönborn on homosexual in parish council... (lifesitenews.com)
Austrian Newspaper Report here
Dissenting priest accuses Schönborn of showing disobedience too (mumbailaity.wordpress.com)
Cardinal Schonborn's homily at Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday which clarifies his stance on overruling his priest parish council to allow a gay Catholic to serve on the Parish council from here
New NCR article by Michael Sean Winters from here now adds to the information in the original post below and Winters article concludes by saying :
" I also wish to encourage everyone to read Ed Peters' comments on the situation which are linked to in the article cited above or which can be referenced directly here. Peters is no liberal, and I often find myself disagreeing with him, but his sense of balance and fairplay shines through in this post."
New article by Elizabeth Scalia now added here from First Things dated 3rd April 2012.
Original Post Below.
This is taken from New Ways Ministry Website.
Austrian Priest resigns after being overruled by Cardinal Schönborn on homosexual in parish council... (lifesitenews.com)
Austrian Newspaper Report here
Dissenting priest accuses Schönborn of showing disobedience too (mumbailaity.wordpress.com)
Cardinal Schonborn's homily at Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday which clarifies his stance on overruling his priest parish council to allow a gay Catholic to serve on the Parish council from here
New NCR article by Michael Sean Winters from here now adds to the information in the original post below and Winters article concludes by saying :
" I also wish to encourage everyone to read Ed Peters' comments on the situation which are linked to in the article cited above or which can be referenced directly here. Peters is no liberal, and I often find myself disagreeing with him, but his sense of balance and fairplay shines through in this post."
New article by Elizabeth Scalia now added here from First Things dated 3rd April 2012.
Original Post Below.
This is taken from New Ways Ministry Website.
"There’s a saying that “good things come in small packages.” That may explain why the good news in a recent Associated Press story was so brief. Printed in the Washington Post, the entire story follows:
From VIENNA — Austria’s cardinal has overruled one of his priests and is allowing a gay Catholic to serve on a parish council.
Florian Stangl lives in a registered domestic partnership. The
26-year-old was overwhelmingly elected to the council recently, but it
was overruled by the priest — a decision initially backed by the
archdiocese.
Such councils include lay people and discuss local church and parish affairs.
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn changed his mind over the weekend after
hosting Stangl and his partner for lunch, declaring Stangl to be “at
the right place.”
Despite his close ties to his one-time professor, Pope
Benedict XVI, Schoenborn has voiced an open mind to such taboo issues
as priestly celibacy.
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn
Commonweal magazine blogger David Gibson, a top observer and
writer on Catholicism, includes a translation of part of the Cardinal’s
statement on the matter in his blog post on this news:
“I thank the many candidates for the parish council elections. By their candidacy they showed their concern for the Church and the Faith. Thus they witness to the vitality of the Church. In their diversity they reflect the diversity of the life and faith journeys of today.
Thus there are many parish councilors whose lifestyle does not in every way conform to the ideals of the Church. In view of the life-witness that each of them gives taken as a whole, and their commitment to the attempt to live a life of faith, the Church rejoices in their efforts.
She does not thereby call the validity of her ideals into question.
“In the small community of Stützenhofen, which I hold in great esteem, there is lively participation in Church life even in the younger generation. A sign of this is the high turnout the parish council elections. The formal errors which have come to light in that election do not call the results of the election itself (in which the youngest candidate, Florian Stangl, received the most votes) into question.
“I was able to have a personal conversation with Herr Stangl, and was deeply impressed by his faithful disposition, his humility, and the way in which he lives his commitment to service.
I can therefore understand why the inhabitants of Stützenhofen voted so decidedly for his participation in the parish council.” [Stangl received the most votes in the election.
(The entire statement is available in German on the Vienna Archdiocese’s website.)
Schonborn’s statement reveals two important points which New Ways
Ministry and many Catholic advocates for LGBT people have been saying
for many years.
In the first paragraph above, he notes that no one in
the church follows all of the church’s principles, and that it is their
total life commitment, not their adherence to litmus tests, which
qualify them for church leadership. He is saying that he will not treat
LGBT people any differently than anyone else.
In the third paragraph above, he explains that the met with and
listened to the experience of the gay man in question. By taking this
time to meet and listen to a gay man’s experience, the Cardinal is a
model for all church leaders.
Personal encounter was the way of Jesus
and should be the way of Catholic leaders. It is the best way to break
stereotyping and prejudices that may exist in one’s mind."
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