Pope calls Austrian bishops
to a meeting at the Vatican
by Salvatore Izzo
VATICAN CITY, June 15 (Translated from AGI) - Benedict XVI today met with Austrian bishops called to a special meeting at the Vatican after the tensions last winter which led to the scuttling of conservative Bishop Gerhard Wagner's appointment as auxiliary bishop of Linz.
Wagner was constrained to ask the Pope to revoke his nomination, saying that he felt the 'resistance' to his nomination
[from the clergy and bishops of the notoriously liberal Austrian Church] expressed "in a manner devoid of love and mercy', and that "after prayer and consultation with his bishop", he had decided to "ask the Holy Father to recall my nomination".
Benedict XVI accepted Wagner's decision, thus revoking an appointment that had been recommended by the Congregation for Bishops and which he had signed.
Although the media at the time focused their attack on Mons. Wagner for what he had said about hurricane Katrina that struck New Orleans in 2005 - he had noted that 5 abortion clinics were destroyed in the flood, and asked whether natural catastrophes could not be a consequence of spiritual pollution - it was in fact an attempt by the Austrian hierarchy to assert their autonomy from Rome, something they acquired after the serious 1990s crisis in the Archdiocese of Vienna whose archbishop, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, was accused of sexual abuses which forced him to retire.
Groer had been appointed by John Paul II in 1985 against the advice of the outgoing archbishop, the late Cardinal Franz Koenig, and other Austrian bishops, who mistrusted Groer, a Benedictine, because they thought him too traditionalist.
The nomination proved disastrous for other reasons, though it also turned out that there had been sexual abuses even among progressivist priests. However, this did diminish the authority of the Holy See over the Church in Austria
[a situation which led to perhaps the most liberal Catholic hierarchy and clergy in Europe today]
This seems to be the main topic on the agenda in the Pope's 'working sessions' with the Austrian bishops which will extend to tomorrow, Tuesday.
In the Wagner case, what appeared to the public as an 'uprising' by the local bishops against Rome was aggravated by a Curial misstep in the Vatican. Apparently, the Congregation for Bishops failed to observe a protocol conceded to the Austrian hierarchy that requires consultation with the canons of the Cathedral to which a new bishop is named, even if their opinion is not necessarily the last word.
[What a stupid oversight! This was not made clear in the almost hostile statement made by the Austrian bishops last February to protest the nomination of Mons. Linz, which only mentioned in general that the nomination process had violated an established process, i.e., a technicality.
However, that does not explain how Cardinal Schoenborn, current president o the Austrian bishops conference, could have written a newspaper column a few days after the Vatican nomination of Mons. Wagner was announced expressing his full support for it! Did he shoot from the hip, then, before acquainting himself with what actually preceded the nomination - which, by the way, as president of the bishops' conference, he ought to have been fully aware of beforehand!
I still find he behaved shabbily towards the Pope in all this. Could he have not placed a telephone call to the Pope to seek a more amicable resolution before convening his bishops several days after writing that column?]
It was this oversight that prompted an emergency meeting of the Austrian bishops' conference last February which denounced the nomination of Mons. Wagner.
Sources said the Austrian bishops were similarly upset over the nomination of Mons. Elmar Fischer as auxiliary bishop of Bregenz, considering him 'too orthodox' by the standards of the central European liberal clergy.
Recently, the Archbishop of Salzburg criticized Pope Benedict XVI for revoking the Lefebvrian bishops' excommunication, saying he was trying to 'reduce the Church to a sect in which no one will remain except the Lefebvrians".
Some officials at the Vatican are concerned that the Austrian bishops are jeopardizing the principle of authority in the Church.
[But then, the problem with all the bishops and clergy who proudly cite Vatican II as their support for claiming near-equal authority to the Pope is that they seem not to have read the Vatican II documents, which are very clear and equivocal about the Magisterial and hierarchical authority of the Pope in relation to the bishops - indeed, he is ex officio head of the worldwide college of bishops, in addition to all his other titles and functions].
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/06/2009 23:15]