Will the real Cardinal Schönborn step forward?
Austria's most senior Catholic cleric has issued a blistering attack on his predecessors, accusing them of lacking the courage to speak out against birth control and blaming them for the declining birth rate in Europe, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, gave his damning critique in a sermon at a Neocatechumenate meeting in Jerusalem on 27 March this year, the text of which was only made public late last month on his archdiocesan website.
After the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae outlawing the use of birth control for Catholics in 1968 [so says The Tablet: actually, it reiterated the constant teaching of the Church on the subject, expressed eg in the 1930 encyclical Casti Conubii], numerous bishops' conferences around the world - including those of Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the US and later Australia - issued statements assuring the faithful that the issue was a matter of conscience.
.jpeg)
Comments