Bishop pulls out of Requiem for controversial Cardinal

"Many personal encounters of the past days" led to a new decision on the celebration planned for Monday - "Christian commemoration of the dead also means to take account of the living'

The Diocesan Bishop of Eisenstadt, Egidio Zsifkovics  will not participate in a Requiem planned for Saturday on the tenth anniversary of the death of the former Archbishop of Vienna, Hans Hermann Groër. In a personal statement on the same day Zsifkovics justified his decision by "numerous personal encounters and conversations in recent days", which led him to pull out of his original commitment. He would not be now accepting the invitation of the Sisters of the Cistercian convent at Marienfeld to celebrate the traditional ecclesiastical "Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord" with the monastic community and commemorate at this Mass the late Cardinal Groer, the Eisenstadt Bishop said in a Diocesan press release.

The commemoration of the dead was for Christians "an inviolable value." It is not about "Transfiguration", but the "grateful remembrance of the good" in the life of the deceased, at the same time keeping their 'their fallibility and human error "in mind. " That is why we pray to God for our deceased and ask Him in his merciful love to complete in them, that which is left imperfect by sin," said the bishop.

Christians deny the non-respect, through ignorance of this "fundamental right of believers." for the individual deceased to be commemorated through the celebration of Mass.

Christian commemoration of the dead means, in the words Zsifkovics "but also, "to encounter those who still live. " "External circumstances and contexts that are calculated to injure the personal feelings of people" should not be ignored. Currently a commemoration of the dead, "which has in the last 10 years regularly been taking place with the participation of church dignitaries without causing offense,"had been partly exploited and led to a "distorted image that must cause many people pain and bitterness," said Zsifkovics

All this had"led to the inner belief that I as a bishop and carrier of these two values ​​- a concern for the living and the uninterrupted prayer for the dead - can protect and defend them the best by not attending today's Requiem " On 29 March of Eisenstadt Bishop had rejected in a press release, the criticism of his planned participation in the ceremony.

Source

Cathcon-  I knew a priest who was close to Cardinal Groër in his final years who was convinced of his innocence. On Good Friday in the year that he resigned he was pursued by a media mob between his palace and the Cathedral.  Cardinal Meisner preached at the Funeral Mass.  Details of the allegations

Here the Cardinal celebrates a Requiem for Mozart on the 200th Anniversary of the latter's death.