Head of Austrian Catholic bishops: Church will not remain the same

Lackner after Prague Assembly: Church will not remain the same

Bishops' Conference President sees further development of the Catholic Church after the European Continental Assembly on the World Synod "with a very great openness" - Theologians Polak and Zulehner also take stock.

He sees the further development of the Catholic Church "with a very great openness, as before". This was said by the President of the Austrian Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Franz Lackner, as one of four Austrian delegates at the European Assembly of the Catholic World Synod in the ORF religion magazine "Orientierung" (Sunday). He was aware that "the Church of before will no longer be able to be the Church of before. How this will be turned into specifics must be left to the Pope, the highest-ranking person in the Catholic hierarchy, in agreement with him, Lackner stressed.

Sunday was also the closing day of the almost one-week-long Continental Assembly on the Synodal Process in Prague. From 5 to 9 February, 200 people on the spot as well as 390 online delegates worked out a final document - still awaiting final editing; from 10 to 12 February, the 39 presidents of all the bishops' conferences in Europe met and committed themselves in a joint statement on the Prague final document to the continuation and promotion of synodality in their areas of responsibility. Austria was represented in Prague not only by Archbishop Lackner but also by the Viennese pastoral theologian Regina Polak, the Innsbruck university rector and theologian Petra Steinmair-Pösel and the Salzburg theologian Markus Welte.

As a studio guest of the ORF programme, Polak formulated a decisive basic question of the synodal process: "If everyone wants more participation of so-called marginalised groups (e.g. "queer" persons or remarried divorcees, note), does that mean that we also have to change doctrine and church law for the sake of credibility, or will this ... endanger the Catholic Church in its identity?" The theologian reported from the debates in Prague that this had become virulent, for example, in the questions of women in the church or the blessing of homosexual couples. The lines of conflict in this regard often ran between Western and Eastern Europe, which developed differently politically and culturally; but in Austria, too, there was more than one position on this.

"Trial rooms" for church reforms?

Polak referred to a proposal by her colleague Steinmair-Pösel to provide for "trial rooms" in the Church where reform concerns could be put to the test "ad experimentum" - still without consequences under church law. In view of the diversity of the local Church, she considers decentralisation in this sense "sensible and necessary", said the Viennese theologian. In terms of content, the synodal process is "open-ended". A courageous attempt was being made to make visible a "space of discussion and diversity". Tensions had to be "endured", and she saw the diversity in the Catholic Church as an enrichment, Polak assured.

Cathcon: Catholicism means precisely nothing if it means one thing in one country and quite another thing in a different country.

In the ORF "Orientation", the moderator (General Relator) of the World Synod, the Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, according to whom a "tension between doctrine and pastoral" came to light in Prague, and the Czech sociologist of religion Tomas Halik also had their say. The latter stressed that the unity of the Church should not be equated with uniformity. Austria delegate Steinmair-Pösel believes that the Synodal Way could "actually lead to a cultural change in the Church". She welcomed the fact that the meeting in Prague ended with a commitment to synodality, which should also be implemented in the church structures.

Zulehner against "democracy bashing

The Viennese theologian and sociologist of religion Paul Zulehner diagnosed the Catholic Church as lacking a "theology of democracy" in view of the consultations in Prague. In a blog entry, he quoted Cardinal Mario Grech, the head of the Synod Secretariat in the Vatican. In Prague, Grech had devalued the Synodal Path in Germany and its "voting machine" in comparison to the spiritual orientation of the Synodal Process in the world church. Unjustly, as Zulehner said.

Even if it is "emphasised like a prayer mill" that the Church is not a democracy - "although nobody claims that at all" - the Church can very well learn from democracy. And de facto, procedures like those in democracies are not alien to the Church: even the Second Vatican Council voted on all proposals, Zulehner recalled.

He also opposed "negligent democracy bashing" for reasons of world politics. This was "doubly dramatic and irresponsible" at a time when democracies were under threat worldwide. Zulehner's literal warning: "A Church that claims to be hope for the world of today and at the same time denounces the democratic as the opposite of listening to the Spirit and thus as Spirit-less, betrays precisely that mission in the world of today to which all synodalisation aims."

Cathcon: Faith and morals are not open to democratic votes of the laity, not least because they could change at the whim of each succeeding generation and vary from place to place. 

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