Heiligenkreuz Abbey: Bishops puzzle over "Papal secret". Salzburg's Archbishop Lackner: The mission is "in very good hands."
Even the leadership of the local Catholic Church does not know the exact mission of the Apostolic Visitation of the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz. "Everything is happening under papal secrecy," said the chairman of the Bishops' Conference, Salzburg's Archbishop Franz Lackner, in an interview with APA and "Kathpress" after the summer plenary assembly in Mariazell. He stated that it is an "ongoing process" in which interim reports are not helpful.
Lackner – who himself has previously served as a visitor in the Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt – compared the process to an operation, which also has to be conducted "in isolation." "You can't always report in the interim," he said of his experience, adding: "There is a mission I don't know." However, the assumptions that it could be related to the leadership style at Heiligenkreuz or the handling of abuse cases are "probably correct."
Of course, such a visitation affects the Bishops' Conference, Lackner said, but not directly, as it is a religious institution and not a Diocese, as in the Klagenfurt case. The visitors are an Abbot General and a nun, and the archbishop sees the process "in very good hands."
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