Austrian Heresy: Meowing Gets Louder

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I have written in the past about the Austrian heresy, a shame for the entire Catholicism that has gained a pretty high place in my list of links (basically, after the Blessed Virgin alone).

We write today the 25 September and whilst there has been no substantial change in the matter – the internet site with the call to disobedience is still there, but the Archbishop doesn’t care about such minutiae like more than 300 of his priests and deacons openly calling to heresy – the Archbishop’s language is, as expected, slowly becoming more aggressive. If you have followed my previous blog posts in the matter, you know that the Archbishop is forced to quench the revolt in order to keep his job, but wants to do so by giving as many Austrian as possible the idea that he would be on their side, if he only could.

We have now some small movement in the matter as after the anticipated “discussion” with the heretics, the Cardinal has given several interviews to Austrian radio and television, basically announcing an escalation if the revolt continues.

Let us see how Reuters reports his words:

“If in our diocese here I would step out of line with the community of the Catholic Church then I would lead our diocese into a schism. I am not ready for this and I think no Austrian bishop is ready for this,”

This is, as expected, 100% Schonborn. He imagines a possibility (“If I were to”) that clearly implies a possibility of him doing so. The Cardinal doesn’t say “this is absurd and therefore I won’t do it; the proposers are heretics and they must give a full abiura or be defrocked”, which he should have done months ago. He says instead : “If I do it this will lead us to a conflict with Rome”. This is fully in line with the previous declaration of the Cardinal, where not once have I seen him on record saying that their requests are simply doctrinally wrong. His problems have always been: a) unity with Rome, and b) obedience. By doing so he clearly shows that he “gotta do what he gotta do”, but doesn’t say that the heretics are wrong in the matter. If this is a shepherd, I am a giraffe.

Still, slowly but surely the Cardinal must start to initiate some kind of escalation; then his ignoring the revolt (which continues to grow, albeit more slowly now) can be fatal for his own position.

The problem is well-known and I have dealt with it in my previous posts. Schonborn must quench the revolt, but at the same time he wants to give the vast number of church tax paying Austrian Catholics supporting the heretics the impression that he would so much like to be on their side. He doesn’t care two straws for the confusion that he engenders among the faithful, for the danger of contagion to Germany and Switzerland, or for the reputation of the Austrian Church. What he wants is to save the money coming from the dissident, by at the same time saving his own job.

Read all the story in this light and you will have a very clear picture of what is happening. Yes, one day he will quench the revolt. He will simply have to. But not one day too soon, and not without having done all he can to show the Austrian wannabe Catholics that he is obliged by his office to follow those dinosaurs down there in Rome.

The direction of things seems to be that the heretics will continue to be heretic, but will claim not to be such; they will lose face whilst claiming not to, and the Cardinal will keep his job whilst claiming to have been “sensitive” to the “instances” of the heretics. Dialogue, discussion, and bla bla.

On their Internet-site a newsletter (number 10) has appeared making clear that whilst the title “Call to disobedience” will remain notwithstanding the criticism they have received, they consider their disobedience (let us remember here: doctrinal disobedience, this is no SSPX!) in the sense of ….. being obedient to the Church. Jeez, these people should become Anglicans!

I also notice that the number of new priests and deacons adhering to the initiative starts to stagnate as the day of reckoning slowly approaches. Basically, more and more of these wannabe modernists (more than seldom with Freundin or even Freund, one would think)  start to understand that they are nothing more than the Cardinal’s useful idiots, helping him to show to the Austrian dissenters how sensitive to their plight he is whilst sacrificing the rebels on the altar of his job. They had it coming, one must say, but this doesn’t make the Cardinal’s behaviour any more acceptable.

The Cardinal needs our prayers. He needs to be removed, too.  This scandal has gone far too far, for far too long already.

Mundabor