Over 300 Austrian priests join ‘Call to Disobedience’ (Catholic Caucus)

Over 300 of Austria’s 4,200 priests have pledged to take part in Aufruf zum Ungehorsam (Call to Disobedience), an initiative launched in June.

The Call to Disobedience document cites “the Roman refusal of a long-overdue Church reform and the inaction of bishops.” Priests who support the document pledge

“The open call to disobedience shocked me,” Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna said in a July 7 letter, noting that many professionals would have “long since lost their jobs” if they had called for disobedience. Reminding priests that they had freely promised obedience to their bishop at ordination, he asked, “Can I rely on you?”

“Christian obedience is a school of freedom,” the cardinal added. “It is about the concrete translation into life of what we pray in every Our Father, when we ask the Father that His will be done in heaven and on earth … This willingness is made concrete in religious obedience to the Pope and bishops.”

Those who truly in conscience believe that they must disobey the hierarchy, and that “‘Rome’ is on the wrong track [and] gravely contradicts the will of God,” ought in consequence to “travel the way no more with the Roman Catholic Church. I believe and hope, however, that this extreme case does not occur here.”

“The one who gives up the principle of obedience dissolves unity,” the cardinal continued, as he pledged to meet with the initiative’s leaders and point out its “inconsistencies,” such as “priestless Eucharist.”

The new initiative’s web site is registered in the name of Father Hans Bensdorp, until 2010 the parish priest of the Church of the Rosary in Hetzendorf in the Archdiocese of Vienna. A YouTube video, uploaded in 2009, shows an excerpt from the Mass commemorating the 35th anniversary of Father Bensdorp’s priestly ordination, according to the video’s description. Tensions between the papacy and segments of the Church in Austria are not novel, as witnessed by the advent of Josephinism in the 18th centry, the fin-de-siècle Los von Rom (Free from Rome) movement, and disagreements between the Vatican and Vienna Cardinal Theodor Innitzer in the face of the Nazi Anschluss.

Here is Fr. Z's commentary:

From CWN. My emphases and comments.

Over 300 Austrian priests join ‘Call to Disobedience’
Catholic World News
July 13, 2011
Over 300 of Austria’s 4,200 priests have pledged to take part in Aufruf zum Ungehorsam (Call to Disobedience), an initiative launched in June.
The Call to Disobedience document cites “the Roman refusal of a long-overdue Church reform and the inaction of bishops.” Priests who support the document pledge
•to pray for Church reform at every liturgy, since “in the presence of God there is freedom of speech” [liturgy = freedom of speech?]
•not to deny the Holy Eucharist to “believers of good will,” including non-Catholic Christians and those who have remarried outside the Church [So, effectively, no criteria at all for the meaning of "Communion".]
•to avoid offering Mass more than once on Sundays and holy days and to avoid making use of visiting priests–instead holding a “self-designed” Liturgy of the Word [Because they are at heart really Protestants.]
•to describe such a Liturgy of the Word with the distribution of Holy Communion as a “priestless Eucharistic celebration”; “thus we fulfill the Sunday obligation in a time of priest shortage” [Every man his own priest, after all... though that's sexist, isn't it...]
•to “ignore” canonical norms that restrict the preaching of the homily to clergy [Freedom of speech... remember?]
•to oppose parish mergers, insisting instead that each parish have its own individual leader, “whether man or woman” [To hell with the Christ-founded hierarchy.]
•to “use every opportunity to speak out openly in favor of the admission of the married and of women to the priesthood” [Heretics.]
“The open call to disobedience shocked me,” Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna said in a July 7 letter, [REALLY, Your Eminence? Really?] noting that many professionals would have “long since lost their jobs” if they had called for disobedience. [So... Your Eminence... do something about it.] Reminding priests that they had freely promised obedience to their bishop at ordination, he asked, “Can I rely on you?”
“Christian obedience is a school of freedom,” the cardinal added. “It is about the concrete translation into life of what we pray in every Our Father, when we ask the Father that His will be done in heaven and on earth … This willingness is made concrete in religious obedience to the Pope and bishops.”
Those who truly in conscience believe that they must disobey the hierarchy, and that “‘Rome’ is on the wrong track [and] gravely contradicts the will of God,” ought in consequence to “travel the way no more with the Roman Catholic Church. I believe and hope, however, that this extreme case does not occur here.” [Otherwise..... what?]
“The one who gives up the principle of obedience dissolves unity,” the cardinal continued, as he pledged to meet with the initiative’s leaders and point out its “inconsistencies,” such as “priestless Eucharist.”
The new initiative’s web site is registered in the name of Father Hans Bensdorp, until 2010 the parish priest of the Church of the Rosary in Hetzendorf in the Archdiocese of Vienna. [Isn't Card. Schoenborn the Archbishop of Vienna?] A YouTube video, [See below.] uploaded in 2009, shows an excerpt from the Mass commemorating the 35th anniversary of Father Bensdorp’s priestly ordination, according to the video’s description.
Tensions between the papacy and segments of the Church in Austria are not novel, as witnessed by the advent of Josephinism in the 18th centry, the fin-de-siècle Los von Rom (Free from Rome) movement, and disagreements between the Vatican and Vienna Cardinal Theodor Innitzer in the face of the Nazi Anschluss.

Scrubs.

Two words for them:

GET. OUT.

The Roman Catholic church's responsibility is the salvation man. God's laws have not changed, since His Son fulfilled the Old Law and established the New Law. That law stands with man until it is fulfilled.

These rebellious people like to pretend that because the truth exists today as it did over two thousand years ago, that there is some kind of shortcoming in the truth...as if God did not have the foresight or was not visionary enough to understand mankind's development over time. That is laughable, to say the least. What a bunch of weak-faithed and simple-minded fools.

For all of man's “intellectualism” he sure is ego-centric. Modern man is hardly at all different than he was then. We still have the exact same ills and the exact same sinfulness, even with the greater understanding of our nature. One would think after all of the proofs of time of the Word of God that we would take more heed and not less. We have learned nothing, really. No wonder Jesus referred to us as a perverse lot. But, he still loves us.

but Mass no more than once a Sunday?

It may surprise you but for a number of centuries, beginning apparently within the first century, one Mass at any one altar on any one day was the strict rule. Like many things, dispensations in the post-Roman Empire era broke this down, especially in areas where priests were at a premium and parishes grew to tremendous sizes (a situation that persists).

It remains the ideal because it underscores the truth of One Lord, one baptism, one Eucharist, one Church. If parishes were more numerous, then churches would be smaller, congregations would be likewise smaller and there would be more priests per congregant. If you can't have the ideal, then you make accommodation until you can, but still seek to reach towards the ideal.

All that said, I have zero sympathy with the rest of their proposals.

Yes, but these guys seem anything but traditionalist.

We're probably only seeing this week's outrageous outrage at the machine.

It sounds more along the lines that they are perhaps too lazy to do more than one Mass?

I'd be guessing but this could be doctrinal cover for those not inquiring too closely. Seeing this would catch the eye of antiquarians like myself. Kind of dumb to list it last, if that was the purpose of including it. You could well be right.

In my area, the younger ones seem to be more conservative and it is the older ones who are apologists and/or supporters of the abortion/sodomy/feminist crowd.

Probably a generational thing. Most heresies blow through like hurricanes, stirring up the curious and poorly-informed and then blowing over when the next generation sees the story from a bit of perspective (and some orthodox theologian or historian points out the results from the last time this oddity cropped up).

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