The Vatican has cracked down on a
prominent Austrian Roman Catholic priest who has been leading a
disobedience campaign to openly challenge Roman Catholic teachings on
celibacy and women priests, Reuters reports.
The Vatican said on Thursday it had
stripped Father Helmut Schueller of the right to use title monsignor and
said he also was no longer a “Chaplain of His Holiness”. Schueller
remains a priest.
Schueller, a former deputy to Vienna’s
archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, had been given the honorary
title in his capacity as head of the Austrian branch of the Catholic
charity group Caritas.
Schueller is head of the group “Call to
Disobedience”, which has broad public backing in opinion polls and says
it represents about 10 percent of the Austrian clergy.
Nearly 150,000 Austrians left the Church in 2011-2012, many in reaction to sexual abuse scandals.
The group wants Church rules changed so
that priests can marry and women can become priests. It has said it will
break Church rules by giving communion to Protestants and divorced
Catholics who remarry.
Schueller told Austrian media that the Vatican decision had not shaken his principles.
Reformist Austrian Catholics have for
decades challenged the conservative policies of Benedict and his
predecessor John Paul, creating protest movements and advocating changes
the Vatican refuses to make.
Schueller has met like-minded clergy in
Austria and abroad since launching the “Call to Disobedience” group.
Catholic reform groups in Germany, Ireland and the United States have
made similar demands from the Church.
The Catholic Church does not allow priests
to marry and teaches that it has no authority to allow women to become
priests because Jesus willingly chose only men as his apostles when he
instituted the priesthood at the Last Supper.
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