Rorate Caeli

A Message from the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna


The Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, the man ultimately responsible for this, and this, and this (and this - and also this; and this, too), has a message for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) today (EarthTimes - see also Kreuz.net and ORF.at):

Vienna - The Vatican is set to tell a rebel ultra- traditional Catholic group that the Church's core values and its relations with Judaism are not negotiable, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said in an interview published on Saturday. Earlier this year, the Catholic leadership in Rome drew criticism from within and outside the Church for lifting excommunication orders against bishops of the controversial Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), including British-born Richard Williamson who has denied the scale of the Nazi mass murder of Jews.

In the coming days, a recently restructured church commission would meet the renegades, the cardinal and Vienna archbishop told the Passauer Neue Presse.

Rome would not give the group a "free pass," and Pope Benedict XVI was striving to "get a group of Catholics which has parted from the Church back into the boat," said Schoenborn, who is a member of several Vatican bodies.

The non-negotiable positions to be set out to the Pius Society include the Church's positions towards the Jewish faith, other non- Christian religions as well as Christian faiths, and towards religious freedom as a fundamental human right, according to Schoenborn.

In June, the pope placed the commission under the authority of the Holy See's main disciplinary watchdog body, after it had drawn criticism for its handling of the SSPX.
SSPX members are currently barred from official roles within the church unless they agree to fully abide with its teachings.

Such teachings include the so-called Second Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s, which sought to modernize the Church.

The Cardinal of Vienna: a man who is tough when it counts.