Cover
story Two
bishops, two different worldviews
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff Salzburg, Austria
An indication of the uncertain fate awaiting the results of the
Dialogue for Austria can be glimpsed from the stark divisions that run through
the countrys bishops conference, which consists of 16 prelates
spread among nine dioceses and the military. The conference is said to be among
the most polarized anywhere.
To get a sense of the depth of those divisions, NCR spoke
with Kurt Krenn, the bishop of Sankt Pölten, and Helmut Krätzl,
auxiliary bishop of Vienna.
Krenn, a boxing fan, is known for his verbal fisticuffs on
Austrian television. He has flirted with the Austrian Freedom Party, a
far-right political party with strong appeal to neo-Nazis. To this day, Krenn
refuses to accept the charges of sexual abuse against Groër, which even
the doctrinally conservative Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna has
said he believes. Krätzl, on the other hand, is the most liberal bishop in
the Austrian episcopacy. His new book, Im Sprung Gehumt (The Interrupted
Leap) discusses the failure of the church to realize the renewal promised
by Vatican II.
Over the course of the Dialogue for Austria, NCR spoke to
both men separately, asking them the same questions.
NCR: Is it acceptable for Catholics to hold the views advanced
by We Are Church?
Krenn: The greatest part of those who signed the
Volks-begehren are quite ordinary Catholic believers. But whether all the heads
of that movement are in agreement with the teaching of the church, I doubt. ...
This movement has nearly no religious substance at all. The Protestant
reformers poured the blood of their hearts into fighting for what they thought
was the pure teaching of the Good News. We Are Church is less religious than
humanistic. They seek only power. Therefore, it is not nearly as dangerous as
the Reformation. Im more afraid of the Lefebvre people, who are pious and
pray their rosaries but deviate in other ways from the teaching of the church.
(Krenn refers to the followers of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre who was excommunicated
by Pope John Paul II for ordaining bishops to carry forward his effort for
restoration of the Latin Mass.)
Krätzl: Im absolutely convinced that the
protagonists of We Are Church are very faithful, loyal Catholics coming from
the innermost segment of Catholicism and who have in mind the welfare and
well-being of the church. None of their demands are incompatible with dogma,
none of them contradicts a dogma. If we are honest, we must say that the whole
dialogue really got started with the petition. The bishops said they would have
done something anyway beginning with the turn of the millennium, but truthfully
the whole thing began with petition. We also must admit that the cooperation of
the We Are Church people here was very constructive. In my own dialogue group,
Thomas Plankensteiner worked on the topic of remarried divorced persons with me
and others, and he was very helpful, very constructive in articulating some of
the sentences that were presented to the plenary session.
Is the Dialogue for Austria a valid model for ascertaining the
sensus fidelium (sense of the faithful)?
Krenn: I wish it was. But the sensus fidelium
arises from a deep rooting in the faith. Only when one has embraced the whole
truth of the faith does it permeate ones thinking, and then it is
possible to generate new insights. Faith comes first. Voting cannot create
faith, it cannot ascertain something that has already been given. ... The First
Vatican Council said that if the pope proclaims a dogma, the sense of the
faithful will not be missing -- so the sense of the faithful should not be
against the magisterium. It must accompany the general conviction of the
faithful, while the magisterium is represented by individual persons.
Krätzl: I think this is a good method. One has to be
cautious because there was not a truly representative selection of the whole
people of God in a democratic sense. But I think the bishops must take into
consideration very carefully that groups from the far left and the far right
have been invited, have come together, have talked together and have found a
common atmosphere of dialogue together. This is something the bishops must take
very seriously. What weve had is not just the sensus fidelium, but
the consensus fidelium.
What force should we attribute to the votes taken here in the
Dialogue for Austria?
Krenn: Three hundred people cannot represent the church of
Austria. Most of them were delegated by the bishops. I delegated 22 out of my
diocese. I didnt just appoint delegates of my own conviction. I tried to
get a few others, too. Thus, all we are establishing here is what a certain
group of people think is important. Thats all, not whats right for
the church.
Krätzl: Technically and according to the rules it was
only an assertion of opinion, but if you consider the fact that there were
clear indications of what the people wanted, and that these questions have been
asked and dealt with in a similar way in diocesan synods in Germany and in
other countries of Europe, I think there is a strong moral obligation on the
part of the bishops to seriously deal with these questions.
Is the church in danger of alienating its members if it does
not respond to widespread desires for reform?
Krenn: Im of a quite different opinion. We will win
the people if we are faithful to God. We dont need flexibility in this. I
think slowly but noticeably more and more Catholics would side with new
positions, which I think are better than those adopted by the
Volks-begehren.
Krätzl: If these questions are not addressed, the
credibility of the church will be damaged. If the church cannot answer
questions that are very important in the lives of people today -- such as
contraception and remarried divorced people and sexuality and all these things
-- if the church has no answers that you can live by, then the church will have
failed the people. It is not in the spirit of Jesus Christ, who came to heal
and to bring life in abundance, to put people down by placing commands and
directives on them that they cannot fulfill. Again and again they tell us that
we should talk about God and not about the structures of the church, but I
think that with the structures of the church we show what kind of image of God
we have. Thus if we are talking about a loving, a merciful, a forgiving, a
healing God, we must change some of those structures.
What is the most important element of Vatican II that still
needs to come to fulfillment in the life of the church?
Krenn: The problem with Vatican II is ignorance. Many
people do not know all the documents, of which there were a great many, and it
has become an ideological weapon. Everybody says, I am in line with
Vatican II. You are not. And they do not bother to find out whether they
are or whether I am perhaps more in line with Vatican II than those who
criticize me. Many good and truthful things in church doctrine we do not know
because we have presented them in an imperfect way since the council. This
means catechism, research, also the media. The media must be more careful in
talking about Vatican II. They should force some to admit that they cannot
point to the passage where they think their activities are covered.
Krätzl: I think it was very important that through
Vatican II the church started looking at itself and found out that it wanted to
be a community, no longer just a clerical machinery only. ... The church opened
itself to the outer world, to the secular world, to the other Christian
churches, to the other religions of the world and even to the nonbelievers.
That was very important. We started this dialogue that has caused anxiety for
many people who were not prepared for it and who now feel that the church
should withdraw again into its own shell. That is our problem, that is the
situation we are faced with today.
National Catholic Reporter, November 6,
1998
|