300 Austrian Parish Priests Call For Reform and Disobedience to Institutional Church

e Bridget Mary

John Wijngaards points to some exciting news from Austria where 300 parish priests are openly refusing to comply because of the Church's lack of reform. They call for 'disobedience' in seven key areas. See: http://www.pfarrer-initiative.at/

The seven points are: (John has translated & summarised from the German text):

· In every Church service they will say a public prayer for Church reform.

· They will not refuse communion to well-meaning Christians. These may include divorced and remarried, members of other Churches, at times people who have left the Church.

· They will avoid saying multiple masses in many centres. They will prefer services conducted by people themselves to artificial supply services.

· From now on they will call a service of the word with distribution of holy communion a 'eucharistic celebration without a priest'. This will fulfil the Sunday duty.

· They will ignore the preaching prohibition imposed on competent lay people.

· They will see to it that each parish has a lay chairperson: a man or woman, married or not. This to counter the joining up of parishes and of projecting a new priestly image.

· They will use every opportunity to publicly promote the admission of women and married men and women to the priestly ministry -- seeing in both men and women welcome colleagues in our pastoral ministry.