A "Charter for Fundamental Rights in the Church" was presented in Vienna. It is criticized that people in the church have limited basic rights. What exactly is it about and who is behind it?
DOMRADIO.DE: What exactly is the Charter about?
Klaus Prömpers (journalist): There were a total of fifteen points that were presented, including the primacy of conscience, the right to equality in the church, i.e. the right to equality in terms of gender, nationality, race, language, origin, sexual orientation , Marital status, age, possession. It is about community, general priesthood, freedom of expression in the church, freedom of information, the sacraments that all Catholics can receive on their own responsibility, reputation, social justice, participation, a fair trial, children's rights and even the freedom to leave the church.
DOMRADIO.DE: Who is behind this "Charter for Fundamental Rights in the Church"?
Prömpers: This is a joint initiative of various groups: the pastor's initiative, behind which the former vicar general of Vienna, pastor Helmut Schüler, is behind the initiative "We are Church" in Austria, an initiative "priests without office", that is, lay priests and a lay initiative. Together they presented these fifteen fundamental rights. You want to give an impetus to discuss whether it is no longer possible in the church to raise the talents of the individual baptized Christians in the church and to give the church a greater influence in the world.
DOMRADIO.DE: There is criticism that women are excluded from consecration offices, that priests are not allowed to marry, but also the demand for homosexual people to live abstinently. The rights of these people are severely restricted here, right?
Prömpers: In a way, yes, but you don't want to forcefully tear down all the walls that the church has built over the centuries, but you want to try to gradually expand it if you want to put it that way. At least one wants to open the church doors in order to get more people back into the church. In a church that has reformed and that also gives the individual Christians who are in the church more opportunities for participation. This also applies, for example, to the question of how bishops are appointed. Now one does not want to immediately demand the election of the bishop, but at least be allowed to set criteria according to which bishops are ultimately selected.
DOMRADIO.DE: The call comes in parallel with the start of the first Synodal Assembly of the Synodal Way in Germany. It’s no coincidence, is it?
Prömpers: No, certainly not. You look there with great excitement and expectation. One wants to set an example now, especially in view of the fact that the Austrian church is changing. Next Sunday there will be a new bishop in the Gurk-Klagenfurt diocese. There may be a new bishop in Vienna over the next year and a half if the Pope decides to settle Cardinal Schönborn's successor. All of this means that some things will change.
You don't want Rome and the hierarchy to just let these changes happen, you want to have a say and articulate what you can expect from the future of the Church in Austria, also with a view of the German-speaking neighbors.
DOMRADIO.DE: Is the discussion about reforms in the Church in Austria similar to that here in Germany?
Prömpers: I think so, because here too there are quite different positions within the Bishops' Conference. They are not quite as extreme as they seem to me in Germany, where individual bishops say whatever comes out of the Synodal Way, the individual bishop has to apply it first - and is free to do or not to do so . It's not that extreme here. But of course there are different accents in the different dioceses.