Two bishops, two different worldviews

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 6, 1998 by John L. Jr. Allen

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 country's 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 Polten, and Helmut Kratzl, 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 Groer, which even the doctrinally conservative Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna has said he believes. Kratzl, 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. I'm 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.)

Kratzl: I'm 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 one's 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.

Kratzl: 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 we've 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 didn't 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. That's all, not what's right for the church.

Kratzl: 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.