Priest Resigns Over Cardinal Shoenborn's Homosexual Favoritism

Austrian Priest resigns after overruling by cardinal on homosexual in parish council

Coming only a few days after Easter, the resignation of Father Gerhard Swierzek, the pastor of a parish in the Archdiocese of Vienna, has been hailed by homosexualist activists in the Catholic Church as a victory. Fr. Swierzek had refused to allow an active homosexual, Florian Stangl, who is living in a legal registered partnership with another man, to sit on the parish council in the town of Stützenhofen.

The Austrian Independent reported Tuesday that Fr. Swierzek has asked his superiors for another assignment. He said he was “saddened” that the cardinal archbishop of Vienna met with Stangl and his partner but had refused to meet with him about the situation.

The German language Catholic news service Kreuz.net quoted Fr. Swierzek saying “I have a priestly conscience and I respect divine and ecclesiastical law.” He explained that he could not remain active in a parish, whose members “wanted their right at any price”.

He cited the teaching of the Church according to Pope John Paul II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexual behaviour. “Living in sin is not considered to be the norm in a Catholic Church community,” he said. “It is much more the task of a priest to bring a sinner to penance.”

Last week, Christoph Schönborn, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna overruled his priest and his own previous position, saying that Stangl’s election to the parish council was upheld.

At first the cardinal had appeared to support his priest, but announced a few days later that, having had lunch with Stangl and his partner, he had changed his mind. Stangl, a 26 year-old social worker, had received 96 out of 142 votes in a recent parish council election. “This man is at the right place,” the cardinal said.

A statement was later posted on the cardinal’s blog, saying, “…There are many parish councilors whose lifestyle does not in every way conform to the ideals of the Church.

“In view of the life-witness that each of them gives taken as a whole, and their commitment to the attempt to live a life of faith, the Church rejoices in their efforts. She does not thereby call the validity of her ideals into question.”

After his lunch with Stangl, Schönborn said he was “deeply impressed by his faithful disposition, his humility, and the way in which he lives his commitment to service.

“I can therefore understand why the inhabitants of Stützenhofen voted so decidedly for his participation in the parish council.”

A visitor at one of the Easter Masses in the tiny town of Stützenhofen told radio station Ö1 that the cardinal’s decision was “proof of the Austrian Church’s willingness to become more modern and open,” according to the Independent.

The head of the outlawed group, New Ways Ministry appears to agree. The renegade priest, Francis DeBernardo, who directs the group, said the cardinal’s position supported their own, “that no one in the church follows all of the church’s principles, and that it is their total life commitment, not their adherence to litmus tests, which qualify them for church leadership”.

New Ways Ministry encourages homosexual Catholics to maintain their lifestyle and attempts to convince the hierarchy of the Church to accept it.

“He is saying that he will not treat LGBT people any differently than anyone else,” DeBernardo continued. It describes itself as “a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics,” that was banned by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999.

The group’s two directors, Fr. DeBernardo and Sr. Jeannine Gramick, were prohibited from engaging in any ministry with homosexuals. Their support for the homosexualist movement within the Church resulted in their being declared “ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes”.

“By taking this time to meet and listen to a gay man’s experience, the Cardinal is a model for all church leaders. Personal encounter was the way of Jesus and should be the way of Catholic leaders. It is the best way to break stereotyping and prejudices that may exist in one’s mind,” DeBernardo concluded.

Source: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/austrian-priest-overruled-by-cardinal-regarding-homosexual-on-parish-counci

Comments

+1 #6 2012-04-30 13:49

From the article: "has been hailed by homosexualist activists in the Catholic Church"

There are no homosexual activists in the Catholic Church. They would be "outside" the Church by definition.

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0 #5 2012-04-29 18:38

I thank you Jesus for your servant Fr. Gerhard Swierzek, for his faithfulness to You, Your Gospel, and Church. As it says in Scripture, ...if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gommorah to ashes He condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the wicked (for by what that righteous man saw and heard as he lived among them, he was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. 2 St. Peter 2:6-10
Laura Russo

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+1 #4 2012-04-20 18:38

I guess if he had been living with a woman that would have been completely intolerable? (remember - homosexuals are exempt from sexual morality)

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+3 #3 2012-04-14 07:10

The Pope needs to intervene in this mess. It's an open revolt against Christian morality and a good priest needs to be backed up, to encourage other good priests to stand for christian morality.

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+3 #2 2012-04-13 19:43

The Priest is right and the Bishop is wrng. Supporting the "Gay Agenda" is wrong and should never be supported no matter who the person is or how is living with his "partner." The Bishop is participating in the sin of the people the Priest protested against in his position as the Parish Priest.

The world is out of touch with the life long teaching of the church. They think that the world changes so the church must also---guess what, God don't change and he ain't gonna approve of the New Morality. People are going to follow the new morality straight to hell and no place else.

Women won't be ordained in the Catholic Church and every one wanting such can go to one of the protty "churches" that allow women's "ordinations." Then they will be turning their back to the fullness of the truth and will have to answer for that themselves at their judgements.

The Pope is relevant as he is the leader of the church founded by Jesus and is the only body founded by Jesus and has not ceased being since it was founded. There is no-one who can deny that except someone who can't read and has never studied history. I don't care what "new gimic" someone comes up with, it will be the same as has always been because every heresy has been repeated over and over under different names.

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0 #1 2012-04-13 17:01

Where is the Catholic Church going with this-what was sinful yesterday is ok today.In Ireland in a recent survey (Led by a well known Catholic priest)out of 1200 catholic's interviewed, 71% are looking for woman ordinations and they say that the pope is no longer relevant and is totally out of touch with the modern world?

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