Brethren, this according to the Deutsche Welle's English web edition:
Please, continue reading here.Disgruntled Roman Catholics in Austria have not only been breaking bread at their weekly masses - they have also been breaking with tradition.
The future of the Austrian Church?
A total of 329 priests - one in ten of all priests in Austria - are openly supporting the call for reform that they say is needed to breathe life back into the church.
The movement calls for male priests to be allowed to marry, ending the church's celibacy rule. The would-be reformers also want women to be able to enter the priesthood and urge greater acceptance of divorce.
The group wants women, as well as men, to be ordainedRather than simply appealing for reforms, the group has declared it will break ecclesiastical rules by giving communion to Protestants and remarried divorced Catholics. It will also allow lay people - men and women - to preach and to lead head parishes without a priest.
The dissidents' main spokesman is Father Helmut Schüller, who claims that a shortage of priests makes reform essential. In the entire southern state of Carinthia, not one single priest will be ordained this year.
"We're presenting suggestions for how we can continue, when we have no replacements," said Schüller. "How we can find people from our own ranks - for example our own parish members who can simply continue on? We've been thinking about this for years."
It might be too early to call it a schism but unlike the congregations in Austrian churches, the number of "disobedients" is on the increase.
Commentary. This has been gestating for a while under the influence of dissident theologians such as Hans Küng, who openly fosters this agenda. The Austrian rebels perceived that the Church is encountering a moment of weakness and have opted for open rebellion.
My humble, unrequested opinion is this: if the Austrian bishops cannot "pastorally" bring these rebels to heel, they should grow a backbone and do whatever needs to be done to restore discipline in the Austrian church. If the dissidents want a latitudinarian Church, they should be let go so that they can form their own branch of Anglicanism in their country and leave alone the longsuffering, true Catholics of Austria who want to live a truly Catholic Christian life in a truly Catholic Church.