Where growth is hindered, you get offshoots

Press Release from Ingrid Thurner, Chairperson of "We are Church (Austria)" issued on 5 June 2002.

Translation by Colm Holmes of BASIC

Platform “We are Church” distances itself from the illegal ordinations

Regarding the illegal Bishop’s ordination on 9. May and the planned ordinations of women on 29 June 2002 the Platform "We Are Church" decidedly declares that such actions have not been initiated by them nor are they welcomed by them. This clarification is necessary, after it was stated that through an ‘Initiative for Women’s Ordination in the Roman Catholic Church’ it was shown that thereby “at last important demands of the Church-People’s Petition would be fulfilled.”

It is correct that the Church-People’s Petition from 1995, which was signed by over 500,000 people in Austria, included, amongst other points, the demand for complete equality for women (and thereby also their ordination as priests), as well as the building up of a brotherly & sisterly church (and thereby also the inclusion and involvement of the local church in the appointment of bishops) - illegal actions, which bring even reform oriented people of goodwill to shake their heads and to despair, and the fear of a church schism, these certainly do not correspond to the mandate given by the majority of those who signed the Church-People’s Petition.

The Platform "We Are Church" sees itself bound to this mandate, in that they tirelessly turn to the church leadership and take up the dialogue to all difficult questions, in order to achieve a change in the existing norms, which hinder the timely growth and life of the Church. When offers to dialogue and discuss are ignored for many years and the church leadership signals no willingness to change the structures of the Church, then offshoots are the consequence. People loose their patience and hope and begin to act on their own initiative.

The Platform "We Are Church" has lost neither patience nor hope, that a step by step realisation of the demands of the Church-People’s Petition is possible. They therefore continue to press for the ordination of women, for a de-clericalisation of office holders, for the abolition of compulsory celibacy and a democratic-synodal structure for the Church. Every community - naturally also the Church - needs rules which basically have to be kept. But also a changing of these rules must be possible. And there can be circumstances when rules must be broken, to achieve changes. This must be done carefully and after considering all the consequences, which in the cases we are considering here has not been done sufficiently. If the right of every female catholic and male catholic to demand reforms for the good of the Church from the Bishops is re-interpreted as the right to deal with the Church ‘out of one’s own empowerment’, then this is a position which the Platform decidedly rejects.

Our aim is to achieve in due time that alterable Church laws will be changed and not to place ourselves outside the law. We want to achieve the changing of the fatal points for the train in the interest of all the passengers, and the changing of the points to be done by those responsible for changing the points. If we jump out of the train and take hold of the points ourselves, then the train will run over us and continue to carry on, to the detriment of all who are sitting in the train.

Ingrid Thurner, Platform "We Are Church"

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