WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service
Kevin Eckstrom | Jul 22, 2013
WASHINGTON (RNS) An Austrian priest who’s been banned from speaking at Roman Catholic churches during his three-week U.S. tour said Pope Francis could be an ally in reforming the Catholic Church, but said it will take more than the pope to open the priesthood to married men and women.
The Rev. Helmut Schuller, founder of the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, has been drawing crowds of several hundred people with his call for greater participation from the church’s lay “citizens” and a married priesthood.
“We are trying to open the church to a real approach to modern society,” Schuller said Monday (July 22) in a speech at the National Press Club. “There are a lot of questions to our church in these times, and the answers are really old-fashioned.”
Schuller is the key organizer behind a group of about 430 Austrian priests who are openly challenging the hierarchy on allowing women priests, married priests, same-sex marriages and lay Catholics’ voice in the election of bishops.
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