OHIO
National Catholic Reporter
Laurie Petrie | Jul. 29, 2013
CINCINNATI
During his U.S. speaking tour, Austrian priest Fr. Helmut Schüller learned an expression that was new to him: “elephant in the living room.”
In Detroit, where he spoke before arriving here Saturday, he met with a group of reform-minded priests who have adopted the expression as their name.
“I like this so much,” Schüller said, “that I will bring it back to Europe to help articulate what the problem is.”
One problem of which Schüller is well aware is that U.S. priests face a different situation than those in his country. There, in 2006, he and fellow clergy members founded the Austrian Priests’ Initiative to spur open discussions about problems in the Catholic church and later gained international attention with their “Call to Disobedience.”
“[U.S.] priests are dependent on the bishops for their livelihood, so one has to be cautious,” Schüller said in an interview before his talk. “But I am encouraging the priests to speak out and to risk some conflicts with the bishops, to stand with the people of God, to take sides and risk some conflicts.”
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