VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post
NICOLE WINFIELD | March 8, 2013
VATICAN CITY — The election of a new pope always brings with it hopes for change from across the Catholic ideological and theological spectrum. Advocacy groups from around the world have descended on Rome to try to publicize their causes while media attention on the Vatican is high. These lay groups won’t determine the vote. But some movements are influencing the debate, particularly those which count hundreds of active Catholic priests as members – a threat the Vatican cannot easily ignore. Here is a look at some of the more well-known “dissident” reform and advocacy groups, from those claiming to have ordained female priests to those seeking Vatican files on sexually abusive priests.
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ASSOCIATION OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS: Founded in 2010 in Ireland by three priests, the ACP now says more than 1,000 of the estimated 3,500 active priests in Ireland are members. The group’s founding constitution calls for a re-evaluation of the church’s teaching on sexuality and for greater lay involvement in church decision-making, but it is better known for its support for an end to mandatory celibacy for priests and opening discussion on women’s ordination. One of its founders, the Rev. Tony Flannery, has been sanctioned by the Vatican for his views: Until he recants, he can’t be in active ministry. But Flannery, a member of the Redemptorist order, is undeterred. “The point we try to make is that in 20 years’ time, there will be very few priests in Ireland. Who is going to provide the Eucharist to people?” The ACP promotes inviting back priests who have left the priesthood to marry, allowing mature married men to celebrate the Eucharist “and then having made those changes, you can begin to look seriously at the question of ordaining women,” Flannery said in a telephone interview.
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PFARRER INITIATIVE: Founded in 2006 in Austria by the Rev. Helmut Schueller, the former vicar of papal contender Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the “Priest Initiative” claims 350 priests and 79 deacons as members. Most of them are in Austria, but Schueller is looking to expand to Germany, Ireland, France, Australia and the U.S. The group’s 2011 “Appeal to Disobedience” calls for the admission of women and married men into the priesthood to relieve the priest shortage – an appeal that has so shaken the church in Austria that Schoenborn briefed Vatican officials about it. “The Roman refusal to take up long needed reforms and the inaction of the bishops not only permits but demands that we follow our conscience and act independently,” the appeal reads. Those supporting the call pledge to ignore the ban on preaching by trained laity, including women, and vow to never deny communion to the faithful, including divorced and remarried Catholics. Church teaching forbids such divorcees from receiving the Eucharist. In November, the Vatican stripped Schueller of the right to call himself “monsignor.”
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