Written by Matthias Jakubec

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Activities of We Are Church (Austria)

Events in the Austrian Church

Looking Forward to 2011: Activities and Events

Activities of the We Are Church (AT)

• June 18^th–21^st 2010: Kirchenvoks-Konferenz (conference of the people of the church) in Batschuns, Vorarlberg, (in cooperation with 3 other church reform movements: Laieninitiative (Initiative of Lay People), Pfarrerinitiative (Initiative of Pastors) and Priester ohne Amt (Married Catholic Priests)). Topic: Cornerstones of a church constitution in concordance with human rights. Key note speeches by Pof. Heribert Koeck (Austria), Prof. Leonard Swidler (USA), Dr. Daniel Kosch (Switzerland), Dr. Wilhelm Rees (Austria) and Prof. Gotthold Hasenhüttl (Germany). Separation of powers, subsidiarity, principle of equal representation, cooperation in decision making, limited term of office, accountability and written law were discussed in four fish bowl circles and identified as necessary corner stones of a state of the art constitution of the catholic church as it was finally demanded in the “Batschunser Erklärung”, the declaration which came out as the result of the conference.
• November 27^th 2010: Conference in Vienna with the topic “Zentralistische Bischofsernennungen – theologisch unhaltbare Willkür“ (“Centralized Appointment of Bishops – Theologically Unacceptable Arbitrariness“) in cooperation with 3 other church reform movements: Laieninitiative (Initiative of Lay People), Pfarrerinitiative (Initiative of Pastors) and Priester ohne Amt (Married Catholic Priests). Speakers were Eduard Posch, Dr. Walter Kirchschläger, Dr. Gerhard Hartmann, Pof. Heribert Koeck and Dr. Herbert Kohlmaier. Different models for the appointment and election of bishops in the Catholic Church were introduced and discussed.
• Initiative “Red card for the Vatican”: We distributed red post cards with the address of the Vatican and invited people to send them with notes of their protest on it.
• Thursday prayer for church reform: We took over the initiative of “Kirche in Bewegung” (church on the move) in Hammelburg and invite groups of church reform people to manage these prayers in their parishes.
• Council from below: We call parishes and groups to initiate parish councils, to discuss desired changes and inform their bishops about it.
• May 12^th 2010: Our chairman Hans Peter Hurka spoke at the “Platform for Secularism and Politics” of the European parliament in the name of IMWAC (International Movement “We Are Church”) about the reasons of child abuse by catholic priests and the necessity of the protection of human rights by the state authorities also within the church.
• May 13^th–15^th 2010: Participation in the 4^th Tagsatzung (a kind of lay synod) in the diocese of Basel.
• May 6^th–9^th 2010: Participation in the annual conference of the European Network “Church on the Move” in Elspeet, Netherlands.
• May 7^th 2010: Participation in the meeting of the International Movement “We are Church” (IMWAC) in Elspeet, Netherlands.
• Participation in the celebration of the 15^th anniversary of the founding of “Wir sind Kirche” Germany on a ship on the Rhein.
• October 30^th 2010: Annual conference in Oberalm, Salzburg.
• November 6^th 2010: Participation in the celebration of the 10^th anniversary of the founding of ZÖFRA (Verein der vom ZÖlibat betroffenen FRAuen), a society of women concerned by celibacy in Luzern, Switzerland.
• 4 issues of our news letter “Wir sind Kirche” (We are Church). In cooperation with the Julius-Morel-Funds for a renewal of the church in every edition of the magazine a paper with theological contents appears.
• Several press releases.

Events in the Austrian Church

• March 31^st 2010: Repentance prayer with Christoph Kardinal Schönborn, the arch bishop of Vienna, in the Stephansdom (St. Stephan’s cathedral) in Vienna for the child abuse cases. “We are Church” Austria had the idea for the prayer and played a major role in preparing it. The cardinal accepted the texts without changes. In his sermon he made his own statements, saying: “Wenn jetzt die Opfer sprechen, dann spricht Gott zu uns, zu seiner Kirche.” (“Now as the victims are speaking, God is speaking to us, to his church.“). The prayer was reported in the international media.
• Ägidius Zsifkovics became the new bishop of Eisenstadt, succeeding Paul Iby. Church reformers protested against the appointment of Zsifkovics, especially as once again the consultation process in the diocese recommended by church law had been ignored by the Vatican, who decided before the process was finished. The old bishop supported dialogue while the new one immediately cancelled dialogue meetings and forums, that had been scheduled before he had been appointed.
• Erwin Kräutler, bishop of Xingu, Brazil, born in Austria, was awarded with the alternative Nobel prize for his standing in for the indigenous peoples in his diocese.
• The theologian Veronika Prüller-Jagenteufel was appointed Pastoralamtsleiterin (director of the office of pastoral) of the diocese of Vienna by the archbishop cardinal Schönborn. Mrs. Prüller-Jagenteufel is well known among Austrian theologians for her hard work for dialogue and church reform.
• In the diocese of Salzburg delegates from the parish councils joined to build an initiative to fight against the planned reorganisation of the diocese with Pfarrverbände (combined parishes saving parish priests). The initiative published a declaration suggesting alternative solutions including optional celibacy and ordination of women for deacons.

Looking Forward to 2011: Activities and Events

• April 2^nd 2011: Herbert Haag award celebration in Vienna. The Swiss award is given to Christians and Christian institutions who speak out or act courageously. In 2011 Felix Maria Davídek (posthumous) and the Czech underground church, auxiliary bishop Václav Malý from Prague and the Swiss theologian Prof. Walter Kirchschläger from Luzern will be awarded.