From Austrian Press Agency (APA), October 11, 2024, 3:18 p.m.
Picture: EVA MANHART (APA)
webp 720w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 800w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-1200w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 1200w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-1280w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 1280w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-1440w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 1440w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-1600w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 1600w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-2160w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 2160w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-2400w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 2400w, https://www./storage/image/6/5/7/4/3154756_archivbild-r-ckzug-sch-nborns-als-wiener-erzbischof-steht-bevor_artikeldetail-max-2560w_1D2inK_9plL2b.webp 2560w”>
Bild: EVA MANHART (APA)
VIENNA. So now he can. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna for 29 years, offered his resignation to the Pope at the beginning of 2020 – and was then not heard for a long time.
The Vatican extended Schönborn’s term of office indefinitely, but this will probably be over for good around his 80th birthday next January. In the past three decades, Schönborn’s church has repeatedly been accompanied by crises. Schönborn is considered cosmopolitan and intellectual in church circles. His almost bashful way of proclaiming the truths of the faith impresses even liberal critics of the Dominican, who comes from a noble family and whose family tree boasts more than a dozen bishops and cardinals. Schönborn, however, had a harder time with the critical church people. He often attacked “hot topics” hesitantly and then reacted in complicated church language.
Armored pastoral letter
Ultimately, Schönborn came up with clear words – at least for high-ranking clerics. In the case surrounding Linz Auxiliary Bishop Gerhard Maria Wagner, who was ultimately unable to attend, it was a harsh pastoral letter from the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, of which Schönborn is chairman. Also notable was an open conversation with a former nun about abuse in the church, in which Schönborn admitted that she had become a victim herself.
After the death of John Paul II, Schönborn was at the top of the “Pope Toto”. The cardinal, who always appears elegant, is not only one of the most prominent advocates of interreligious dialogue, he has also taken up the cause of the internal renewal of Catholicism. In this regard, the French theologian Yves Congar proved to be influential for the Dominican, who entered a Westphalian monastery at the age of 18. During his doctoral studies in Paris – which he completed with honors – he introduced Schönborn to French renewal movements that were looking for a new place for the church in a secular world.
“}”>
Image: APA
Enthusiasm for renewal movements
The son of a single mother has not lost his enthusiasm for renewal movements such as the “Neocatechumenate” to this day. Observers see this as a strategy to concentrate the Catholic Church on a “healthy hard core” of deep believers, instead of keeping the large mass of “baptismal Christians” in line with concessions to the “spirit of the times”. Schönborn’s sympathy for Orthodox Judaism should also be seen in this light. He described it as “vitally important” for the future of the church to study the Bible “in the light of its Jewish interpretation.” During a trip to Jerusalem by the Austrian bishops, but also on other occasions, Schönborn repeatedly found clear words about the Holocaust, which earned him praise from the Jewish community.
But Schönborn also acted as an “icebreaker” against Islam. He was the first cardinal to meet with the religious and secular leadership of the Islamic “theocracy” in Iran in 2001. After the terrorist attacks against the French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo”, he even criticized what he considered to be “despising and vulgar caricatures” in it. His words about a “third Islamic attempt to conquer Europe” were less fitting. After violent reactions and with reference to the “mission of Islam,” he spoke of a “misunderstanding.”
Friendly in tone, tough in substance
In socio-political areas, the Archbishop of Vienna faithfully follows the Vatican line, for example in rejecting abortion. Schönborn responds to church critics who call for the abolition of celibacy and the ordination of women to the priesthood, although friendly in tone, but harsh in substance. The change of Pope Benedict XVI. Schönborn also joined in with the liberal Francis: As part of the Vatican’s family synod, Schönborn was surprisingly open about homosexual partnerships, considering his circumstances.
Schönborn, who was born on January 22, 1945 in Skalsko, Bohemia, has good connections in the Vatican. Observers said he was close to the former Pope Benedict XVI. since his years as Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the early 1970s, Schönborn completed a year of study with him at the University of Regensburg. In 1981, Josef Ratzinger appointed the talented Dominican, who speaks French, Spanish, English and Italian, to the Vatican’s international theological commission and made him editor of the World Catechism (1992), which codifies the doctrine of the Catholic Church. A highlight of Schönborn’s term of office so far was the visit of the then Holy Father to Austria in 2007.
Extremely conflict-averse
Schönborn, who grew up in Vorarlberg after his family was expelled, is best known to Austrian Catholics as a crisis manager. Auxiliary bishop of Vienna since 1991, he owed his greatest career leap to Austria’s worst church crisis. After his predecessor Hans Hermann Groer had to resign due to allegations of sexual abuse of pupils, Schönborn became Archbishop of Vienna in September 1995. As such, he also undertook the dismantling of the controversial St. Pölten Bishop Kurt Krenn, who stumbled upon a sex affair at his seminary in the fall of 2004. Schönborn – cardinal since 1998 – is considered extremely conflict-averse. In 1999, he fired his vicar general, Helmut Schüller, by simply slipping the “Blue Letter” under his door.
Schönborn submitted his resignation at the Amazon Synod in October 2019 because he would reach the retirement age for bishops in January at 75. Nevertheless, he remained in office as Archbishop of Vienna for an indefinite period of time. Just last week, Schönborn traveled to Rome to start the deliberations of the World Synod of Bishops. There he pleaded, for example, to listen to church representatives from the “Global South” and emphasized the importance of inclusion. The handover of the chairmanship of the bishops’ conference in June brought some professional relief for him. His successor was Salzburg’s Archbishop Franz Lackner, who is not excluded from following the cardinal in the Archdiocese of Vienna.
Schönborn has recently spoken more frequently about politics. He called for people to go to the National Council election, but he did not recommend voting. Schönborn has a column in the daily newspaper “Heute,” where he recently made a plea for “political diversity.” Schönborn, however, keeps his private life strictly under wraps. The cardinal, who spent his childhood in Schruns in Vorarlberg, is a passionate gamer – a card game for which he often meets former compatriots in Vienna. His brother is the actor Michael Schönborn.
ePaper
