At Easter, Austria’s bishops remembered the “forgotten” women

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/austria-austria-austria-40257/
MARIA TERESA PONTARA PEDERIVA
On Easter morning women regained the central role which the Church had forgotten about for centuries. The comments the Archbishop of Vienna made in the homily he pronounced during the Easter Mass celebration at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, constituted a kind of unreserved self-criticism.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn recalled the role of women as described in the Gospel’s Easter stories: “it was women who first found the empty tomb but we have always forgotten about them, we men of the Church.” And yet it was on that very Easter morning that women earned themselves a central place in the history of salvation, a history which should make us feel grateful towards these women: “gratitude for their testimony, gratitude for their loyalty and love for Jesus.”
“We men can sometimes be very unfair,” the Archbishop said, recalling the many women who accompanied Jesus through the streets of Galilee and that the Gospel stories are full of female figures that have played important roles, but “none of these women has ever been canonized,” he regretted.
And yet Easter is a time of personal encounter with Jesus Christ, which is exactly what happened to Mary Magdalene who met him in person because Christ called her by her name, as he still does today with each individual. “Jesus does not make a grand appearance, he does not return with full honours as the Son of God: he presents himself in person, discretely, just as he did to Mary Magdalene who was the first witness of the Risen Christ and I do not believe it was by chance.”
On Holy Saturday the Bishop of Innsbruck, Manfred Scheuer, also spoke about the importance of women in Church life, in an interview with Tiroler Tageszeitung that covered a wide range of topics from euthanasia to providing shelter for an ever-growing number of refugees. The central role women play in the transmission of the faith is undeniable; in fact, they represent one of the pillars of the Austrian Church. “Religion is an integral part of life in our country,” the Bishop said. “But when I look at Church life today and the transmission of the faith within the family, I see that it is mainly women transmitting it and this is also the case in parishes and religious education and catechesis. And yet we often forget about this.”

Similar Posts

Who would want to be a bishop?

Articles
1 Comment

With a seeming hiccup holding up the production line of new bishops, {five appointments in the waiting line}, Brendan Hoban asks in his weekly column “who would want to be a bishop? “
A little tongue in cheek he suggests ” a few of us might even at this late hour be prepared, for the good of the Church and reluctantly, of course, to accept high office though in advanced years, …. So if the nuncio is really, really stuck, I have a few in mind who would loosen things up a bit.”

‘The priesthood dehumanised’: Australian bishop urges end to clericalism

Articles
17 Comments

The National Catholic Reporter carried an article about the call by Australian Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen for an end to clericalism in the church.
“… the priesthood ‘pedestalized’ is the priesthood dehumanized. It is bound to lead us into the illusion of a messiah complex and an inability to claim our wounded humanity and to minister in partnership. What we need to do is to humanize the priesthood so as best to equip ourselves with relational power for authentic Gospel living and service.” Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen is quoted as saying.

Join the Discussion

Keep the following in mind when writing a comment

  • Your comment must include your full name, and email. (email will not be published). You may be contacted by email, and it is possible you might be requested to supply your postal address to verify your identity.
  • Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Comments containing vulgarities, personalised insults, slanders or accusations shall be deleted.
  • Keep to the point. Deliberate digressions don't aid the discussion.
  • Including multiple links or coding in your comment will increase the chances of it being automati cally marked as spam.
  • Posts that are merely links to other sites or lengthy quotes may not be published.
  • Brevity. Like homilies keep you comments as short as possible; continued repetitions of a point over various threads will not be published.
  • The decision to publish or not publish a comment is made by the site editor. It will not be possible to reply individually to those whose comments are not published.