Austrian cardinal overrules priest, allows gay Catholic to serve on parish council

The church should come up with rules which would be applicable for all prospective candidates for the parish council elections.One of the rules should be that prospective candidates should uphold all the teachings of the church to be eligible to stand for the said elections.

If candidates who are elected have stands contrary to what the church teaches then we would end by having churches within the church.

Austria’s cardinal has overruled one of his priests and is allowing a gay Catholic to serve on a parish council.

Florian Stangl lives in a registered domestic partnership.

The 26-year-old was overwhelmingly elected to the council recently, but it was overruled by the priest — a decision initially backed by the archdiocese.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn changed his mind over the weekend after hosting Stangl and his partner for lunch, declaring Stangl to be “at the right place.”

Despite his close ties to his one-time professor, Pope Benedict XVI, Schoenborn has voiced an open mind to such taboo issues as priestly celibacy.

Church teaching holds that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” but that gays should be treated with dignity and respect.

About The Voice Of Bombay's Catholic Laity

Bombay Laity Ezekiel’s Chapter 3 Task as Watchman 17 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 18 When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for[b] their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. 19 But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.

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