Abbot regrets that women cannot vote on family

Abbot Christian Haidinger OSB, Benedictine abbot president in Austria and chairman of Austria’s Conference of Superiors of Male Religious Communities, has criticised the Synod on the Family on the grounds that no women are allowed to vote, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

Already as a young parish priest, he said, he had realised that nothing in the parish worked without women. As spiritual assistant of the Austrian Catholic Women’s Movement, he had got to know several Catholic “power women” more closely and had learned a great deal about how women practised their faith. It was in the light of this, he said, that he was “firmly convinced” that women must and will be ordained to the priesthood.

“Look at the ongoing synod in Rome where 300 old men are discussing family matters. A few women are being allowed to listen but it will be men who decide on how women are to live their lives,” Haidinger said in an interview with the Linz diocesan KirchenZeitung. “That just won’t do any longer. I think Pope Francis realises that changes are necessary. He is not calling for women’s ordination but vehemently wants to see women in leading positions in the Church.”