Schönborn says vocations ‘could blossom’

The decline in religious practice among the faithful is a more serious issue than the shortage of priests, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna has warned, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn was speaking to journalists in Limerick ahead of the conference, “Let’s Talk Family: Let’s Be Family”, based on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. He said that the shortage of priests the Irish Church was experiencing was an issue for the Austrian Church as well as for many other countries in Europe.

“I think the more dramatic shortage is the shortage of the faithful – the diminution of religious practice is more rapid than the diminution of the number of priests, at least for Austria,” he said. Pope Francis’ close advisor added that he believed the “great challenge” was renewal.

The cardinal was touring Ireland with 15 of the Archdiocese of Vienna’s 30 seminarians, a figure he said was “much less than in previous years” but “much more than for other dioceses”.

He stressed that the decline in priest numbers was not destined to follow a “Darwinian downwards evolution” [to extinction]. “We have had periods of great decline and then periods of great blossoming. There can be a strong renewal – why not?” he asked.

The Austrian prelate added that there was “no recipe” to solve the challenges of the vocations crisis and falling rates of practice, but it suggested that it was “vitally important” for the Church to have “a committed laity” not just within the Church but also in society.

His comments follow the Bishop of Kerry’s warning that weekend Masses in every church in the diocese will soon be a thing of the past. In a statement announcing clerical changes in Kerry, Bishop Ray Browne said there are now six parishes out of 53 without a resident priest.