After Cardinal Schonborn overruled a parish priest’s refusal to allow a partnered gay man to serve on his parish council, the priest concerned, Fr. Gerhard Swierzek, announced that he would be seeking another assignment, as his priestly conscience would not allow to work with a councillor who was plainly “living in sin”.

It seems though, that he has fewer scruples about adhering to Church teaching in the matter of his own (hetero) sexual activities.

On Easter Monday, Fr. Gerhard Swierzek, priest of the parish where Stangl is now serving on the parish council, announced that he was seeking a new parish assignment. “Living in sin cannot be the norm,” he said. “I have a priestly conscience and respect divine and canon law.”

Shortly afterward a woman said in a detailed interview with the Austrian daily Kurier that Swierzek had had an affair with her for three years in his former parish of Pressbaum. Eva-Maria Mahrer said Swierzek “broke the celibacy rule. To hear him moralize like this and speak of sinners was just too much for me, so I decided to tell my story.”

Events in Stützenhofen refueled the priestly celibacy discussion and further damaged the church’s credibility. They have also strengthened the cause of the Austrian Priests’ Initiative.

via National Catholic Reporter.

(The extract quoted comes as a closing aside to a useful reflection by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, an Austrian correspondent for The Tablet on the state of the Austrian church, one year after the launch of the priests’ call to disobedience: “For a year now, Austrian Catholics debate obedience“).

Related articles

• Austria: pastor bars homosexual from parish council (queeringthechurch.com)
• Homosexual’s success scares off priest: Austrian Independent) (queeringthechurch.com)
• Cardinal okays gay man for parish council (commonwealmagazine.org)
• Schonborn Confirms: Discrimination is NOT a Catholic Value. (queeringthechurch.com)