John L. Allen Jr. reported at length on the Dialogue for Austria in the National Catholic Reporter; this report can be read on the NCR website.

Brief Summary

Because of the crisis in the Austrian church in 1996 due to scandal, unpopular papal appointments of bishops, division in the bishops' conference, and the falling off in church attendance, the Austrian bishops set up a national conference and selected most of the delegates, many of whom were church employees, to deal with the problems facing the Austrian church. After some discussion about delegate selection, the assembly according to Bishop Weber who headed the Austrian bishops "was a highly qualified group from all of Austria...a very good mirror of Austria. I do not think we can ignore what was said here."The Dialogue for Austria took place in October 1998. More than 250 official delegates, not counting the bishops who spoke but did not vote, endorsed by more than 75% a more positive view of sexual relationships in accepting premarital living arrangements, freedom in choosing birth control methods, admission of  divorced and remarried catholics to the sacraments, ordination of married men, and the ordination of women as deacons. There was no vote on optional celibacy for priests nor women's ordination to priesthood.

Thomas Plankensteiner, spokesperson for We Are Church, received the loudest ovation of the weekend when he said, "It is a success for the entire church. What has become clear is that we are not talking here about the demands of a radical fringe, but the desires of the heart of the church." One pastor said, "I have already been doing many of these things. But now I won't have to do it with my head down."It should be noted that the decisions of the assembly carry no canonical weight. The Austrian bishops agreed before the Dialogue, however, that they would take the results to Rome. At the conference, not all were willing to do that saying that "they could not carry a message that ran contrary to the pope's teaching."

Brief Update

According to John L. Allen, the bishops did in fact take the results to Rome though there was some internal disagreement over what to say and how to say it. In any event, Cardinal Ratzinger sent a letter to the bishops shortly thereafter explaining that virtually everything in the results was wrong. There was then a brief hub-bub in Austria, but people seem to have accepted that nothing is going to happen and the erosion of church attendance continues. Bishop Krenn who had opposed the results of the dialogue said that he himself was glad that the dialogue was dead because it was unCatholic.

Chris Diamond, Cobble Hill BC