Schönborn: ‘New era dawning for the Church'

Schönborn: ‘New era dawning for the Church'

THE TABLET

19 January 2012

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said this week that the social changes of recent decades in Europe call for a different kind of Church.
The Church that Austrian Catholics had been used to, the Archbishop of Vienna said, was "a thing of the past" and so there was no question of "business as usual".
"The time has come to face the changes that have taken place in society far more seriously than we have to up to now," he told journalists at a surprise press conference he called on 16 January.
In a free society with its amplitude of possibilities the Church would only be "one player among many others", the cardinal warned. From now on each Catholic's personal profession of faith would be essential, he said.