“With the wave of apostasies in the second half of last year, the crisis of the Church in Austria has been overcome”: that’s the view of the Austrian pastoral theologian Paul Zulehner, who took part in recent days in some television and radio programmes. “The record number of apostasies is the latest effect of the course taken by the Church and its personnel policy following the retirement of Cardinal Franz Koenig as archbishop of Vienna in 1986/87”, explained Zulehner, further emphasizing that “without a strong Church, Austria would be socially and humanly a great deal poorer. It would be an utter disaster”, he added, “if the Church were to lose her interior strength and people were no longer to support her. I don’t see any other social structure that would unconditionally devote itself as does the Church to the poor, the weak and those consigned to the fringes of society” or that provides comfort and relief “in the crises of life and in disasters”. “The Church”, said Zulehner, “will have in future to devote herself even more actively to these areas; at the same time she will have to re-examine anew the case of divorcees who remarry”. The theologian made a point of emphasizing that the figures for apostasies in Austria are also the result of the “general social change” to “a post-modern period” that has made people “very demanding even in the field of religion”.
