VIENNA (LifeSiteNews) — The 30-year tenure of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, O.P., as Archbishop of Vienna came to a close Wednesday as the controversial cardinal resigned at age 80 and with notably fewer Catholics in the archdiocese since he assumed leadership of the see.
In a much-anticipated announcement on January 22, the Holy See Press Office stated that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Schönborn as archbishop of Vienna. Schönborn turned 80 that same day.
Though the cardinal’s resignation has been expected for some time, and indeed an official farewell was held in the archdiocese earlier this month, no successor has yet been chosen. Instead, Father Josef Grünwidl of the archdiocese was named as apostolic administrator of the vacant see of Vienna.
Schönborn has been an institution in Vienna for over 30 years. First named an auxiliary in 1991, he became coadjutor in 1995 and assumed leadership of the archdiocese later that same year. Made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1998, Schönborn had risen to prominence under the Polish pope’s tenure due to his leading role in editing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in the early 1990s. (The text’s adherence to orthodoxy in certain elements has been questioned.)
Commentators observed how Schönborn’s leanings changed in accordance with the papacy of the time: once seen as a possible leading conservative light, he then emerged as a notable voice supporting many of Pope Francis’ more controversial positions as the winds of change swept ever stronger through the Church and through the Vatican.
In an X post on his resignation day, Schönborn commented that the “decisive thing” during his leadership of the archdiocese was “Church and society can only work together.”
In an apparent demonstration of this theme, Schönborn appeared to take his lead from Austria’s civil response to COVID-19 when he moved swiftly to dispense Catholics from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass, banned reception of Holy Communion on the tongue, and limited the number of faithful praying inside St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna to 100. At the time, there had been just 182 people in Austria known to have the virus.
The cardinal also dismissed the Catholic chaplain to Austria’s police after the clergyman opposed the mandatory COVID-19 injection policy being enforced by the state.
Asked later about his actions during the COVID era, Schönborn defended them, saying, “I still stand by the fact that at that time we did what the government also thought was the right thing to do in its responsibility.”
READ: Austrian state gov’t to pay out 30 million euros to victims of COVID jab injuries, restrictions
However, the cardinal is more widely known for weighing in on various doctrinal and moral debates currently taking place in the Church.
Schönborn has championed the LGBT cause in his archdiocese, regularly hosting a pro-LGBT concert in his cathedral for a number of years. The event saw LGBT activists use the cathedral and its altar for their performance.
Austrian Catholics often held public prayer protests in response to the concerts, with Austrian Bishop Andreas Laun also joining in their opposition to such events.
READ: Charity concert at Cdl. Schönborn’s cathedral features shirtless actor dancing on Communion rail
Questioned more recently by journalists during the Synod on Synodality, Schönborn cited Francis’ changes to the Catechism on the death penalty as a sign of the possibility of more permissive changes to the text in regard to LGBT issues.
At #Vatican, Cdl Schönborn cited #PopeFrancis‘ death penalty changes re possible future changes to the catechism.
He shows how the current catechism is a trojan horse for #Catholic doctrine, as I explain in my book HERE:https://t.co/f8G9st509c
PDF here: https://t.co/C3VPQWPe20 pic.twitter.com/LWDDw6cfDV— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 24, 2023
Indeed, he famously became one of the most prominent cardinals to express his anger at the Vatican’s 2021 note that forbade same-sex blessings.
While female ordination and greater “inclusion” for homosexuality is now a regular theme in the Church, thanks especially to the Synod on Synodality, the cardinal has long championed admitting women to Holy Orders in some form, expressing a personal wish to ordain women at some point in the future.
Schönborn has also been a key voice pushing for the divorced and “remarried” to receive Holy Communion. During the many years in which much debate was focused on the topic – thanks to the publication of Amoris Laetitia that proposed it – Schönborn strongly advocated for the “remarried” to receive Holy Communion.
Upon publication of the text, he vehemently defended it as opening the door for the “remarried” to receive Holy Communion. Pope Francis pointed to Schönborn’s interpretation as the definitive reading of the text. Schönborn, Francis said, was a “great theologian who knows the doctrine of the Church.”
Such causes are very popular with the vocal, more heterodox activists within the Church, but it seems that they have not brought life to the Archdiocese of Vienna. Contrasting the earliest public statistics of the archdiocese (from 2003) to the most recent issued about the year 2023, a notable decline can be seen.
While there were 1.36 million Catholics officially registered in Schönborn’s archdiocese in 2003, that number had fallen to 1.06 million by 2023. Indeed, Austria as a whole has witnessed a decline in numbers of Catholics – a process that involves formally deregistering oneself from the Church, not just a lack of practicing the faith.
Vienna has been under Schönborn’s control for over 30 years. Whether his successor can revitalize the practice of the Catholic faith in contrast to the cardinal now remains to be seen.