Interfaith Religious News Service

VIENNA, Austria - A larger-than-life image of Pope Benedict beams down at passers-by from billboards around Vienna. But few Austrians are smiling back.Associated Press Staff Reports
OneNewsNow.com
September 9, 2007

Even in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, apathy and hostility — the fallout of clergy sex scandals and a highly unpopular church tax — greeted the pope when he arrived Friday
for a three-day visit.

The Archdiocese of Vienna promises a “fresh wind” from Benedict’s pilgrimage. But Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the nation’s top Catholic cleric, concedes that many Austrians’ ardor
has cooled. But he says “now, more than ever, our society needs the gospel.”

More than a half-million people have formally renounced their affiliation since 1995, when the Austrian church was rocked by allegations that a late cardinal molested youths at a monastery in the 1970s.

The record rate of departures accelerated after 2004, when a huge cache of child pornography, and lurid photographs of young candidates for the priesthood, was discovered at a seminary west of Vienna.

Many dropouts cite their disgust with the church tax, which averages $340 a year and remains enshrined in the constitution.

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