Lay Catholics have claimed the Pope is “ruining” a Church which is now a corrupt “sect”.Herbert Kohlmaier, the head of the Catholic lay initiative, today (Tues) launched a stinging attack on the Church following controversial comments by ultra-conservative Pastor Gerhard Maria Wagner over the Haiti earthquake which have caused public outrage.In an interview in Oberösterreichische […]
Senior Catholic figures in Austria have been forced to speak out after controversial comments by an ultra-conservative pastor over the Haiti earthquake.Pastor Gerhard Maria Wagner had claimed 90 per cent of Haitians practised voodoo in an interview published in the newspaper Kurier on Sunday when he was asked if the Haitian earthquake had been Gods […]
Vienna Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schönborn is to start a six-day trip to the USA tomorrow (Sat).The archdiocese press service said he will give speeches and meet with politicians, economists and scientists in Kansas City, New York and Washington, D.C.His first stop will be Kansas City, Missouri, where he will visit various Church institutions at the […]
The Austrian Jewish Community (IKG) yesterday (Weds) condemned a recent Freedom Party (FPÖ) meeting with the far-right Hungarian Jobbik party.IKG said it was angry that “democratic parties had said nothing” about the FPÖs contact with “the openly neo-fascist Hungarian Jobbik party.”FPÖ foreign affairs spokesman and MP Johannes Hübner admitted yesterday that Jobbik members had visited […]
A teenage gambler has been arrested after he invited pals around for a card game and then attacked them with a baseball bat.A 49-year-old man told cops he and a 19-year-old girl had been playing with the teenager when he suddenly stopped, picked up a baseball bat and started to attack them.Police said the […]
By Lisa ChapmanA demonstration against the murder of Coptic Christians in Egypt earlier this month is to be held on Viennas Ringstraße on Thursday afternoon.Car club ÖAMTC today (Tues) issued a warning to motorists to avoid driving into the city and to use public transport instead as 700 to 1,000 people were expected to gather […]
Heat-loving bacteria found in the Arctic seabed have their origins in oil springs and the depths of the Earth’s crust. This is the finding of a project supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, which used molecular biology to study “misplaced” bacteria such as these. The possibility that molecular biology could also help track down […]
By William GreenThe Austrian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions reported today (Fri) its membership had remained stable last year.The Church said 3,128 people had left and 839 had joined in 2009. At the end of the year, it had 325,314 members, down 0.69 per cent year on year.The number of people who […]
By David RogersThe number of Catholics leaving the Church soared last year, according to Catholic press agency Kathpress.It reported today (Weds) that 53,216 people had left the Church last year – 30.9 per cent more than in 2008.The figure was 0.96 per cent of all Austrian Catholics, the agency said.The number of Catholics in Austria […]
By William GreenA concert by rock legends AC/DC is to go ahead despite protests by environmental groups, it has emerged.Environmentalists had protested over the site of the gig set to take place at the airfield in Wels, Upper Austria, on 22 May claiming it posed a risk to the offspring of a number of endangered […]