Switzerland: Banned priest … keeps his ministry

The priest Franz Sabo – suspended since March 2005 by Mgr.Kurt Koch, the bishop of Basel – continues in spite of everything to serve the church of Röschenz. In his Christmas sermon, published in the magazine Sie Er of the SonntagsBlick, Franz Sabo declared that Pope John XXIII had thrown open the windows of the Vatican, but that Cardinal Ratzinger, when Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith, closed them all again. Since becoming pope, he has remained faithful to his closure policy.
Adding that “if all the priests in relationships with women or men had to stop serving the Catholic Church, there would be nothing for it but to shut up shop.”
The parish council of Röschenz has been planning since November to have written in the Constitution of the Church in the Canton the right of parishes to be heard when the canonical mission of a priest is retracted. It is also seeking to obtain the separation between the Churches and the State in order to break the stalemate, explained Bernhard Cueni, parish councillor, on November 4, in the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung. The Catholic Synod of Basel-Land decided on October 23 to entrust to the Council of the Cantonal Church the role of mediator in this affair, which opposes the direction of the diocese of Basel to the suspended priest Franz Sabo and to the parish council of Röschenz.