Doctrinal negotiations between the Vatican and the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) are due to start “in the next few days,” according to Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, and Rome will not “let the Lefebvrists off easy for everything.”

In particular, he told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper in Bavaria over the weekend, “the SSPX will be told very clearly what is not negotiable for the Holy See. This includes such fundamental conclusions of the Second Vatican Council as its positions on Judaism, other non-Christian religions, other Christian churches and on religious freedom as a basic human right.” Here is our news story.

(Photo: Cardinal Schönborn, 16 March 2008/Herwig Prammer)

This is going to be interesting. The SSPX has been insisting for decades that it represents the true Roman Catholic faith while the Vatican and the vast majority of the Church took a wrong turn at Vatican II. By allowing wider use of the traditional Latin Mass and revoking the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops, Pope Benedict has taken two of the group’s main rallying points off the table. Now it comes down to the core issue of accepting the fundamental reforms of the 1962-1965 Council concerning Catholicism’s relations with other religions.

So will the SSPX accept the Vatican ultimatum, if indeed it turns out to be as clear as Schönborn portrays it?

Certainly not right away. Possibly not at all. Maybe only in part (if past practice is anything to go by).

In their public statements, SSPX bishops were triumphant after the decree lifting the excommunications was published and determined to stand firm in its meetings with the Vatican. It’s interesting to note that they describe these upcoming sessions as “meetings” or “doctrinal discussions” (entretiens doctrinaux), while Schönborn calls them “negotiations” (Verhandlungen). Since the full reintegration of the SSPX is at stake, the word “negotiations” seems more suited to these sessions.

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four readmitted, said the bishops had no intention of changing their views in these sessions.” No, absolutely not,” he said. “We do not change our positions, but we have the intention of converting Rome, that is, to lead Rome towards our positions.”

(Photo: Bishop Tissier de Mallerais/SSPX photo)

Bishop Richard Williamson, whose denial of the Holocaust-era gas chambers overshadowed the reporting of the ban lifting, wrote on his blog:“No doubt some Conciliarists in Rome are hoping that the Decree will serve to draw the SSPX back into the fold of Vatican II, but the Decree itself, as it stands, commits the Society to nothing more than to entering into those discussions to which the Society committed itself in 2000 when it proposed the liberation of the Mass and the ending of the “excommunications” as preconditions in the first place.”

SSPX Superior General Bernard Fellay, who has said the negotiations would be “not necessarily short, maybe even long,” has been more nuanced. On the one hand, he told the Italian agency APCom (here in English) in July: “We will not make any compromise on the Council. I have no intention of making a compromise. The truth does not tolerate compromise. We do not want a compromise, we want clarity regarding the Council.”

On the other hand, at the ordination of eight new SSPX priests in Ecône, Switzerland held in June despite Vatican warnings, Fellay said: “The biggest problem is philosophical. Two philosophies meet: the classical scholastic philosophy and modern philosophy. The pope is very eclectic and we feel that he has been marked by a subjective philosophy — less when he talks about morality than when he speaks in the abstract. Our scholastic philosophy is more objective.” The pope and the SSPX, he said, may be speaking “about the same thing, but differently.”

The German SSPX chapter seems to be on a similar wavelength. In a report on its website, it said the three theologians reported to make up the Vatican team at the sessions “are all Thomists, so a fruitful discussion should be possible.”

(Photo: Bishop Fellay in Ecône, 29 June 2009/Denis Balibouse)

French religion writer Nicolas Senèze, author of a history of the SSPX called La crise intégriste (The Traditionalist Crisis), wrote on FaithWorld from Ecône that Fellay’s statement was “a timid opening.” Could it actually be an audacious opening gambit? Up until now, the SSPX only aimed to convince the Vatican that it was wrong about the Council. Now it also wants to persuade it that Benedict, a tireless preacher against relativism, is a subjective and faulty philosopher. Get ready for some long and difficult negotiations.

UPDATE: Jean-Marie Guénois at Le Figaro reports the talks will not start until mid-October.

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Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is one of the Catholic Church’s most vocal critics of what he calls evolutionism, which he defines as an ideology that applies Darwin’s theory of natural selection to a wide variety of questions beyond biology. He usually directs his criticism at scientists and philosophers who say evolution proves that God does not exist.

(Photo: Cardinal Schönborn, 16 March 2007/Leonhard Foege)

In an interview with the Austrian provincial newspaper Vorarlberger Nachrichten on Jan. 5, Schönborn, a former student and close associate of Pope Benedict, said his criticism also applied to the current financial crisis:

Q, One of your favourite topics is evolution and creation. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to devote yourself to more practical things than those that cannot be proven anyway?

A. Look at the current economic crisis. The question of evolutionism and the economic crisis are very closely linked. What we can call the ideological Darwinist concept that the stronger survives has led to the economic situation we’re in today. I think that if education only focuses on making young people fit for the rat race and doesn’t teach them the great human values that society needs, it’s because it’s based on an image of humanity linked to ideological evolutionism. So it has very, very practical consequences.

Q. Where is this discussion leading and what can emerge at the end of it?

A. We can’t say, but (scientific) research continues. Very successful, very exciting. On the one hand, it certainly is going very strongly in the direction that says all life can really be proved to be linked together. In this respect, the scientific theory of evolution is, of course, supported and carried by very strong arguments.

(Photo:Staff at Lehman Brothers in London, 11 Sept 2008/Kevin Coombs)

On the other hand, one must clearly highlight the distinctive qualities of humans, their dignity and their intellectual abilities and responsibility in the face of reductive thinking that understands them in a materialistic way or as just a product of evolution. That is certainly insufficient.

The interview is here in German (registration required) and a summary (open access) in the Vienna daily Die Presse is here.

You and I may not have, but Anura Gurugé has. He’s even set up two websites on the papacy — one on papal elections — Papam - All About Papal Elections — and another called Popes and the Papcy with his latest list of the next papabili.

This all seems quite early. Pope Benedict seems in good shape despite his years. It’s never too early to speculate, though. Gurugé’s top three for the next head of the Roman Catholic Church are Brazilian Odilo Pedro Scherer of Sao Paulo, Italy’s Ennio Antonelli, President of the Council for the Family (Roman Curia) and Canadian Marc Ouellet of  Quebec.

After Gurugé flagged his website to me, I went to the main  “let’s get in on the speculation early” site, that of the Dublin bookmaker Paddy Power. They don’t agree — their top three are Venice’s Cardinal Angelo Scola, Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras and Christoph Schönborn of Vienna.

(Photo: Cardinals file into Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope, 18 April 2005/Osservatore Romano)

The mainstream Austrian press has now got hold of the debate over a controversial exhibition in Vienna’s Cathedral Museum and the director is wading right in. Austrian papers have not given the Alfred Hrdlicka exhibition too much attention until recently. The celebrated 80-year-old Austrian artist’s outspokenness and bold paintings are nothing new to country with a tradition for daring art.

Now the museum’s director Bernhard Böhler has told Die Presse newspaper he is amazed by the fierce criticism the museum has received for exhibiting a homoerotic version of the Last Supper, which had to be taken down on the request of Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. The exhibition provoked some complaints from visitors but it was the uproar on religious blogs in German and in the United States that really hit both the museum and the cardinal hard.

Boehler put this “massive verbal hostility” down to the fact that most of the critics don’t know Hrdlicka’s art well enough. He said he was “astounded by the heatedness of the debate.”

“The protests mainly came from Christian fundamentalist circles in the United States and eventually spilled over into Germany,” he says. “So it came from people who neither had the knowledge of the seriousness of Alfred Hrdlicka’s work nor had seen the exhibition.”

The Italian newspaper Il Giornale said the disputed painting wasn’t taken down fast enough and criticises the exhibition. In his blog, their Vatican correspondent Andrea Tornielli comments that nudes in paintings were not scandalous in themselves — Michelangelo painted nudes in the Sistine Chapel — “but here we’re talking about something different, we’re talking about a homosexual orgy with the Apostles as the main characters!”

Böhler has emphasised the museum never meant to offend anyone and says it does not necessarily agree with all of Hrdlicka’s approach. But he has said artists have the right to provoke and that the museum is entitled to offer them a platform.

“In Austria there has been a long-standing dialogue between art and the church which was led by Otto Mauer,” Böhler says, referring to the 20^th Century Austrian artist and priest.

In his statement yesterday, Cardinal Schönborn also stressed that Hrdlicka was a great Austrian artist. It sounds like they’re saying this issue looks different if you’re Viennese and that people there would understand it better than foreigners would. Do you think this should be taken into account in judging this exhibition?

We recently wrote about an exhibition in Vienna’s Roman Catholic Cathedral which has caused quite a stir — it included a homoerotic version of Christ’s Last Supper by Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka. The picture was quickly taken down at the request of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna.

The cardinal has now made a statement about the exhibition regretting the work was ever shown but describing Hrdlicka as one of Austria’s most notable artists. He also says art inspired by biblical subjects is something to be welcomed, even if the artists themselves are atheists. The full statement, sent to Reuters in English, is copied below.

There’s been a lot of criticism of Cardinal Schönborn on religion blogs connected to this exhibition. What do you think of his statement?

“The Vienna Cathedral Museum has dedicated a special exhibition, for which the museum’s director, Dr Bernhard Böhler, is personally responsible, to the artist Alfred Hrdlicka on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Hrdlicka is one of Austria’s most notable living artists who, probably more than any other living artist, has devoted himself to the suffering and downtrodden human being and has appealed for “compassion” with the “Passion”. He expresses this “compassion” in a most perturbing way. Hrdlicka`s best-known works in this respect are the “Danse macabre of Plötzensee” (Berlin) and his impressive Holocaust Memorial (Memorial Against War and Fascism) in front to the Albertina Gallery in Vienna. It is for this reason that I agreed to an exhibition of his works at the Cathedral Museum, albeit without detailed knowledge of the individual works to be exhibited.

“Alfred Hrdlicka has dealt with biblical subjects all his life, especially with the suffering of Christ. In spite of the fact that he claims to be a communist and an atheist, he nevertheless has a burning interest in the Holy Bible, and has personally admitted that he has a great longing for faith.

“This exhibition does not mean that the museum identifies itself with all of Hrdlicka`s works. In some of them he oversteps the essential threshold of respect for the Sacred. From the point of view of committed Christians, certain of his works must quite clearly be rejected. I obviously would not have agreed to have blasphemous or pornographic works exhibited. I therefore explicitly regret that a work of this kind was exhibited without my knowledge. I ordered the particular work - which committed believers find deeply distressing - to be removed on 20 March.

“Nevertheless, I still hold the opinion that we must welcome the fact that artists who do not share our faith, or are still searching for belief, occupy themselves so intensively with biblical subjects.”

The sketchy black-and-white picture shows the Twelve Apostles drinking, dancing, and well, getting extremely friendly with each other. It certainly isn’t the version of Christ’s Last Supper that most people are familiar with…

Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka’s version of the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy was supposed to be one of the highlights of an exhibition at the Dommuseum, the museum of Vienna’s Roman Catholic cathedral. An initial favourable review by the local Catholic news agency didn’t seem to find anything wrong. But blink and it’s gone — thanks to the intervention of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, after the painting sparked criticism in Austria and as far away as the United States. Here’s a protest article in German (with 61 comments and an explicit video about the exhibition) and a comically bad machine translation into English.

The museum, a stone’s throw away from St. Stephan’s Cathedral, says it never intended to offend anyone but stands by its decision to celebrate Hrdlicka’s 80th birthday with a retrospective of his biblical-themed works.

Was the cardinal right to tell the museum to remove the most controversial piece? Should the exhibition have taken place in a museum linked to the Catholic Church anyway?

Looking from the outside in, it seems odd the museum was completely unaware of the reaction it would provoke. But Hrdlicka — an atheist who has spent his artistic life being inspired by the Bible (the most thrilling read ever, he says) — is a celebrated public figure in Austria, a country with a tradition of outlandish artists.

Take the now-feted Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele who were condemned for their “pornographic” art at the beginning of last century. Their paintings now sell for millions of euros and the city uses them in its tourism ads.

The museum says a lot of the complaints about the Hrdlicka exhibition came from abroad, where people had read about the exhibition online. Many Austrians who came to the display didn’t seem to have a problem with it, museum director Bernhard Böhler says. He points out that only a minority of the works provoked on-the-spot complaints.

And the cardinal’s office argues that just because the museum exhibited the works, it does not mean that it identifies with all of them. Böhler agrees: “We look for art on biblical themes, but we can’t always choose how the artist will interpret them.”

But by displaying the works, is the museum nevertheless endorsing them? What would have happened if the museum had decided to display similar works concerning the Prophet Mohammad? Is this a valid comparison to make?

It seems unlikely that the exhibition will be closed - it would be slight towards an artist who is as much a part of Vienna as its coffee houses and cobbled streets. Hrdlicka is described on the website of Austria’s chancellor (prime minister) as the country’s “most renowned contemporary sculptor.” His Memorial Against War and Fascism has been on display in the capital’s central Albertinaplatz since 1988.

Hrdlicka also has admirers outside of Austria. At a recent exhibition in Berlin, the leader of Germany’s Left Party, Oskar Lafontaine, compared him to the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. “Like the great Spaniard, the Viennese artist, with his unruliness and his passion, is an unforgiving observer of his time.”

But it seems not everyone is a fan and his works have obviously deeply offended some in the Christian community — something which both the diocese and museum acknowledge.

Hrdlicka, on the other hand, remains slightly bemused by it all. “I’ve got nothing against the Catholic Church,” he says. “But all this has nothing to do with me … I don’t really mind whether the painting is displayed or taken down.”

The exhibition is on display in Vienna’s Cathedral Museum until May 10.