STRUCTURAL SIN OF THE CHURCH NO LOGER
BEARABLE

"As Catholic women and men we feel deeply consternated and hurt by the sexual
abuse of women religious and other women that ministers of our Church have
committed in at least 23 countries wordwide" declared Elfriede Harth,
spokesperson of the International Movement We Are Church. The official
confirmation of the reports on sexual violence perpetrated by priests on
religious women, known to the Vatican since several years, would put the
finger in the hurting wound of structural sin of the Catholic Church.

According to Harth the main cause for the gravely dysfunctional behavior of
its ministers is to be found in the mysogynist and profoundly women dispising
structures of the Church. The public space that had been opened to those
scandalous facts was a necessity to succeed in eventually breaking the
resistance to urgent corrections within the Catholic Church. This had also
been evidenced by the public debate on pedophilic abuses by priests in
France, North America and Australia.

"Our solidarity goes first of all to the victims of this violence and this
power abuse", Harth stated.
The International Movement We Are Church demands from the responsible
leaders in the Vatican and the local Churches to take the necessary measures
to ensure at least material and financial reparation for the prejudices
caused. "It is shameful that such acts have been perpetrated by persons who
incarnate in the eyes of the world the canonical authority of our faith
community".

The International Movement We Are Church further demands that all Cardinals
convoqued by the Pope to a Consistorium in May assume their responsibility
for the universal Church and put the issue of structural Church reform as
most urgent topic on the agenda.

To preach the Human Rights with credibility to the world it was necessary to
first clean in front of the door of the own Church and to cease refusing to
women full equality in the Church. Harth stated that as long as women were
excluded
from the dignity of Holy Orders - as the mentioned reports gave evidence in
a hurtful way - the Church sinned providing theological and canonical
justification to all forms of discrimination against women, to all oppression
against women and to all violence against women.

The International Movement We Are Church (IMWAC) resulted in 1996 in Rome
from the networking of national initiatives which were implementing in their
respective countries the signature campaign for Church reform launched in
Austria under the name of Kirchenvolks-Begehren. Together with other Church
reform forces worldwide IMWAC is committed in promoting a conciliary process
that includes all faithful in the urgent aggiornamento of Church structures

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