Georg Eder (6 March 1928 – 19 September 2015) was an Austrian

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

bishop. Because of his strict conservatism, reported one obituary, he was frequently the center of public controversy. Eder was born in

Mattsee Mattsee is a market town at the eponymous lake in the district of Salzburg-Umgebung in the Austrian state of Salzburg. History About 765 Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria established the Mattsee Benedictine Abbey, which became a part of the Diocese of ...

and ordained a priest on 15 July 1956. He served the

diocese of Salzburg The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Salzburg ( la, Archidioecesis Salisburgensis) is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria. The archdiocese is one of two Austrian archdioceses, serving alongside the Archdiocese o ...

throughout his career. Even before becoming archbishop he regularly wrote letters to newspaper editors expressing his conservative views. He was chosen to be Archbishop of Salzburg becoming on 21 December 1988, and following papal approval was consecrated on 26 February 1989 by his predecessor Karl Berg. That year he said AIDS was "a punishment from God for unnatural sexual behavior"; he opposed abortion even in cases of rape, reporting he had read that it rarely results in conception. He also opposed sex education programs. In 2000, he insisted that the memorial service for the victims of the

Kaprun disaster The Kaprun disaster was a fire that occurred in an ascending train in the tunnel of the Gletscherbahn Kaprun 2 funicular in Kaprun, Austria, on 11 November 2000. The disaster killed 155 people (150 on the ascending train, two on the descending t ...

include a Eucharist, which prevented the head of the evangelical church from participating. This provoked the greatest number of withdrawals from the church registers in the history of the Archdiocese.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

accepted his resignation, which he offered before his 75th birthday because he was incapable of further service, on 23 November 2002. He died on 19 September 2015 after a long illness having recently moved from Salzburg to a retirement home in his hometown.

References

External links

Catholic Hierarchy: Archbishop Georg Eder
{{authority control Roman Catholic archbishops of Salzburg 1928 births 2015 deaths 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Austria 21st-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Austria