Pastor's Initiative () is a

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

group founded in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

in 2006 by

Helmut Schüller Helmut is a German name. Variants include Hellmut, Helmuth, and Hellmuth. From old German, the first element deriving from either ''heil'' ("healthy") or ''hiltja'' ("battle"), and the second from ''muot'' ("spirit, mind, mood"). Helmut may ref ...

as its leader,The Catholic Tipping Point
old page version at archive.org initiated by an "Appeal to Disobedience", or "Call to Disobedience" (). Composed of priests with

lay Lay or LAY may refer to: Places *Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada * Lay, Loire, a French commune *Lay (river), France * Lay, Iran, a village * Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community * Lay Dam, Alaba ...

support, the group advocates

ordination of women The ordination of women to Minister of religion, ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination ...

, married and non-celibate priesthood, allowing

Holy Communion The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an ordinance in others. Christians believe that the rite was instituted by J ...

to remarried

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

es and non-Catholics.

Beliefs

Call to Disobedience favors

, married and non-celibate priesthood, allowing

to remarried

es and non-Catholics and disagrees with some teachings of the Catholic Magisterium. Schüller believes the

Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is a concept within the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is understood as the divine quality or force of God manifesting in the world, particularly in acts of prophecy, creati ...

is among the laity, that qualified lay people can preach and give communionHelmut Schüller’s Call to Disobedience
Vienna Review, December 1, 2011 in parishes without a priest. The group believes the way the Church is governed needs reform. Schüller has stated:

Lecture tour

Schüller undertook a lecture tour in the United States in summer 2013. The tour included Boston; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Cleveland; Detroit; Cincinnati; Denver; San Diego; Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle. The tour was sponsored by

Call to Action Call to Action (CTA) is an American progressivism in the United States, progressive organization that advocates a variety of changes in the Catholic Church. Call To Action's goals are to change church disciplines and teachings in such areas as ma ...

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) was a non-partisan, Catholic, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization in the United States, which according to its website aims to promote "the fullness of the Catholic social tradition in the public squar ...

CORPUS Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

, DignityUSA, FutureChurch, National Coalition of American Nuns,

New Ways Ministry New Ways Ministry is a ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Catholics. The national organization is primarily based in the state of Maryland. It was one of the earliest groups attempting to broaden the wa ...

Voice of the Faithful Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) is a movement of practicing Catholics, founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2002 in the wake of allegations regarding child abuse by Catholic clergy, perceived mishandling of cases of known or suspected abuse, and pasto ...

, Quixote Center, and

Women's Ordination Conference The Women's Ordination Conference is an organization in the United States that works to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops in the Catholic Church. Founded in 1975, the conference was seeded from an idea the year before, when Mary B. Lyn ...

. During the tour Schüller expressed concern over his belief that the Church hierarchy ignores the views of the faithful:

Support

The movement claims the support of the majority of Austrian Catholic priests and enjoy further support elsewhere: The group also claims growing membership in other countries.

Conflict

The group is not recognised by any official representatives of the Catholic Church. The group's teaching has been criticised for its deviation from Catholic doctrine.

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

criticised the movement several times in his weekly Wednesday audience, describing them as

heretics Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Christianity, Judai ...

and schismatics. By contrast, its founder, the Rev. Helmut Schüller, blames "absolutist monarchy" and resistance to change by the Vatican for a possible schism."Over 300 Austrian priests join 'Call to Disobedience'"
catholiccultur.org, 13 July 2011.

References

{{Religion in Austria Catholic dissident organizations LGBTQ and Catholicism Ordination of women and the Catholic Church Criticism of the Catholic Church

Beliefs

Lecture tour

Support

Conflict

See also

References