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Cardinal Christoph Schönborn addressed the population with an appeal not to respond to violence and hatred with panic or even new hatred. “To this blind hatred, hatred must not be an answer,” he said on Tuesday morning, November 3, 2020, in an ORF interview on Vienna’s Stephansplatz.
“You will not get our hatred”
“Hate only stirs up new hatred” – and this is just as much the wrong way to react to the terrible events of the night as to panic, “for he who panics is always in danger of carrying on this panic”. “You will not get our hatred,” the Cardinal emphasized, recalling the words of one of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
Values that made Austria great
The Archbishop of Vienna, on the other hand, called upon us to continue to uphold the values that have made Austria great: “Continue along the path of solidarity, community and consideration. These are values that have shaped Austria. Austria must not become a society “which closes itself off in fear”, but should continue to be open to one another: “Even if we now have to keep our distance due to the pandemic – with our hearts we do not have to keep our distance. As long as the warmth in our society is stronger than the cold of hatred, we need not be discouraged”.
The churches therefore remained an open contact point and a place “where one can take a deep breath and say a silent prayer,” Schönborn continued. He himself had spent the previous night in the chapel in the Archbishop’s palace, where he “tried to find a little inner peace” and to think of the people who became victims, including the police and the security forces, to whom his prayer and thanks were directed. He was touched by the numerous SMS and messages from all over the world, in which people told him to pray for Austria: “This solidarity of good, of togetherness – that is what we need now.
Memorial service planned
At present a funeral service will be celebrated in the Stephansdom for today, communicated Schönborn. Further details have not yet been determined or will be announced in the course of the day. Due to the corona restrictions, however, this would only be celebrated with a small number of participants, but there would be a live broadcast, the cardinal said.
hp, Source: kathpress.at. Picture: screenshot: orf.at and erzdioezese-wien.at
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