Pope John Paul II arrived in Austria yesterday for a three-day visit to find a church in crisis over a high-level sex scandal and disputes between traditionalists and reformers.
Arriving at Salzburg Airport, the Pope avoided any mention of the controversies dogging the Austrian church and instead focused on the country's place at the heart of Europe.
"To build this new Europe, we need many hands and above all hearts that do not just beat for money and profit, but for God and for man's sake. My wish is for the heart of Europe to remain strong and healthy."
When the Pope first visited Austria in 1983, 517,000 people turned out to see him. Five years later, he drew only 309,000 and the hierarchy will be satisfied if half that number attend the Pope's Masses this year.
The Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, is so worried about a low turnout that he has appealed to his parish priests not to celebrate Mass tomorrow so that as many people as possible would attend the Pope's Mass in the city.
Few Austrians expect the Pope to solve the crisis in their church and 83 per cent of the country's Catholics say this weekend's visit means nothing to them.
One problem was moved out of sight just in time for the papal visit when Cardinal Hans-Hermann Gror, the 78-year-old former Archbishop of Vienna, went into exile in a monastery in Germany. Cardinal Gror is accused of sexually abusing former students, allegations which four of his fellow bishops have confirmed to be true.
The cardinal refused to answer the charges for three years, during which tiem he was defended by Dr Kurt Krenn, the conservative Bishop of St Polten, who is widely seen to be close to the Pope.
Dr Krenn, who dismissed Dr Gror's accusers as "sinners themselves", is notorious for his arrogant, authoritarian style and his opposition to reform of the church.
The Gror controversy outraged Catholics and prompted a group of reform-minded lay people to found a movement for change in the church. Frustrated by the Pope's strategy of imposing conservative bishops on unwilling dioceses, they organised a petition in 1995, calling for wide-ranging reforms.
Some 500,000 people signed, most of them regular churchgoers. In all, 82 per cent of regular attenders want to abolish the celibacy rule for priests, 62 per cent say that church teaching on sexuality is "utterly wrong", and 88 per cent want a more democratic system for choosing bishops.
At a Mass in Salzburg yesterday afternoon, the Pope called for Austrian Catholics to become more active church members.
Lay groups, from the reformers to Opus Dei, will meet in Salzburg in October to discuss the situation. And while the opposing factions are relieved to be talking to one another at last, there is little sign of agreement about the way ahead.
According to Ms Theresa Schiestl, one of the organisers of the 1995 petition for reform, few expect the Pope to offer much enlightenment. "The people no longer expect anything for their personal lives from this Pope," she said.
