"The new archbishop of Salzburg, the Franciscan Franz Lackner, reigning since January 12, 2014, said, "The Future of the Church" will include fewer priests, but that "the laity can take on important and responsible positions in the Church." These tasks should not belittle you, Lackner said. "We have forgotten that Jesus was a layman." -from the article.
This is a very disconcerting thing to read. Very disconcerting, because it effectively means that this bishop does not believe in the Divinity of Our Blessed Lord. How can he shepherd souls in the disaster of non-religion that is Austria when he too has joined the ranks of the infidels?
We as Catholics must posit another question: If a bishop denies that Christ was ever High Priest, where does he think his authority come from? Apostolic succession, that is, the authority of priests and bishops to preach the words of Christ came from that same Lord, our God! If he denies Christ as High Priest, he may be no more than a layman himself like the Protestants of neighboring Germany. The Lutherans of Germany may indeed have clergy that can trace who gave them liturgical faculties back to pre-Luther Catholic German times in the same way that a priest of the Society of St. Pius X will be able to trace his lineage back to the society's namesake.
The German Lutherans have no apostolic succession, though. What becomes of a bishop who denies his episcopal faculties, essentially?
