Vienna (OTS) – Friday prayers will soon begin in 350 mosques, and Sunday masses will follow 48 hours later in over 3000 parishes across Austria. These services, as well as every other religious event, were excluded from the scope of the COVID-19 Protective Measures Ordinance (COVID-19-SchuMaV) by the Ministry of Health – without any objective justification.
At the same time – for the second week in a row – hundreds of thousands of high school students are excluded from attending school. For them, the homeschooling model applies, which is far inferior to face-to-face teaching in every respect. In Austria – in agreement with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference – the “schools closed, churches open” model applies and nothing indicates that the Turquoise-Green government will change anything on this model on its own initiative. While everything is being done in Ireland, Great Britain, Belgium and France – and this includes a ban on face-to-face worship services – to avoid school closings, in Austria hundreds of thousands of pupils and their parents have been there since November 3rd, so that the churches can stay open. Against the background of the rapidly deteriorating framework conditions, the “Initiative Religion is a Private Matter” is once again addressing the urgent appeal to the government to immediately close the churches, ban religious events and save what can still be saved in the education sector.
“Education Minister Faßmann has already proven in the course of the debate about ethics teaching that the particular interests of religious communities are more important to him than education. It is hardly surprising that he has banished hundreds of thousands of high school students to homeschooling while all religious events are allowed. The fact that Health Minister Anschober is pursuing publicly dangerous ÖVP clientele policy through the ordinance he issued has – unfortunately – also become normal. However, the calculated silence of the opposition is also deafening, ”said initiative spokesman Eytan Reif. “The churches should have been closed weeks ago as part of an overall plan to save the education sector. In addition, such a closure would protect older people in particular, who are disproportionately represented in church services. A health minister waiting for the church to voluntarily protect its own members is grossly negligent, ”said Reif. Against the background of the unfounded exemption of all religious events from the scope of the COVID-19 SchuMaV, the out-of-control infection process and a no longer functioning contact tracing, the initiative also warns of claims for damages that could hit the republic.
Inquiries & contact:
Initiative Religion is a private matter
office@religion-ist-privatsache.at
+43-664-4614146
www.religion-ist-privatsache.at
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