Festive concert as the highlight of the festivities on Friday evening in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna – Cardinal thanks the staff and looks back on the eventful past few weeks since a lung attack “Thank you for staying alive. It was scarce”
Vienna (KAP) – The Archdiocese of Vienna celebrated its Archbishop Cardinal Christoph Schönborn on Friday evening with a benefit concert in St. Stephen’s Cathedral on the occasion of his 75th birthday on January 22. Under the motto “Laudamus te!” the St. Stephan vocal ensemble and the Vienna Cathedral Orchestra performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor (KV 427). The Salzburg Archbishop Franz Lackner paid tribute to Schönborn in a short speech, saying that Schönborn was “truly a friend of the people”. Cardinal Schönborn thanked his staff and looked back on the eventful weeks since his lung infarction: “I am grateful that I stayed alive. It was scarce”.
The following were present in the full cathedral: the Apostolic Nuncio in Austria, Archbishop Pedro López Quintana, numerous employees of the Archdiocese of Vienna and a large part of the Austrian episcopate – including the auxiliary bishops of Vienna Franz Scharl and Stephan Turnovszky, the bishops Manfred Scheuer (Linz), Aegidius Zsifkovics (Eisenstadt), Wilhelm Krautwaschl (Graz), Alois Schwarz (St. Pölten) the emeritus bishops Egon Kapellari, Maximilian Aichern, Ludwig Schwarz, Alois Kothgasser as well as Paul Iby, the St. Pöltner auxiliary bishop Anton Leichtfried and bishop conference general secretary Peter Schipka. On the political side, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg and SPÖ chairwoman Pamela Rendi-Wagner among the guests.
Following the concert, Archbishop Lackner congratulated the entire Bishops’ Conference and also praised Schönborn’s special gift of never having lost contact with the faithful on site and at eye level, despite his diverse world church tasks. “You are truly a friend of the people!” Said Lackner, who explained this by saying that Schönborn, for example during church services during the bishops’ conference, was the last person to appear after dinner after these services – because he was talking for so long with people.
According to Lackner, the Vicar General of Vienna Nikolaus Krasa also spoke and congratulated the staff on the part of the cardinal. In reference to an oversized red balloon that he had brought with him, he referred to three special characteristics that would distinguish Schönborn: the humble basic attitude, oriented equally towards God and people; Schönborn’s “globe-wide networking” and his cosmopolitan breadth, as well as his simple lifestyle.
“It was close”
Finally – after a birthday canon “Good luck and lots of blessings” agreed by all present, a visibly moved Cardinal Schönborn thanked “for this wonderful evening” in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, which has impressed him since taking office in 1995. At the same time, he thanked his Employees and at the same time looked back on the eventful weeks since his lung infarction: “I am grateful that I stayed alive. It was close”.
He also feels gratitude when he looks at the church as a whole: For many, the church is “an irritant, yes, a nonsense” – but he has always seen the church as his “home” in all conflicts and crises from young to the present day allowed to. After all, the church is always more than a mere institution – it is a “soul and heart community”, even if this being often appears “covered and polluted”. Schönborn concluded that he had always experienced his own life as “created by God”: “That is what I can say in retrospect of life: God adds – even where we often do not suspect it”.
Concert proceeds for projects in Vienna and Syria
The proceeds of the concert will benefit both the aid organization “Open Hospitals – Medical Care in Syria” and the Caritas project “Le + O” for the needy in Austria. The archdiocese then invited to an agape in the courtyard of the Archbishop’s Palace.
The Archdiocese of Vienna has launched its own congratulations website on the 75th birthday of Cardinal Schönborn. Under www.kardinalschoenborn.at/geburtstag you can leave personal congratulations for the jubilee. On the social media channels, the archdiocese also invites you to post greetings under the hashtag “# GlückwunschKardinal”.
A Kathpress dossier at provides further messages, background information and a comprehensive portrait of Cardinal Schönborn www.kathpress.at/schoenborn,
((end)) HKL / PWU
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