Christoph Schöenborn, who served as archbishop of Vienna from September 1995 until Jan. 22, 2025, has voiced support of civil unions and women serving as deacons, and—as someone whose parents divorced when he was a teenager—he defended Francis’ outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
The 80-year-old criticized the Vatican in 2010 for its past refusal to sanction high-ranking officials who were credibly accused of sexual abuse, including his own predecessor in Vienna, Hans Hermann Groër, who died in 2003 and never faced charges. Schöenborn accused then-Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano (who died in 2022) of orchestrating a cover-up to protect Groër and making light of the entire issue by dismissing accusations of clerical abuse as “petty gossip.”
The Vatican, headed up by Benedict XVI at the time, rebuked Schöenborn for speaking out, stating that only a pope can level such an accusation against a cardinal.
