(LifeSiteNews) — Two feminist theologians have launched a media campaign against a faithful Catholic priest with alleged ties to JD Vance.
In an apparent attempt to damage Father Edmund Waldstein’s reputation and prevent his habilitation at the University in Innsbruck, Austria, Professor Angelika Walser and Dr. Sigrid Rettenbacher have accused Waldstein of promoting “right-wing extremist” ideas and linked them to harassment they allegedly fell victim to.
The faculty of Catholic theology at the University of Innsbruck has distanced itself from Fr. Waldstein, who is a Cistercian priest from the Heiligenkreuz Abbey, and advised him not to submit his planned habilitation thesis, which would allow him to teach at the university.
According to Kathpress, the dean of the Catholic faculty, Wilhelm Guggenberger, said he made the decision after learning of media reports about Waldstein’s “reactionary views” and his connection to “Christian fundamentalist groups” and alleged “threats of violence” against feminist theologians.
The media campaign targeting Fr. Waldstein was at least in part caused by the two heterodox feminist theologians Walser and Rettenbacher.
Fr. Waldstein, who teaches theology at the University in Heiligenkreuz and the ITI Catholic University in Trumau, Austria, is accused of being a figurehead of Catholic “neo-integralism” and having connections to the circles around U.S. vice president J.D. Vance.
Rettenbacher wrote in a blog article that the priest is part of “right-wing Christian networks” who are united by an “ecumenism of hate” and reject “human rights and freedoms,” including “women’s rights and the rights of the LGBTQIA* community.”
These Christian networks also work on averting the “alleged threat” to the Christian West posed by Islam, Rettenbacher writes.
Rettenbacher bases her allegations on a “right-wing extremism report” by the Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstands (DÖW), a far-left organization partly funded by the Austrian government.
“In the American context, he is described as one of the Catholic influencers, whose sphere of influence extends to Catholic Vice President J.D. Vance,” Rettenbacher writes. “Waldstein is a prominent representative of Catholic (neo-)integralism, which questions liberal democracies and strives for the subordination of secular authority to religious authority.”
Rettenbacher specifically criticized Fr. Waldstein’s past defense of the death penalty for unrepentant heretics.
Finally, she tried to connect his theological positions to attacks and threats that she and other heterodox theologians allegedly received, without providing any proof of the link.
“When one observes current developments where colleagues are subjected to intimidation, attacks and threats because of their theological research, such statements give food for thought,” Rettenbacher wrote. “They promote a climate in which believers – nurtured by spiritual authority figures – can feel justified in intimidating and threatening theological researchers.”
Father Waldstein’s response
“I am deeply disturbed by these accusations,” Fr. Waldstein wrote on his blog Sancrucensis. “I have nothing to do with attempts to intimidate or harass theologians by any means. I condemn such actions in the strongest possible terms, whoever commits them. I am appalled by the insinuation that I or my work have anything to do with such actions.”
He denied the accusations of “right-wing extremism” and said he was quoted out of context, and therefore, his views were distorted.
“It is true that I have spoken out in favor of a certain theory of ‘integralism,’” he wrote.
“In my sense, it refers to the defense of what the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Dignitatis Humanae describes as ‘traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ,’ which, according to the Council, remains ‘untouched.’”
“I have endeavored to show a fundamental continuity at the level of principles between the teachings of the popes of the Middle Ages and early modernity and those of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar popes,” he continued. “I have argued that this fundamental continuity at the level of principles nevertheless allows for discontinuity at the level of application.”
“I freely admit that in defending the teachings of earlier times, I have sometimes gone too far when it comes to the application of principles,” Fr. Waldstein wrote. “I intend to correct such exaggerations in the future in scholarly dialogue with my critics, whom I am grateful to for their constructive criticism.”
“The fact that I do not advocate extreme right-wing positions on other issues is shown, for example, by my opposition to nationalism and xenophobia,” he stressed.
He invited Rettenbacher, Walser, and his other critics “to engage in a respectful academic dialogue on these issues.”
A leftist attack on the Catholic faith and the family
Andreas Unterberger, a Catholic and the former editor-in-chief of the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, described the situation as an attack on the traditional Catholic faith and the family.
In his blog, Unterberger said the media campaign against Fr. Waldstein “is about the dominance of the left wing of the church in the state theology faculties, which feel threatened by the large influx of priest students to Heiligenkreuz and Trumau, where a clearly traditional image of the church is taught, while otherwise there is a scarcity of young priests.”
“It is very much about the image of the family, where Waldstein’s traditional views, which also coincide with all previous popes and which, according to all that is known, are also shared by Leo XIV, come under fire,” he continued. “In contrast, the two ladies stand up for the ‘rights of the LGBTQIA*’: This ever-lengthening term is used to sum up gay and transgender sexuality in all its apparently ever-new forms and varieties.”
