Priest suspended from Catholic college for backing traditional doctrine

HEILIGENKREUZ, Austria (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic college barred a priest and theology professor from teaching after he refused to retract his defense of traditional doctrine.

On September 4, the official news agency of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference announced that Father Edmund Waldstein will not return to his teaching position at the Benedict XVI Philosophical-Theological College in the Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, Austria, at least for the remainder of Rector Wolfgang Klausnitzer’s tenure. The immediate cause of the decision relates to his advocacy of Catholic “integralism,” specifically a blog post where he argued in favor of the death penalty for heretics.

The Josias, a Catholic publication co-founded by Waldstein, defined integralism as:

a tradition of thought that, rejecting the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holds that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man’s temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end, the temporal power must be subordinated to the spiritual power.

“Pater Edmund Waldstein is being crucified for defending Pope Leo X’s approval of the prosecution of heresy. But if his superiors and critics are against prosecuting heresy, they should a) leave him alone; and b) call for decriminalisation of Holocaust denial (I say this as a Cousin of Achille Audette). Otherwise, their own actions and words convict them as hypocritical heresy hunters,” said traditional Catholic writer Charles Coulombe.

“A calumny against a good man and holy priest. What Pater Edmund Waldstein defends is simply traditional teaching that Vatican II explicitly says it ‘leaves untouched.’ What his persecutors are trying to insulate from criticism is their own personal theology, not Catholic doctrine,” remarked philosopher and writer Edward Feser.

READ: In ‘Integralism,’ authors aim to set foundations for Catholic political thought

Waldstein is an Austrian Cistercian monk and moral theologian. His parents, Susan and Michael Waldstein, were lay theologians who worked closely with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In particular, his father Michael was part of a group of theologians who periodically met with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at least until his election as Benedict XVI.

Welcoming Waldstein’s expulsion, Innsbruck professor Michaela Quast-Neulinger remarked, “Integralist positions clearly contradict Catholic teaching and the legal framework of a democratic constitutional state.” Quast-Neulinger added that Waldstein would be part of a large network of American and European integralist theologians who represent “a danger to democracy and the Church.”

Quast-Neulinger also pointed to Pope Leo XIV’s recent rejection of what she described as an “integralist understanding of politics and the common good” in Magnifica Humanitas.

Heiligenkreuz Rector Klausnitzer asked Waldstein to provide a scholarly clarification of his position. According to the rector, Waldstein did not withdraw the statements but instead sought to defend them by appealing to the history of Catholic theology.

“The theological methodology he employed in doing so I would not accept from a first-semester student,” Klausnitzer told Kirche und Leben, referring to what he characterized as Waldstein’s “unspeakable statements,” in particular those “about the killing of heretics.”

Dietmar Winkler, dean of the Catholic Theological Faculty in Salzburg, likewise welcomed Waldstein’s exclusion. Winkler referred to a recent declaration issued jointly by Catholic theological faculties and pedagogical colleges in Austria, which publicly opposed what they described as “right-wing tendencies” in both the society and Church.

That declaration specifically condemned what it called “Christian-nationalist currents,” including the so-called “neo-integralism” associated with Waldstein. The institutions said such movements use religious terminology, Christian symbols and Christian ideas about God for political purposes “in order to legitimize anti-democratic, anti-feminist, and exclusionary ideologies.” Consequently, the theological faculties and colleges also stated their opposition to “every form of discrimination, anti-feminism, antisemitism, and hostility toward Islam.”

“It’s sad to see these Austrian theologians separate themselves from the Church by denying the duties of human societies to the true religion, as defined by Pius IX and repeated by Vatican II,” said Fr. Thomas Crean, co-author with Dr. Alan Fimister of Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy, regarding the support for Waldstein’s dismissal.

Waldstein’s exclusion from teaching, however, does not amount to the removal of his academic title. Klausnitzer told Kirche und Leben that he does not possess the authority to revoke Waldstein’s teaching title. Such a decision would have to be taken by the institution’s academic Senate, which is due to reconvene during the winter semester.

The Abbey of Heiligenkreuz has granted Waldstein leave to pursue doctoral studies in philosophy in Rome.

According to traditional Catholic doctrine, it is indeed correct — at least in principle — to affirm that heretics are guilty of death. This teaching is not a mere historical curiosity but a doctrinal position upheld by eminent theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas, who argued that obstinate heresy destroys the unity of faith and therefore merits the gravest temporal penalty.

Moreover, this truth was infallibly taught by Pope Leo X, who, in his bull against Martin Luther’s theological errors (1520), condemned several propositions, including the claim that it would be “contrary to the Holy Spirit to burn heretics” (n. 33). In doing so, Leo X reaffirmed the perennial principle that the Church, while always seeking the conversion of sinners, recognizes the legitimacy of civil authority in punishing those who publicly and persistently subvert the faith.