Reformist priest sees potential ally in pope

An Austrian priest who’s been banned from speaking at Roman Catholic churches during his three-week U.S. tour said Pope Francis could be an ally in reforming the Catholic Church, but said it will take more than the pope to open the priesthood to married men and women.

Helmut Schüller, founder of the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, has been drawing crowds of several hundred people with his call for greater participation from the church’s lay “citizens” and a married priesthood.

“We are trying to open the church to a real approach to modern society,” Schüller said July 22 in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “There are a lot of questions to our church in these times, and the answers are really old-fashioned.”