In his ORF address on New Year’s Eve, Schönborn made it quite mundane that he would be “naturally vaccinated”, “for reasons of my age and also my previous illnesses”. , they are a “silver lining”, so Schönborn.
Three things that give people support
But with a view to the pandemic, there are “naturally also dark clouds”. I am worried about how things will continue and what consequences the pandemic will have to be expected, said Schönborn. At the end of this year, “in which we have experienced very strongly how fragile our world is”, he asked himself: “What gives us support, what gives us hope?”
For him personally these are three things above all: the creation, the good in people and the trust that “God will see that everything will be good”. On the one hand, the cardinal called nature this year “more consciously experienced”. She was able to “rest” through the Corona crisis. Many would have rediscovered the blue sky, they would have noticed more strongly how beautiful a meadow of flowers is.
“The good is stronger than the bad”
Second, Schönborn expressed his confidence that the good in people is “much stronger than the bad”. The latter was directly experienced during the terrorist attack on November 2nd. “But at the same time we experienced how much generosity and helpfulness there is. How much goodness there is in the human heart. ”This often hidden goodness can be evoked,“ even if the good that is in every human heart is sometimes very, very hidden ”.
In relation to his third great hope, the “dear God, as we say in Austria”, the question arises why there is so much suffering in the world. Nevertheless, he was “completely convinced: Because God is good, it will also be good,” said the Archbishop of Vienna. Of course, this also requires human effort: “We have to do what we can to do good.” If this happens, “then we can go into the coming year with confidence”. Despite the associated uncertainty, the following applies to Schönborn: “The good is stronger than the bad.” With this conviction, the cardinal wished everyone a happy new year in 2021.
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