Around 100,000 Catholics elected their parish councils in most of the 486 Upper Austrian parishes on Sunday. A day later, 86 percent of the votes cast were counted, and a provisional final result was available: Of the approximately 7,000 people who had run for office, around 4,800 were elected to the parish councils. They will help shape life in their community over the next five years.
About 16 percent of the approximately 732,000 Catholics entitled to vote in the country cast their vote. “The result is good support for the new parish councils,” says Beate Schlager-Stemmer, consultant for the parish councils of the Diocese of Linz. “We can be satisfied with this choice.” After two years of the pandemic, it was expected that “we will have smaller parish councils between 2022 and 2027,” says Schlager-Stemmer. “But that’s not the case. With a count of 86 percent, we already have more voters than in the 2017 election.”
Bishop thanks candidates
Of the 4,800 elected, 64 percent are women, and more than half – 47 percent – are sitting on the parish council for the first time. The municipality of Ternberg (Steyr-Land district) has a particularly young body with an average age of 34 years.
Bishop Manfred Scheuer thanked all candidates for their commitment: “Member of the parish council give the local church a concrete face and give mouth, hand and heart to the gospel.”
Source: Nachrichten
