Schönborn on New Year’s Eve: “Good is stronger than bad” – Coronavirus Vienna

The vaccinations that begin in the last days of 2020 are a “ray of light” for Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, they would give “hope for the end of the endless corona pandemic.” As the Archbishop of Vienna announced in his TV ORF speech on New Year’s Eve, “of course I would be vaccinated, if only for reasons of my age and my previous illnesses.”

In addition to this positive, there are “of course dark clouds” with a view to the pandemic. I am concerned about how things will go and what consequences are expected from the pandemic, Schönborn said. At the end of this year, “in which we have experienced very strongly how fragile our world is,” he asked himself: “What gives us sustenance, what gives us hope?”

For him personally they are three things first: creation, the good of people and the confidence that “the good Lord makes sure that everything goes well.” On the one hand, the cardinal this year described nature as “more consciously experienced.” He was able to “rest” during the Corona crisis. Many would have rediscovered the blue sky, they would have noticed more strongly how beautiful a flower meadow is.

Second, Schönborn expressed his confidence that the good in people is “much stronger than the bad.” The latter was directly experienced during the November 2 terrorist attack. “But at the same time we experience how much generosity and help there is. How much good there is in the heart of man.” 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 as to why there is so much suffering in the world. However, he was “completely convinced that because God is good, he 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 next year with confidence.” Despite the uncertainty associated with this, 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.