Gerald has published an extensive post on the abortion-clinic-in-the-mall story, translating some interviews and other stories for us.

It’s gotten a lot of "old media" attention throughout Austria and Germany (which in itself is almost a miracle) – the good people at the Austrian website Kath.net (in Linz, of all places) had interviewed the battle-hardened auxiliary bishop of Salzburg, Bishop Andreas Laun (he’s been on tv for a couple of decades, when he was "just" a priest) who said that the owner of a Viennese mall, Richard Lugner (which is an Umlaut away from the word for liar, nomen est omen), who’d rented mall space to a sex/abortion clinic by the name of VenusMed, had excommunicated himself by virtue of formal cooperation. The real estate mogul then said he plans to sue the bishop in civil court. My prior post can be found here. Since then, Lugner has said he won’t sue the bishop and instead said he will "turn the other cheek", and invited the bishop to a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Mariazell. The abortion clinic stays though.

Also included is an interview with Cardinal Schoenborn (whose press secretary, the editor of the Catholic press agency in Austria, defended Lugner)

Finally, on Monday Cardinal Schoenborn, archbishop of Vienna, spoke to Austria’s biggest newspaper. Lugner had referred to Bishop Laun as the "launige Bischof" – a word play on his name Laun – Laune is mood, launig moody. Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn said "Das Leben darf man nicht verLUGNERn" – creating a word based on his name (say like…"life cannot be Trump-ed") – as I said Lugner is similar to liar, verlugnern is similar to the words for deny and waste. The Cardinal said:
"The destruction of life must not be made banal and viewed like a shopping trip. It must not be that a society is viewed as a way out. Everything you need to know about abortion is to be found in the Fifth Commandment."
Referring to contraception, he said, "The number of abortions has obviously not been reduced by contraception." He also criticized that there is far too little talk about the consequences for the soul. The argument that some abort because of social or existential want has no validity to him: "Our mothers and grandmothers gave birth to and raised a lot of children under much tougher conditions. It is possibly a sickness of this age to expect a happiness and affluence guarantee."

Schoenborn had no comment on the excommunication matter.

(Canonist Ed Peters does, in his blog, here.)