ÖVP bosses Karl Nehammer and FPÖ bosses Herbert Kickl will compete in the verbal parallel slalom on their respective political Ash Wednesdays tonight – and likely on parallel worlds as well.
The stains on the white shirt from the apricot jam, which is as rum-saturated as it is fluid, still haven’t been removed. They come from donuts, which the newsroom has been making available on Shrove Tuesday since 1848. Nothing else is to be revealed. We do not want to be guilty of breach of editorial confidentiality.
So today is the day after, Ash Wednesday. ashtray? ashtray? Lent began with him. Many will also be aware of it there, where Christianity is melting like an iceberg in climate change. So in Austria.
The fact that in the masses of this day the cross of ashes is drawn on the forehead by priests or by these representatives (also women!) is probably still present. Yes? “Repent and believe in the gospel” is the motto of this act, and now a phrase from the book of Genesis is less common: “Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return”. Shall we today be spared the memory of our transience and, yes, shall we say, our death? The supposedly backward and old-fashioned church has adapted too much to the times that it ignores dying and death whenever possible.
“Aschenkreuz to go” for those in a hurry
The church also acts punctually, this time in a positive way, in the places where ash crosses are donated. In several cities today, “for those in a hurry”, as is half apologetic, an “ash cross to go” is offered outside sacred buildings. At Vienna Central Station, for example (Room of Silence, 6.30am – 7pm) or in the shadow of Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Quo vadis, Stephansplatz 6, 12pm – 6pm). Successful examples of how to approach people mid-life, easily, or just to be there for them. This requires imagination and a modicum of courage, certainly not an explicit move by Rome or major church reforms – whatever that might be meant.
Nehammer and Kickl in parallel worlds
Speaking of what do you mean by that. This brings us right back to “political Ash Wednesday”. A tradition that has somehow remained alien to Austria to this day and was imported from Bavaria. In the parallel verbal competition and certainly also in parallel worlds, Chancellor Karl Nehammer in his role as head of the ÖVP and head of the FPÖ Herbert Kickl in his role as head of the FPÖ appear at the same time in Klagenfurt and in Ried tonight.
Will they wear an ash cross? One reason or another for scattering ashes on the head would be conceivable with Karl Nehammer and (with all equidistance above all) Herbert Kickl.
But it will not be the ash cross that the two gentlemen will wear on Ash Wednesday. It’s most likely the beer mug.