`Evil or mad' church crisis

`Evil or mad'

church crisis

A crisis setting Swiss Roman Catholics against the Vatican escalated when a group of priests demanded the resignation of a bishop branded by opponents as either evil or mad.

The Council of Priests in Switzerland's second-biggest diocese, Chur, accused their bishop, Wolfgang Haas, of splitting the church by his authoritarianism and said he should finally stand down or be forced to quit by the Pope.

Martin Kopp, a representative of the priests, said Bishop Haas had proved himself to be "psychologically incapable" of listening to opponents. "At the end, people in the room were furious. They said to him either you are wicked or you are really very, very ill," Kopp said. "Personally I believe the latter is true.""We have a madman at the head of the diocese. And he's wrecking it," he said in a telephone interview.

AP - Geneva