HVD President congratulates Cardinal Reinhard Marx on his election

The President of the Humanist Association of Germany, Frieder Otto Wolf, has congratulated the new Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), Cardinal Reinhard Marx, on his election. Cardinal Marx was elected as the successor to the outgoing chairman of the DBK, Robert Zollitsch, during the spring plenary assembly of the German Bishops’ Conference last Wednesday. In a letter at the weekend, Wolf wrote that the plenary assembly of the German Bishops’ Conference had elected “a theologian who is personally involved in international contexts and is therefore very familiar with the diverse crisis situations, but also with the religious and ideological plurality that exists in Europe today.” Cardinal Marx is, among other things, a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community. Referring to the growing proportion of non-denominational people in Germany and the progressive ideological pluralization, Wolf expresses his expectation in the letter that Cardinal Marx will work in the coming years for an “open and appropriate dialogue with non-believers and for the equal treatment of religious and ideological communities as prescribed by our Basic Law”. He also called on the new Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference to take into account the Church’s responsibility for the work of Christians worldwide. These are “sometimes themselves a source of persecution and degradation directed against women, non-believers or people who do not have a heterosexual identity. A church that claims to have contemporary orientations and to represent these at universities or in the public sphere must not ignore its duties as a globally active religious community,” says Frieder Otto Wolf.