Following the conclusion of the 2nd Ecumenical Church Congress in Munich, the Humanist Association of Germany (HVD) welcomes the opening of the two major German churches to critical dialog. The diversity of the need for discussion and the growing willingness to discuss was made clear by the program of the Kirchentag with over 3,000 events.
At the same time, however, the Humanist Association of Germany must also note that the debate on abuse, which has also been a major issue for the Church for months, was hardly mentioned in the program of the Kirchentag. Only two of the more than 3,000 events were dedicated to this topic. In comparison: Interested parties were able to engage with the Bible study at more than 130 events. The organizers thus failed to meet society’s interest in coming to terms with the incidents of abuse and mistreatment in the church.
The HVD therefore welcomes all the more the critical statements made by numerous politicians at the church congress: Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Thierse (SPD), for example, said that the Catholic Church should not quickly push aside “the current shock” and called for fundamental corrections within the Church. In the opinion of the Humanist Association of Germany, these corrections can only correspond to a subordination of the barely transparent sanction mechanisms within the church to the German constitutional system and an unrestricted cooperation of the church with the judicial authorities in cases of suspected abuse. In addition, the dignity of victims must once again be accorded a higher value within the church than the principles of order within the church.
These demands, which are almost self-evident in a constitutional state such as the Federal Republic of Germany, have been upheld by the Humanist Association of Germany for years and have recently been put to the Church from various quarters, but are still meeting with resistance within the two major churches. There was repeated talk of a “conspiracy campaign against the churches” on the fringes of the Kirchentag. Given the facts, this is out of the question. It is the task of the churches to stimulate dialog within the church and to proactively raise awareness, which the HVD calls on their representatives to do.
The HVD is astonished by the statements of the current Federal President Horst Köhler, who called for a new inner mission in a newspaper interview: “My request to the Christian churches is: fight for each individual. They have a mission from God to convey his message because it is something good, because it helps people. Hence my appeal to the churches to start a new inner mission.” Mr. Köhler is the president of all Germans, including those of other faiths and non-denominational ones. In his function as the highest public representative of the Federal Republic of Germany, recommending the proselytizing of other people does not correspond to the duties of his political office. Especially just a few days before the start of the fourth Islam Conference, such a statement is an unacceptable affront to all non-believers or people of other faiths living in Germany.
Angela Merkel also professed Christianity as the supreme authority in a strangely unquestionable manner: “Christian conviction must always be made clear in everyday life, in all the problems we face,” she proclaimed on the pages of the Federal Government on the occasion of the Kirchentag. At the same time, it claimed worldwide validity for “our concept of the Christian image of man”. In view of the ideological neutrality of a secular state, this statement is more than a verbal gaffe. Against the backdrop of the current discussions about the Afghanistan mission and international military operations, this statement is fatal, as it can give the impression that the deployment of German soldiers in the Hindu Kush is a crusade of the Christianized West.
