“Müller’s comparisons show once again how alien the values of the Enlightenment and the open handling of criticism still are to the Roman Church today,” said Helmut Fink, Vice President of the Humanist Association of Germany, on Friday in Nuremberg in response to the latest statements by the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Müller.
The bishop told the daily newspaper “Die Welt” that he felt reminded of a “pogrom atmosphere” due to “targeted discrediting campaigns against the Catholic Church”. According to Müller, this grew out of an “artificially generated anger” and included attacks against his church, “whose armor goes back to the struggle of totalitarian ideologies against Christianity”. Although Müller has been known for years in large parts of society for his tendency to make outlandish and defamatory statements, Fink continued, “his new office in Rome means that he has now clearly lost all sense of the rules of the game in modern, open society.” Of course, public criticism of the Catholic Church is permitted, even if it is harshly formulated. It has nothing to do with pogroms. “To use the image of a pogrom atmosphere against one’s own church for this is simply an insult to the victims of actual pogroms. Müller is clearly not ashamed to reinterpret the co-responsibility of the faith he guards for pogroms in the past into a victim role today.” Helmut Fink also reminded the audience that the growing criticism of the church and the actions of clergy was largely coming from disappointed believers. “It seems downright grotesque when Müller sees the church in the role of an innocent victim in view of the obvious inability of his church to honestly clean up the worldwide sexual abuse by clergy that has been covered up for decades.” The causes of the outrage of numerous victims and observers lie in the actions of leading bishops themselves, emphasized Fink. “With his comparisons and reinterpretations, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith not only degrades the victims of the past, but also the living victims of the abuses and misconduct in the Church.” Fink encouraged the faithful at the church base to continue to push for reforms and to come to terms with all the misconduct of their church. This could not only channel frustration and disappointment into constructive channels, but also create a common foundation of values between believers and non-believers. Enlightenment and humanism should no longer be foreign words in the 21st century – not even in Rome.
