Ten months after the surprising acquittal of the Benedictine monk Abraham Sauer for being granted church asylum, the next instance is dealing with the sensitive issue. However, the appeal hearing this Friday before the Bavarian Higher Regional Court in Bamberg is no longer explicitly about the facts, but about whether the legal assessment of the first-instance judgment was correct. “It will be decided on an individual basis,” said court spokesman Stefan Tratz and at the same time dampened expectations that the judgment could be transferred one-to-one to other such cases.
Last April, the district court in Kitzingen found that church asylum for a rejected refugee was illegal and therefore a criminal offence. Nevertheless, the judge acquitted the accused monk because in this case his individual basic rights of freedom of belief and conscience outweighed the monopoly of the state.
“As far as we know, this is the first acquittal in a procedure for granting church asylum in Bavaria,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice in Munich. “Kitzingen’s decision was something special,” said Franz Bethäuser, the defender of the accused 50-year-old.
The Benedictine Abbey of Münsterschwarzach is located in the district of Kitzingen
(Photo: Imago Images)
The public prosecutor’s office in Würzburg accused the friar of the Benedictine Abbey of Münsterschwarzach (Kitzingen district) in the district court of being an accessory to illegal residence without the required residence permit. In August 2020, the accused Sauer had granted church asylum to a man born in the Gaza Strip, although he was to be deported to the EU country Romania. “When I see what some people suffer, I’m willing to accept imprisonment,” the Benedictine explained his actions at the time. The human rights situation in Romania is precarious. There the refugee entered the European Union for the first time and registered.
According to the so-called Dublin procedure, this country is also responsible for the asylum application. If the person concerned is apprehended in another EU country, he can be sent back to the country of entry. This is to ensure that an asylum application is only examined by one member state.
“When taking in refugees, and not just in the case of church asylum, it’s about the values of faith and living faith. Where people are in need, they have to be helped out of our Christian responsibility,” explained the Münsterschwarzach Abbey its commitment. “We take care of the people who are on the fringes, who are forgotten,” Sauer said after the first-instance verdict. “It’s about human dignity, about human rights.”
The court proceedings in Kitzingen came about because the judge considered a main hearing necessary and had not signed a penalty order against the monk issued by the public prosecutor’s office. The prosecution then appealed against the acquittal of the district court. Now it comes to the process in Bamberg. Only one day of negotiations is scheduled. The public prosecutor’s office in Kitzingen demanded a fine of 2,400 euros for the accused.
70 procedures for granting church asylum in two years
According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, church asylum is a Christian tradition to avoid particular humanitarian hardship. Churches are trying to protect migrants who they see as particularly vulnerable and in need of protection from being deported. “The refugee is a completely blameless young man who poses no threat to internal security. That is very important,” the judge in Kitzingen stated.
The Bavarian Catholic Office is currently assuming around two dozen cases with a total of around 50 people who receive church asylum from the Catholic Church. The Evangelical regional church knows of 31 church asylums in its area with 40 adults and eleven children. According to the Ministry of Justice, 27 procedures were initiated in 2020 and 43 in the past year against church members in Bavaria for the granting of church asylum. Charges were brought in a total of six of the proceedings initiated in the two years. “None of these procedures have been finalized so far.”
According to the court spokesman, the Senate at the Bavarian Supreme Court could confirm the monk’s acquittal or make its own decision. Appeals against it are no longer possible. If legal errors were proven, the Senate could also send the procedure back to Kitzingen, said Tratz.