Cologne
Archdiocese employees distance themselves from Woelki
Archbishop of Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. photo
©Oliver Berg/dpa
The protest against Cologne Cardinal Woelki is spreading. Now more than 60 full-time employees of the archdiocese are openly opposing him.
More than 60 pastors, community leaders and other officials of the Archdiocese of Cologne have distanced themselves in a statement from Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. “It’s an incredibly dynamic development, many want to sign,” said Pastor Dirk Peters on Monday in Cologne to the German Press Agency. The statement said: “We are calling for a real fresh start. This includes personnel and systemic changes.”
Protests against Woelki in the largest Catholic diocese in Germany have been manifested for a long time, among other things, members of a Düsseldorf congregation showed the cardinal the red card. But the fact that so many employees of the archdiocese are now opposing their supreme boss is a new dimension of resistance.
“We are outraged by the recent revelations about the cardinal’s and his staff’s communications strategy,” the statement said. Despite the greatest skepticism, some of them tried to start a dialogue with Woelkis after returning from a five-month break in early March. “But when the PR strategies became known, Cardinal Woelki used up the last of his trust.” The crisis in the archdiocese has now “reached an unimaginable low”.
Woelki, who had been criticized for years, hired a communications agency in 2020 that had drawn up plans for his “survival” in office. Among other things, the PR experts suggested that he should try to get the Advisory Board of Victims of Sexual Abuse on his side in a dispute over an unpublished report.
Strategy “not worthy of a cardinal”
Even just proposing such a strategy is unacceptable, criticized Ingrid Kloss, deputy diocesan chairwoman of the Catholic Women’s Community. But then to implement them one-to-one is “not worthy of a Catholic Christian and certainly not of a cardinal”. Pastor Klaus Thranberend explained: “I am reaching my limit as far as my vow of obedience to the bishop is concerned.” Municipal officer Marianne Arndt demanded that now is the time to get up.
Woelki has not said a word about it since the PR agency’s proposals were unveiled by the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”. Only his deputy, Guido Assmann, rejected the accusation that the Advisory Board had been instrumentalized.
Woelki took a break at the end of last year after Pope Francis accused him of “big mistakes” in his communication. In early March, he returned and asked for a “second chance”. However, the Pope had previously asked him to hand in his resignation. Francis has not yet decided whether to accept the request. As a result, there has been a state of limbo for months, which both critics and supporters of Woelkis find to be unreasonable.