Even today, the old Goethe manages to embarrass parents all over the world with the Gretchen question. Because at the latest when the first child starts school, the question arises: Roman Catholic, Protestant – or even non-denominational? What classes should our child attend?
Out of enthusiasm one actually likes to visit the beautiful evangelical children’s services in Ebersberg. You can sit outside, the music is child-friendly and cheerful, and there’s usually a gift for the little ones. But the baptismal register says Roman Catholic. You can’t shake off your own upbringing completely. And it’s important what the little ones notice.
In the end you decide to be Roman Catholic, because: It’s all one thing anyway, ecumenism and stuff like that. We are all the happier that the decision is made for us, at least on the first day of school: after school enrolment, there is an ecumenical opening prayer for the first graders and their families. In the Catholic Parish Church. The children are allowed to sit at the front with their school bags, the families stay in the back rows. The first song is sung, an ecumenical one of course: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.”
But whoever is not among them is the evangelical pastor. He is missing and does not appear during the whole devotion. The Catholic pastor also noticed this and apologized confidently: Unfortunately, he informed his colleague too late. The ecumenical devotion is now carried out by the Catholic side, the children learn something about Saint Sebastian’s cranium and receive the Catholic blessing.
A rogue who thinks evil of it. But maybe you have to look at it from a different perspective: In Ebersberg, ecumenism has progressed so far that it is actually all one. Maybe so far that it will soon be included in the children’s timetables? This in turn could be of great help to future generations of parents. And schism is really just an antiquated foreign word that you have to google.