Status: 02/28/2023 08:56 a.m
The abbess Mechthild Thürmer is said to have granted church asylum in three cases – and has to answer in court for aiding and abetting illegal residence. The verdict is expected today.
Did mother Mechthild help with illegal residence and thus made herself punishable? This is the question before the District Court of Bamberg. In 2020, the abbess of the Benedictine monastery in Kirchschletten in the district of Bamberg took three refugee women – so-called hardship cases – into church asylum when they were threatened with deportation.
Your lawyer Franz Bethäuser assumes an acquittal. According to Bethäuser, mother Mechthild did nothing wrong. Bettina Nickel, who works as a lawyer at the Catholic Office in Bavaria and takes care of the subject of church asylum, sees it similarly.
“New escalation level”
The nun is not the first to face a court in Bavaria for protecting refugees from deportation. Sister Juliane Seelmann or brother Abraham – in contrast to the rest of Bavaria, there have been several court cases in recent years, especially in northern Bavaria, in the area of the Bamberg public prosecutor’s office. When the first church people in Bavaria stood trial two years ago, observers spoke of a “new level of escalation”.
In the meantime, however, there has been a groundbreaking court ruling by the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court that should reorient the Bavarian approach to church asylum seekers: A year ago, the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court ruled in the case of Brother Abraham from the Münsterschwarzach monastery that there is no criminal liability for those who only tolerate an asylum seeker and does not actively call for staying.
450 preliminary investigations since 2017
Mother Mechthild was awarded the Göttingen Peace Prize in 2021 for her commitment. There are currently around 45 Catholic and 38 Protestant church asylums in Bavaria. This means that parishes, pastors or religious communities take in refugees for a maximum of six months. After all, anyone who has stayed in Germany for six months has a right to an asylum procedure here.
The sanctuary is not a legal institution in its own right, but an expression of a long Christian-humanitarian tradition. In the past, church and state have therefore always come into conflict as to whether it is punishable to grant church asylum. Since there are no separate legal regulations for church asylum, there has been an agreement between the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and representatives of the Catholic and Evangelical Church for so-called hardship cases since 2015 that in justified exceptional cases an individual assessment takes place. Nevertheless, there have been repeated investigations in Bavaria in recent years.
Illegal or Christian?
According to the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, there have been more than 450 investigations into church asylum in Bavaria alone since 2017. Compared to other federal states, Bavaria is much stricter here, as Bettina Nickel from the Catholic Office knows from the exchange with other contacts. “We did surveys to see whether people who granted church asylum were being prosecuted elsewhere and we didn’t get that feedback.”
The decision in the case of Brother Abraham indirectly gives those responsible for church asylum in Bavaria legal certainty. The Nuremberg Jesuit Father Dieter Müller, who currently has three people in church asylum, derives practical consequences for his actions from this judgement: “Of course I’m following the proceedings. Brother Abraham, now Mechthild. I wouldn’t let myself be stopped if I approached correctly keep the dossier procedure and inform the person concerned correctly. And I will not kick him out in an emergency situation.”
Church asylums are still in demand: not only Jesuit Dieter Müller has a waiting list. The Bavarian Catholic Office also reports an increase in inquiries for church asylums in Bavaria.