March 20, 2022 is an important date for the Catholic Church. Then there are parish council elections in the Bavarian dioceses. Elections are always mood tests. And with this vote, not only will the results be groundbreaking, even the nomination will reveal a lot about the state of the most important denomination in this country. In many places it has become difficult to find enough women and men to form bodies.
This problem is also described in the overall strategy of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which has been worked out with great effort, with which it wants to counter the two big problems that it faces: that it reaches fewer and fewer people. And that their income is dwindling. The outlined solution to the problem of volunteers? The term is to be expanded in the future. Instead of “honor” and “office”, it should be about “voluntary commitment”, that sounds less binding.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make big changes. But sometimes small things are just small things that hardly change anything. When looking at the ideas about how things should continue in the Archdiocese of around a hundred experts under the guidance of a management consultancy over the past 15 months, the second impression arises. In the future, Cardinal Reinhard Marx should also pay attention to the relationship between expenditure and income. But first of all the question arises as to whether that was the case with the cocky “overall strategy process” christened project?
There is little concrete in its list of results. The Church wants to continue to address all people. That certainly makes sense. In special moments – beautiful ones like births, but also depressing ones like misfortunes – she wants to be even more prominent. That is certainly wise in terms of target group maintenance. But what should be omitted for this – that is not spelled out. Even a number of how many buildings the archbishopric was supposed to part with by when is missing.
“Developing an impact + shaping the church” is not the first melodious program that Cardinal Reinhard Marx initiates. In 2008, shortly after his appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, he initiated “Giving Faith a Future”. Its goal: “The development of a future-oriented structure and personnel plan based on the changed situation of the Church and society.” For 2020.