God created man in his own image. God himself is reflected in every single person. It is a core tenet of Christianity, in which the Christian commandment of charity and the principle of inviolable human dignity are rooted. In radicalized thinking, however, this equal dignity of all people is either denied or relativized and declared irrelevant for political action, write the German Catholic bishops in its statement adopted on Thursday. Ethnic nationalism is therefore incompatible with the Christian view of God and humanity.
Right-wing extremists also make use of Catholic positions
At their spring general assembly that ended on Thursday in Augsburg, the diocesan and auxiliary bishops unanimously adopted this declaration. The top shepherds have positioned themselves against the AfD more clearly and sharply than ever before, even mentioning them by name in the paper. Never before have the Catholic bishops warned so explicitly about a party represented in the Bundestag. It is a significant and historic signal to society.
This is all the more true since Catholic positions such as the protection of unborn life are occupied and exploited by right-wing populists and right-wing extremists. A clear demarcation was urgently needed here. The paper will also trigger a lot of discussion within the Catholic Church, after all, AfD members and supporters are also represented in the churches. How do you deal, for example, with a parish councilor who is in the AfD, as with a first communion catechist?
The bishops say they want to remain willing to talk and seek dialogue with AfD sympathizers. But at their core they are unmistakable and above all: united. Every bishop can sign every single sentence of the declaration, said the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing.
This is remarkable considering how divided the bishops have often been recently. And at the beginning of this general assembly it briefly looked as if this bishops’ meeting could also end in quarrels and quarrels. Shortly before the general assembly, Rome had sent a blue letter asking the bishops to remove a vote on the statutes of the Synodal Committee from the agenda. The committee was supposed to perpetuate the German “Synodal Way” reform debate, but from the perspective of the Romans, this has schismatic potential with Luther’s trauma and is therefore being fought with ironclad.
Bätzing removed the item from the agenda, but did not spare his criticism of the Kurials and accused them of delaying. At the end of the general assembly he expressed himself in a more conciliatory manner again and said that the conflict had to be resolved through discussion. Bätzing never tires of emphasizing that the German synodal path and the global synodal process initiated by Pope Francis do not contradict each other, but can complement each other. A delegation will travel to Rome “soon,” Bätzing said, but without giving any details.
Instead of escalating the dispute with Rome, the bishops have now managed, for the first time in a long time, to jointly set an urgently needed social exclamation mark.