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Anti-discrimination commissioner Ataman: Church employees "not yet comprehensively protected against discrimination"
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Joerg Carstensen / dpa
For months, the Catholic bishops have been working on a more modern labor law for church employees - but the Federal Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Ferda Ataman is not satisfied with the easing.
The so-called church clause in the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) must be changed, she said on Wednesday in Berlin.
»In the future, there should only be requirements regarding religious affiliation or the way of life of employees in the narrowest area of proclamation.« The article regulates »permissible different treatment due to religion or belief«.
So far, employees of the Catholic Church have been threatened with dismissal if they marry same-sex people, but also if they marry a second time after a divorce.
According to a decision by the bishops, that is about to change.
However, a nurse who works in a church hospital could still lose her job if she resigns from the church for personal reasons, Ataman said.
»I see this as an encroachment on the rights of employees and as a gateway for discrimination«.
It is "important and long overdue that the churches no longer want to interfere in the private lives of their employees - i.e. with people who are divorced or in a same-sex partnership," she said according to the statement.
“However, the new basic order contains too many exceptions.
Unfortunately, this does not yet provide church employees with comprehensive protection from discrimination.«
The ecumenical working group on homosexuals and the church (HuK) also criticized the new basic order as insufficient.
"It remains a mystery why the bishops do not explicitly promise trans* and inter* people the promised protection," said spokesman Thomas Pöschl.
He spoke of a “serious deficit”.
The new basic order of the church service passed in Würzburg on Tuesday is intended to reform the labor law for the approximately 800,000 employees of the Catholic Church and Caritas.
In order for it to become legally binding, Germany's 27 dioceses still have to officially adopt it.
»Openness towards the message of the gospel«
The first dioceses have already announced that they want to do this - including the Archdiocese of Cologne under its archbishop, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, who is considered to be particularly conservative.
With the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, the Archdiocese of Bamberg and the dioceses of Augsburg, Würzburg, Eichstätt and Passau, six of the seven Bavarian dioceses also announced on Wednesday that they wanted to implement the new regulation.
"Never before, diversity in church institutions is recognized as an enrichment," the German Bishops' Conference announced in view of the adoption of the new labor law.
»All employees, regardless of their specific tasks, their origin, their religion, their age, their disability, their gender, their sexual identity and their way of life can be representatives of the unconditional love of God and thus of a church that serves people.« The only one The condition is »a positive basic attitude and openness towards the message of the gospel«.
sol/dpa
