"Put it on conviction": Bavarian priest provokes criminal process - to point out abuse

Created: 12/25/2021, 7:33 PM

From: Florian Naumann

Jesuit priest Jörg Alt explains in a video why he is “trying to convict”.

© Screenshot: Vimeo

A priest wants to be sentenced in court - for an action shortly before Christmas.

Above all, however, the Jesuit Jörg Alt wants to point out a grievance.

Nuremberg - The Nuremberg Jesuit priest Jörg Alt is spending these days, according to his own statements, a Christmas like he "never had". He found out just on December 23, before criminal proceedings against himself. Alt will not hover in the highest concern - because he deliberately provoked the investigations of the public prosecutor's office. The clergyman, he says, wants to draw attention to a grievance.

As Alt himself announced on Twitter, the authorities are investigating him for "particularly serious theft".

"That's right!" Commented Alt coolly.

Because the 60-year-old was of course not a pickpocket.

On Tuesday (December 21), he distributed groceries openly on the street, as reported by Bayerischer Rundfunk, among others - together with activists he had previously climbed over fences and opened locked supermarket dumpsters.

So Alt has "containerized", as this activity is also called.

In a video message, the Jesuit also explained what prompted him to take the step.

Nuremberg: Priest Alt wants to be convicted in court - and is happy about the "wave of solidarity"

"The low point for me was the year 2018," said Alt - and raised allegations against the Christian Social Minister-President Markus Söder. “On the one hand, a prime minister has ordered a cross to be hung in all public buildings. But it was the same Prime Minister who framed the refugee crisis in 2015 with the narrative of asylum tourism. ”The priest also named other problems in quick succession - above all the climate crisis, but also approaching food shortages and natural disasters. He is aiming for a conviction with his action.

Advent was a time of hope, Alt explained, and things could still be turned around.

With his "civil disobedience" he wanted to make people think.

That seems to have succeeded in part: On Christmas Day, Alt thanked him on Twitter for an “unbelievable wave of solidarity”.

One background: Alt has publicly asked for donations.

"I don't want to take money from the order or our Jesuit charity worldwide for my legal fees," he emphasized.

Containers is still a criminal offense - students in Munich were also fined

The most important success for the Jesuit, however, is likely to be the public sensation. The clergyman must not necessarily hope for an acquittal. Two students from Olching near Munich were caught by police officers in their "containers" in 2018 and subsequently reported - they were found guilty in two instances, even if the punishment was mild at the same time. In this case, too, the supermarket in question, an Edeka, pointed out that the food had to be thrown away according to the law.

A change in the situation will presumably have to be made by politics rather than by interpretation of the law.

In 2019, a corresponding attempt failed.

At the Justice Ministers' Conference of the Länder, an initiative to no longer criminalize the removal of food from supermarket garbage containers had failed.

Above all, the Union ministers - who make up the majority in the body - had not been able to bring about a new regulation, according to the Greens at the time.

CDU and CSU in the criticism: Nuremberg clergy quotes the Pope and hopes for the traffic light

Old to these problems is aware of how he in an interview with the website

said. “Courts cannot decide otherwise as long as the legislature has not decriminalized this issue”. he said: "The previous C-governments have not taken on this problem and my hope is that the new government, which has listed the problem of food waste in the coalition agreement on page 45, will take action faster and more appropriately," emphasized Alt - und thus directed a clear request to the traffic light coalition.

Incidentally, Alt and his colleagues refer to none other than Pope Francis in their action.

"We have to put an end to the throw-away mentality, we who ask the Lord for our daily bread", Alt quotes the pontiff on his homepage: "The waste of food is partly to blame for hunger and climate change." (

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