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According to abuse reports: registry offices report a flood of church exits

2022-01-26T11:15:57.837Z


According to abuse reports: registry offices report a flood of church exits Created: 01/26/2022, 12:10 p.m By: Raffael Scherer, Michael Acker Church (here Anzing) behind bars: The number of Catholics in the Ebersberg district who are turning their backs on the church has risen sharply since the abuse report was published. © J.Dziemballa People across the county want to leave the church. This i


According to abuse reports: registry offices report a flood of church exits

Created: 01/26/2022, 12:10 p.m

By: Raffael Scherer, Michael Acker

Church (here Anzing) behind bars: The number of Catholics in the Ebersberg district who are turning their backs on the church has risen sharply since the abuse report was published.

© J.Dziemballa

People across the county want to leave the church.

This is a particularly unfavorable time for the upcoming parish council elections.

District – The abuse report for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising shakes the Catholic Church – and many believers are taking consequences.

The flood of requests to leave the church is now becoming a challenge for the towns and communities in the Ebersberg district.

And: In March there will be parish council elections.

In many places, those responsible have a hard time finding candidates.

In Ebersberg, where at the end of the 1980s the district court convicted priest H. of sexual abuse before he was reinstated in another parish and reoffended there again, the number of resignations almost doubled in the first few weeks of the year: by January 26, 2021 there were 17, this year there are already 31 according to the city. The Ebersberg registry office is also responsible for Kirchseeon and Aßling.

Vaterstetten registry office flooded with resignations: "We do almost nothing else"

The situation in Grafing is similar, where Pastor H. worked in St. Ägidius in the mid-1980s and abused several minors.

On average, the registry office registers 13 to 14 resignations per month.

In the few days since the abuse report was published, there have been eight, reports Mayor Christian Bauer.

"We do almost nothing else anymore," says Andreas Ruoff, head of the registry office in Vaterstetten, about the flood of church resignations.

Telephone and written appointment requests would be received constantly.

Since last Thursday, 19 people have left the church, and a further 13 appointments have been made for the rest of the week, says Kay Rainer, head of the town hall press office.

The municipalities of Markt Schwaben and Poing in the north of the district also confirm the massive increase in the number of people leaving the church.

Problems with the search for candidates for the parish council election: Markt Schwabener starts a "wake-up call"

The next parish council elections in March this year come at a very unfavorable time. The search for candidates is difficult in many places. "Where are you?" Jochen Speicher asks his Markt Schwabener, for example. Because the still incumbent parish council is having a hard time finding candidates for the upcoming elections at all. With a "wake-up call" he is trying to get people not to think about it for so long and just dare to join in.

"Things are not going well," he summarizes the current situation.

As of now, he only has three candidates on the list.

It would take at least six by Wednesday next week to be able to hold an election at all.

"Actually, we were supposed to close our list as early as next weekend, but we have now extended it to the middle of next week," he says.

Upcoming parish council election: Grafing and Kirchseeon are also still looking

If even the extended first does not lead to success?

Then, in the worst case, there would be no parish council until the next election, says Speicher.

Then, in the future, the individual projects would have to be taken care of individually.

"We still need candidates, but we already have about 90 percent," Andreas Heidenreich from the parish council in Grafing cautiously gives the all-clear.

Despite "the difficult circumstances" surrounding the abuse report, he hopes to be able to fill the last posts through personal discussions and persuasion.

At the same time, he is certain that most believers make a clear distinction between the church as an institution and the local Grafing parish.

Problem when looking for candidates: Four years of volunteering is too long for many

For Ilona Dreier from the Baldham parish council, too, the allegations of abuse are “a no-go and terrible.” But she and the candidates are clear that the parish counts on site and that the parish council is committed to exactly this.

"It's not that we already have too many candidates," says Ingrid Eberherr in Kirchseeon.

She, too, is still busy recruiting, mainly through personal conversations.

So far she has not heard any concerns about the abuse cases, the basic tenor is always: "The local church is something different than the official church."

Claudia Bösselmann from Vaterstetten reports that the search for candidates for the parish council is becoming increasingly difficult: "I think it's not just the report, it's the time in general," she says.

In principle, it has become more and more complicated to find people who want to volunteer for a longer period of time.

Especially with the obligatory term of four years, it is quite understandable that many committed citizens only register for foreseeable projects, but not for the service in the parish council itself.

Forstinninger sure: Citizens can distinguish between "church institution" and "living Christianity".

"It looks exciting," says Toni Beer from the parish council in Forstinning.

For him, too, the four-year commitment is the biggest problem when recruiting: "A commitment for such a long period of time is simply no longer up to date."

But although the search for candidates is rather tough, he meets people who would like to get involved elsewhere: "As long as that's the case, everything is fine," says Forstinninger.

As far as the report is concerned, he too is certain that the people of Forstinning make a clear distinction between what is “the church as an institution” and what is “practiced Christianity”.

You can read more news from the Ebersberg region here.

By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Ebersberg newsletter. 

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-01-26

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