Allegations against Bishop Bätzing overshadow Catholic Day

Created: 05/25/2022Updated: 05/25/2022 15:26

The chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing.

© Nicolas Armer/dpa/archive image

Criticism of the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference could spoil the mood at the Catholic Day in Stuttgart.

In addition, the number of participants has fallen sharply.

Stuttgart - Shortly before the opening of the Catholic Day in Stuttgart, criticism of the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing, also came from the church.

"I am perplexed and surprised," said the bishop of the host diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Gebhard Fürst, at the opening press conference on Wednesday.

"I don't know the exact scope right now, but I would never do anything like that in my diocese."

The "Zeit" supplement "Christ & Welt" made it known on Tuesday that Bätzing had promoted a pastor in his Limburg diocese despite allegations of sexual harassment.

The priest is said to have verbally and physically sexually harassed a Protestant pastor in training in 2000, and later also a prospective community officer.

A diocese spokesman said that Bätzing had issued a warning against the priest.

Because the priest showed remorse and apologized, Bätzing appointed him district dean.

The President of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Irme Stetter-Karp, pointed out on Wednesday that, to the best of her knowledge, the incidents were not criminally relevant.

"But the question of why Bishop Bätzing then appointed the priest in question as regional dean in this situation is of course a question that I'm probably not the only one asking myself, and in this respect I assume that he may have made a mistake here must also take a stand on the past.”

The Catholic Day was to be opened on Wednesday evening in the presence of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The church festival with 1,500 events is taking place again for the first time in four years, but far fewer participants are expected than last time, around 25,000.

Among them are 7000 contributors.

90,000 people came to the 2018 Catholic Day in Münster.

In view of this decline, those responsible had to ask themselves why the much smaller Catholic Day in Stuttgart, at ten million euros, cost the same as the popular one in Münster and whether it was still justified to spend so much public money on it.

The canon lawyer Thomas Schüller criticized the Catholic Days as "expensive flash in the pan without sustainability".

Stetter-Karp admitted that the number of registrations was not only related to Corona, but also to the fact that the Catholic Church was going through a "crisis situation".

"It is certainly no coincidence that we have over 30 events in the program on the urgent reform issues in the Catholic Church." Among other things, it is about power and the separation of powers, Catholic sexual morality, women's access to all offices and mandatory celibacy the priest (celibacy).

Another overriding issue is the Ukraine war.

The Russian attack poses a challenge, especially for Christians, Stetter-Karp told the German Press Agency.

In principle, following Jesus, Christians are committed to non-violence and peace.

"At the same time, since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, we cannot deny the Ukrainians their right to a sovereign state, to their integrity and to live in freedom.

This leads to massive uncertainties in peace ethics.”

Stetter-Karp warned German politicians against neglecting development policy in view of the current armament efforts.

"We call for the development budget to be linked to defense spending in accordance with the coalition agreement and not to be cut," she said.

"The shocks in the food markets and the depressing news from Africa show how urgent this is."

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Stetter-Karp defended the pope against accusations that he had not clearly distanced himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She perceives that the Pope is trying to keep the lines of communication open and is therefore showing a certain amount of consideration.

At the same time, in a conversation with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, he also made it clear that he was not "Putin's altar boy".

"I think that's a clear word from him," said Stetter-Karp.

"Perhaps, as is often the case with Pope Francis, it is not easy to perceive a line and an either/or." dpa