33 Years in the service of pastoral care

adminonNovember 23, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

33 Years in the service of pastoral care

A married man baptizing a child in a Catholic church? A chaplain who offers meditation in prison? The Archdiocese of Cologne celebrates the 50th anniversary of the permanent diaconate. Winfried Reers is one of them.

Winfried Reers talks to little Till as if the boy could already understand every word he says. "I sign you with the cross," he tells the baby, drawing a cross on his forehead with his thumb. The 69-year-old wears alb and stole – garments in the Catholic Church. This is how he baptizes Till in St. Mary Magdalene in Rheinbreitbach. "After me, your parents, your godparents and my wife Monika, representing the parish, will also make this symbol of Jesus on your forehead," he continues.

Deacon in the Catholic pastoral care area of Unkel

Winfried Reers has been married for 47 years and has worked as a permanent deacon in the Catholic pastoral area of Unkel for 33 years. Since then, he baptizes children, buries the deceased and marries couples. He is allowed to perform these tasks and more because he was ordained as a permanent deacon. What he is not allowed to do, however, is to hear confessions or to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ during a mass. In the Catholic Church, these tasks are reserved for ordained priests, such as the parish priest or the chaplain in the parishes.

"At the time, my wife said yes to Cardinal Hoffner," Reers says, referring to his wife's approval of his career choice. Because: If a married man wants to become a permanent deacon, the okay of his wife is a mandatory prerequisite. "She supported me every day, took on sexton duties, was a catechist, and, and, and," he emphasized. "Being a deacon without my family, and in the first place without my wife, I would never have experienced and gone through like this."

Sunday afternoon, Rheinbreitbach, a quiet residential area. The son and daughter of Monika and Winfried Reers have come with their families for coffee, the grandchildren romp around their grandfather. The presses two foam balls into the hand of little Lilly. He himself takes a ball and closes his fist together. "Blow," he says to his granddaughter Marie, who is standing next to it. "And 'Simsalabim' say." "Simsalabim", says Marie and blows on her grandpa's fist. Reers opens his hand, the ball has disappeared, but Lilli now has three balls instead. The girls jump up and down enthusiastically. "Great!", applaud the parents.

Magical deacon

Reers also uses tricks like this to make public appearances. The "Magic Deacon" – he has had the name protected – can be booked for parish celebrations or family parties, for example. Reers has trained as a magician and ventriloquist. He is a member of the "Magic Circle," an association of magicians, and once even levitated former Wurzburg bishop Friedhelm Hofmann during a show.

But it doesn't have to be that prominent for the permanent deacon. "I have experienced so many reactions," he recounts. "An elderly lady once told me after a performance that she hadn't laughed in seven years. And today she laughed again for the first time after the hard times of the past."

He also wants to convey joy as a permanent deacon. In St. Mary Magdalene is allowed to joke during the baptismal service, Reers makes winking remarks at the appropriate places. Till's parents seem relaxed as he pours consecrated water over their son's head. He can well empathize with her feelings, because Reers has already baptized his granddaughter Lilly in this church. And here he has led his daughter to the altar and married her afterwards. "That already went to the substance," he says. "That was something very special for me as a deacon."

Messengers of a new age

The ministry of the deacon is divided into caritas, liturgy and proclamation. In 1968, the Archdiocese of Cologne was the first diocese in the world to introduce the profession of permanent deacon: At that time, on 28. April consecrated the first five married men in Cologne Cathedral. They have so far been followed by more than 400 others in the Archdiocese of Cologne alone.

This Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Cologne celebrates the 50th anniversary with a pontifical mass in Cologne Cathedral followed by a ceremony and an accompanying exhibition in Maternushaus.

A jet-black reckoning with joseph ratzinger

Pope em. Benedict XVI. (Archive) © Osservatore Romano/Romano Siciliani (CBA)

For eight years, the pontificate of Benedict XVI has been. ends. But his activities in the church still cause controversy. A new book considers him a major culprit in the Catholic Church abuse scandal.

The relationship of German Catholics to "their Pope" Benedict has features of a tragic father-child story. In the 1960s, he was considered one who shook up Catholic dogmatics, one of the outstanding theologians of the great Vatican reform council, one who was looked up to. 20 years later, when he was the chief guardian of the faith, reprimanding dissenters and guarding the line between what were Catholic truths and what were dangerous heresies, the picture darkened. He became the bogeyman of all those who wanted a free theology with contemporary approaches to dogmatics, liturgy, moral and social teaching.

Astonished, they then saw others cheering him after his election as pope, and briefly they cheered with. Until, in the course of his pontificate, he accommodated the ultra-conservatives, triggering crises with misleading statements on Islam or Judaism. For his critics, the feared punisher now became the old man stumbling awkwardly in the leadership office, who reacted to criticism sometimes lamenting and sometimes grumbling. Only when he voluntarily resigned was he once again spoken of with respect – which, of course, ended abruptly when he once again spoke out from his retirement with conservative (and misunderstandable) positions.

The book by Reisinger and Rohl

The question of what the real reason for the resignation was still haunts German Catholics today, and so it is fitting that exactly eight years later a book about the "Ratzinger system" is published. The authors, theologian Doris Reisinger and film director Christoph Rohl, interpret the entire thinking and work of the theologian, cardinal and pope from his dealings with the abuse of minors and dependent people by clerics.

One might also say that they are trying to use the mistakes he made in dealing with this mega-scandal to highlight his entire thinking as misguided and harmful to the church. Also the resignation is in this perspective nothing else than the natural consequence of this failure.

Comprehensive perspective of the narrative

The authors describe in detail how, since the early 1980s, the Catholic Church on the ground and in the Vatican has tried, with diminishing success, to counter media reports of sexual abuse with evasiveness and appeasement. They trace how what began in the U.S. with an isolated case grew over the years into a conflagration – and how the men at the top of the church did nothing for a long time to bring the perpetrators to secular and/or ecclesiastical justice.

Little of this is new, but the narrative's comprehensive, almost global perspective is a remarkable achievement. What is new is the way Reisinger and Rohl describe the actions of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Interpret in this maelstrom of scandals, cover-ups and new revelations. While they concede that he recognized and named the extent of the crimes earlier than others in the Vatican. They acknowledge that by transferring the church's criminal proceedings to the strict Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he made at least a small step forward. But they accuse him of having done so much too late, only under massive public prere, and then also for the wrong motives.

The case of Marcial Maciel Degollado

If one follows the authors, Ratzinger should have cracked down on the abuse scandal as early as the mid-1980s with the same severity that he displayed elsewhere against liberal or socialist deviants from church teaching. Thus, however, it took him and, with him, the entire church leadership decades to recognize the extent and respond.

As the most hair-raising example, the book recounts the case of Marcial Maciel Degollado, a pathological swindler from Mexico. He founded the "Legionaries of Christ," a Catholic priestly order that is still active worldwide, but had several wives and children in his private double life and sexually abused numerous minors and seminarians over decades. It was not church superiors who put a stop to him, but the American journalist Jason Berry with his revelations.

Too late and too little consistent

The behavior of Ratzinger, who suspected earlier than others in the Vatican what a felon there was in Pope John Paul II. in and out, the book authors judge it to be completely inadequate. While they acknowledge that, unlike many others in the Vatican, he did not accept bulging "donation" envelopes from Maciel on principle.

They also concede that in 2005 he sent a special investigator to Mexico against the will of the cardinal secretary of state. And that, as soon as he had the power as pope, he condemned the aged perpetrator to a life of penance and seclusion on the basis of the overwhelming facts. But all this again falls under the verdict: far too late and far too little consistently.

Tiring in parts

The authors' verdict on the motives of the hesitant clean man at the top of the church is even harsher. The prefect of the faith and later pope, as his published speeches show, was never concerned with the victims and their injured bodies and souls, but always only with the purity of the church, the priesthood and the sacraments. Even the fact that Benedict XVI. being the first pope to meet abuse victims on several trips, listen to their accounts and pray with them is not enough from their point of view; they characterize it (quoting an abuse victim) as a mere PR action.

These and similar sweeping condemnations make the reading of this otherwise insightful book tedious in places. If other biographers of Ratzinger have conjured up the luminous figure of a brilliant theologian and fearless fighter against aberrations and crimes in the Church, this book, almost in mirror image, plunges everything into deep blackness. Neither does justice to the thoughts and actions of the German theologian on the papal throne.

FDP politician Markus Loning has been the German government's human rights commissioner for almost a year now. He just returned from a trip to Tunisia, where he took stock of developments since the revolution. A balance sheet interview – also on his term in office.

CBA: Mr. Loning, what is the situation in Tunisia like??

Loning: People on the ground are clearly talking about a revolution for dignity and democracy. All my interlocutors have made it clear: We want transparency and responsible government representatives. People are preparing for the elections to the constituent assembly in June. At the same time, there is a lot of thinking about reforming the justice system.
CBA: How optimistic are you that the protest movements in the other North African and Arab countries will be similarly positive??

Loning: First of all, I really hope so. In Egypt, too, the democracy movement has already gained a lot of ground. Of course, this is all a long, arduous process that involves a lot of work. We have experienced this in Eastern Europe. And it doesn't always have to be about revolutions – in the kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan, changes from within are definitely underway and possible.
CBA: In Egypt, there were several violent clashes between Muslims and Christian Copts during the revolution. How threatened is religious freedom in the country??

Loning: It should not be overlooked that many Muslims and Christians demonstrated together for freedom and against these attacks. This is an internal social dispute that has not only religious but also social causes. My appeal goes out to political leaders to protect religious freedom, and to social groups to follow a path of peaceful tolerance, and to show those who incite violence and hatred their limits.
CBA: On 1. April marks your one year in office. What are you most disappointed about?

Loning: The handling of press freedom in Turkey.
CBA: What surprised you the most?

Loning: Turkey, too – the good development of human rights there in many other areas. For example, the open discussion about minority ies, the Kurdish question, about the Armenian question or the rights of religious minorities.
CBA: What are your biggest "construction sites" in the coming months?

Loning: North Africa certainly plays a big role, because we should do everything we can to support democratization. Another construction site is the South Caucasus, where protest movements are currently developing along Arab lines but are still suppressed. I am very concerned about Azerbaijan, where a lot of young people have now been thrown into prison for calling for demonstrations. The Balkans and Turkey remain building sites. But I am also concerned about some European problems: the Roma problem, for example, the treatment of homosexuals in Eastern Europe, and the general treatment of minorities. But we must also see at home that we live up to our own expectations.
CBA: What deficits do you see in Germany?

Loning: Dealing with the Muslim minority. The events in North Africa have collapsed the world view of the Sarrazins of this world – they show that democracy and dignity go very well together with Islam. I would like to see less exclusionary discussions in Germany, and more inclusive discussions. The core value of our society is not a religion, but is human rights.

The interview was conducted by Karin Wollschlager.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply