A decade in the shadow of the crisis

adminonNovember 29, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Bishop Stephan Ackermann © Harald Oppitz (KNA)

The abuse crisis dominated his tenure so far. Bishop Stephan Ackermann was inaugurated as bishop of Trier ten years ago this Friday. A feeling of gratitude accompanies him despite all the difficulties.

CBA: Cardinal Meisner, then of Cologne, called you on the 24th of December. May 2009 inaugurated as Bishop of Trier. With what feelings do you look back on your jubilee??

Bishop Stephan Ackermann (Bishop of Trier and Abuse Commissioner of the German Bishops' Conference): There is above all the feeling of gratitude. Because I experience that God arranges and guides things, and in the past years I have been able to know that I am supported by many people in the diocese, especially by those who support me in the leadership of the diocese and the people in my close environment.
CBA: What events in these ten years do you remember fondly?
Ackermann: Of course I remember very fondly the great pilgrimage to the Holy Rock in 2012, which my predecessor Reinhard Marx had proclaimed as Bishop of Trier. I have fond memories of the intense time of the diocesan synod. There was a sense of courage for departure and change, which must now prove itself in implementation. To this day, however, the many encounters in the local parishes also count among the beautiful events.
CBA: What were the low blows in this decade?
Ackermann: The most painful thing in the past ten years is, of course, the crisis caused by sexual abuse. But we have to face it with all its consequences, and I am convinced that in the long run it will contribute to a purification and positive change of the church. It is also painful that the faith loses so dramatically in the personal lives of very many baptized people where it is no longer supported by the people's church.
CBA: Have you yourself made mistakes that you regret today??
Ackermann: Of course I have made mistakes – and learned from them. Especially with regard to the ie of sexual abuse, I have often said that we are still in a learning story here.
CBA: In 2009 you became bishop of Trier, and already in 2010 you were appointed abuse commissioner of the Bishops' Conference. How much has this office shaped your activity as a churchman?
Ackermann: This task is basically part of the reality of each day. Of course, it has also made me – and I am grateful for this – more sensitive to the question of dealing with power in general and with the devastating consequences that abuse of power can have on people's lives.
CBA: Hand on heart: as an abuse commissioner, are you more of a crisis manager or more of an active agent who can implement his agenda?
Ackermann: Sometimes I am more one thing, sometimes more the other. In fact, crisis management has often been the order of the day in recent years. And apart from that, it was never just about my agenda, but about the implementation of jointly entered commitments.
CBA: You were the first German bishop in a quarter of a century to call a diocesan synod, putting the fate of the diocese in the hands of clergy and laity alike. What remains of this synod, which ended in 2016, and what effect does it have beyond the boundaries of the diocese??
Ackermann: Since the end of the synod, we have been working to concretize the synod resolutions and translate them into the reality of the diocese. In this respect, the synod is very present in the diocese. What effect it will have beyond the diocese, I can't say yet. We are definitely experiencing curiosity about the synod as an instrument of joint consultation in a diocese. But there is also skepticism whether the consequences that the synod draws, for example, for life in the parishes, are helpful. But I think it's legitimate. Because the success of a synod is not measured by a well-formulated final document, but by a more intensive practice of Christian life.
CBA: You want to implement the largest parish reform in the history of the Diocese of Trier by 2022. But resistance to the creation of large parishes is strong. How confident are you that you will overcome this resistance??
Ackermann: I'm not sure if the planned changes are really the biggest parish reform in the history of the Trier diocese. The effects of secularization were certainly more drastic. But at that time the change was imposed from the outside. Now it is coming from within, from within the diocese itself. I hope that we can take the people in the communities with us through solid information, through the many encounters and conversations on the ground. And I hope that it will be shown in practice: Yes, it is possible. Even more: that the changes in the parish landscape awaken new desire to be church.
CBA: How concerned are you about the future forecast that church membership will more than halve by 2060?
Ackermann: This prognosis does not leave me cold – even more so when scientists say that this decline can only be partially explained by population decline. On the other hand, we have been noticing this trend for some time. In this respect, the forecast is not entirely surprising. With our synod we try to give an answer to this development, so that the diocese becomes fit for the future. Incidentally, the often quoted words of Pope Francis, who says that it is more important and more correct for us as a church to set processes in motion, instead of owning spaces, help me to be more relaxed. The Gospel has the image of leaven for this purpose.

The interview was conducted by Michael Merten.

Concrete steps should regain credibility

After the anti-abuse summit in the Vatican, calls for concrete steps are being heard everywhere. What are the German dioceses planning?? A changed sexual morality of the church? Structural reforms? An overview before the bishops' plenary meeting.

"Study day on overarching questions that are currently being asked". This is how it is succinctly written on the agenda of the bishops' plenary meeting in Lingen. But behind all this is probably something like the question of fate for the Catholic Church: Will it be possible to follow up the anti-abuse summit in the Vatican with concrete steps?? It had ended "a bit vague, after all," as Bishop Stephan Ackermann, the abuse commissioner of the bishops' conference, put it.

Against arbitrary acts of pastors and bishops

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, set the tone immediately after the summit: Pope Francis had driven in stakes, behind which no one could go back. Now the bishops have a duty. Already during the meeting, Marx had caused a stir with his pushes to lift "papal secrecy" in abuse cases to make cover-ups more difficult, and to create ecclesiastical administrative courts to give lay people the opportunity to sue against arbitrary acts by pastors and bishops.

Passau Bishop Stefan Oster and Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick spoke out in favor of a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Germany, "so that proceedings for priests do not always have to go through Rome in a protracted and sometimes inconclusive manner". In addition, "intensive cooperation with state and other independent agencies" is necessary, as well as stricter penalties under church law in the case of abuse. Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki called for convicted abusers to be dismissed from the priesthood without distinction.

Measures for dealing with cases of abuse

Bishop Gebhard Furst (Rottenburg-Stuttgart) brought up the idea of an independent court for all German dioceses. In addition, he announced that in his diocesan commission on abuse, in the future only the honorary members, who are not dependent on the bishop, would be entitled to vote. Church employees will then only have an advisory function.

Meanwhile, the Osnabruck diocese has tightened its anti-abuse concept. Here, too, external experts are to be more closely involved, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode announced. In addition, victim protection and prevention will be further developed. In addition, convicted abusers should have their salaries massively cut if they cannot be dismissed from the clergy altogether.

The diocese of Passau is also getting specific with its new code of conduct for all full-time and voluntary employees. Standards for dealing with children and young people should prevent abuse and other violations of boundaries. Similar strict regulations on prevention already exist in Cologne and some other dioceses.

"Systemic questions of principle"

Even if the regulations here are not uniform, there are indications that the bishops could probably agree relatively easily on a largely uniform approach to these questions. It might be more difficult with the "systemic questions of principle". These include celibacy and other aspects of the priestly way of life, power and participation, and Catholic sexual morality. The Permanent Council of Diocesan Bishops convened working groups at the end of January.

In addition, an "internal strategy paper" is said to have been hotly debated, as the supplement "Christ Welt" of the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" reported: It attests to an existential crisis in the church, calls for new theological answers and proposes a "synodal event", i.e. a broad debate with the participation of Catholic lay people and with binding resolutions. Authors would be the bishops Peter Kohlgraf (Mainz), Franz-Josef Overbeck (Essen) Karl-Heinz Wiesemann (Speyer) and Stefan Oster (Passau). But the initiative had been put in the drawer without being voted on.

Disappointment among reformers

Kohlgraf told "Christ Welt": "Of course I am disappointed. But I believe that the end of the road has not yet been reached." Meanwhile, Oster rejected the newspaper's account in the Catholic weekly "DieTagespost" that the bishops had drafted an "explosive strategy paper" for a national synod. The paper was rather "a table presentation of the Secretariat of the German Bishops' Conference as a basis for discussion for an item on the agenda".

There are such templates "for almost every agenda item of the conference". And the four bishops mentioned had only been instructed to discuss these points initially in a smaller circle. So there is obviously enough to talk about – also for the larger circle in Lingen. The fact that the patience of many Catholics is at an end is shown by the latest survey for the daily newspaper "Bild": according to the survey, more than four out of five Catholics in Germany (82 percent) believe that dealing with abuse cases will "harm their church in the long term".

Loss of credibility and church resignations

In addition, according to the survey, 52 percent of the Catholics questioned have already considered leaving the church; 38 percent are currently thinking about it, and 22 percent have firmly resolved to leave. Especially with regard to the clarification of the abuse cases, many have lost trust in the church.

A U.S. Anglican bishop has spoken out in favor of seceding from the world Anglican Communion, according to media reports. "I would accept a schism," Bishop Steven Charleston of Cambridge, Massachusetts, told the Washington Post newspaper, "I would accept being told that I am out of step with churches like the one in Nigeria if it meant that, conversely, I was in step with justice and morality."

Charleston was responding to the ultimatum of an Anglican crisis summit in Tanzania at the beginning of the week. In a unanimous resolution, the representatives of almost all national churches had called on the liberal US Episcopal Church to prove within seven months that it would permanently turn away from its previous course. Failure to do so would threaten "consequences" for the U.S. church's "full participation" in the Anglican world communion. Above all conservative African churches turn against the US Anglicans, who are too liberal from their point of view.The 2003 episcopal ordination of an avowed homosexual, as well as blessing rites for same-sex couples in the U.S. and Canada, have brought the conservative and liberal church wings of the world's 78 million Anglicans to the brink of schism. U.S. Anglican bishops go into retreat in March. Observers expect a reaction from there to the resolution of the world communion. "Time to reflect and pause" Other leading U.S. liberals, according to the Washington Post, said they would first wait for the statement from the U.S. Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori. She had signed the Tanzanian resolution and still on Tuesday evening called on both sides to use Lent as a time for reflection and pause. "Maybe she can convince us and show us how a compromise could work," Diocese of Washington spokesman Jim Naughton told the newspaper.Susan Russell, president of an Anglican gay rights activist group, said, "Either we remain true to our liberal catch-all that church is for all, or we remain true to our desire to be a member of the Anglican world communion."So far, however, the U.S. church has avoided such a decision.

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