Challenge in the pope's homeland

adminonNovember 15, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

In Argentina, a new evangelical party is trying to gain a place in the political landscape. Target group: in addition to the five million evangelical Christians, also disappointed conservative Catholics.

When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected the new pope in Rome in March 2013, the leftist government of President Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015) reacted quickly. Although Kirchner was previously considered a critic of the inconvenient archbishop of Buenos Aires, the left-wing populist quickly recognized the opportunity that lay in a good relationship with the first pope from Argentina and Latin America. Diligent helpers therefore had posters put up in the capital the next day that read that the pope is a Peronist. So a representative of the political movement to which Kirchner also feels attached. From then on, Kirchner sought direct contact with the pope, whom she had mostly avoided before, and the relationship improved noticeably.

A noticeable increase in the number of evangelical churches

The conservative opposition greeted this with unease, believing the Catholic Church to be on their side. In the meantime, the tablecloth between Argentine conservatives and Pope Francis has been pretty much cut in half. Two hypothermic receptions of Francis for the conservative successor of Kirchner Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) also contributed to that. In the 2019 election campaign, the Catholic priests for the poor, all of whom are well acquainted with the Pope, publicly backed the left-wing candidate Alberto Fernandez, who clearly won the elections and made Kirchner vice president.

Quite a few conservative Catholics, not only in Argentina but in all of Latin America, feel politically homeless since the change in the political orientation of the church in the region. They disapprove of the pope's sometimes more or less openly expressed sympathy with the left-wing governments and left-wing politicians there and demand a clearer stance on left-wing dictatorships. This is one of the reasons why the predominantly conservative evangelical churches in Latin America have been gaining noticeably in popularity in recent years, especially in neighboring Brazil, where the right-wing president Jair Messias Bolsonaro is exploiting this proximity for his own ends.

New party

In this mixed situation, a group of evangelical pastors and laymen from the Pentecostal churches now wants to establish a new party in the Pope's home country, of all places. It bears the name UNO (Una nueva Oportunidad – a new possibility). It wants to collect those social forces that take arch-conservative positions that the founders believe are shared by the majority of the people. These include a clear no to same-sex marriage and abortion, both regulations have been legalized and liberalized in recent years after heated social debates. "Traditional politicians have failed, and a group of evangelicals have felt the need to get involved politically," party leader and pastor Walter Ghione told the conservative daily Clarin, which is traditionally closer to the Macri camp.

From a political perspective, it is exciting to see whether the camp around Macri, who is now back in opposition, will respond to the UN's advances. Ghione expressed confidence that the new party could win national parliamentary seats in the upcoming elections. Moreover, they are already structurally well positioned in all 14 provinces of Argentina. Particularly in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, party representatives are hoping for good election results. According to estimates, the number of evangelical Christians in Argentina, although not growing by leaps and bounds, has increased steadily in recent years and, at five million, already makes up a noticeable portion of the country's 45 million citizens.

Meanwhile, Francis, who has not visited the country since his election as pope, upgraded another close Kirchner confidant this week. Lawyer and social activist Juan Grabois is now to advise the Vatican in the Dicastery for the Integral Development of Man, the Pope's "social ministry," according to La Nacion. Grabois previously served on the Vatican Commission for Justice and Peace and was one of Fernandez's most committed supporters in the 2019 campaign.

The honorary head of the Anglican world communion, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, has expressed cautious optimism about resolving his church's crisis. "Slowly there is a growing sense that we will be better off if we stay together," Williams said at Lambeth conference in Canterbury.

At the same time, it welcomed calls for structural reform. A task force of senior bishops had proposed, among other things, the creation of a kind of Anglican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The intra-Anglican conflicts over authority and morality ies are not least a structural ie, Williams said. "We are neither a federation, nor a church like the Roman Catholic – we must clarify what we are." Williams had set up the "Windsor Continuation Group" in February. The aim was to analyze the structures in the Anglican Communion with its 38 ecclesiastical provinces. These are independent in their legal determination. The findings are currently being presented at the Lambeth Conference. The Anglican world communion's main advisory body meets only once every ten years. This year's conference comes amid threats of a split in the Anglican Communion of some 78 million faithful worldwide. Background are disputes about the ordination of homosexuals and women as bishops. More than 200 conservative bishops, mostly from African countries, are boycotting the conference in protest of what they see as too much liberalization of the Anglican Church. Cardinal: Anglicans need to clarify their understanding of church The Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, has called on Anglicans to clarify their understanding of the church. Currently, the ecumenical process is stalled, he said Friday at an ecumenism meeting of the Lambeth Conference of Anglicans in Canterbury. He cited increasing cases of women being ordained bishops and moral ies as reasons. "Our future dialogue will not be easier until the fundamental ies are resolved with greater clarity," cardinal says. He cited Anglicans' lack of clarity about their own church structure as the real problem: "Is it a loose federation with a kind of family sense or a more closed body with trained structures of authority?"Clarification could help find a line on moral ies as well, he said.

Archbishop Stefan Hebe © Harald Oppitz (KNA)

Hamburg Archbishop Stefan Hebe has called for a more open approach to sexuality by his church. It must be noted, he said, that there is a "considerable number of homosexual priests" in the Catholic Church.

This is what Hebe said Wednesday evening in Hamburg at a panel discussion on sexual abuse. Sexuality not sufficiently addressed in priestly training, he says.

More priests accused than deacons

Neither homosexuality nor celibacy are the cause of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, said psychiatrist Harald Drebing, coordinator of the study on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. A repressed, "blurred" sexuality, however, forms a good breeding ground for sexual violence, he said.

He said it is striking that five percent of priests are accused of abuse, according to the study, but only one percent of deacons are allowed to be married. In view of the extent of sexual violence, one could not speak of "slips". There are apparently structures in the Catholic Church that promote this.

Victim demands appreciative approach

According to Martin Schmitz, abuse victim from the diocese of Munster, part of a consistent reappraisal is that the perpetrators are named by the church. He said it was agonizing for him that despite multiple attempts, no one in the diocese took up his cause. He had informed three pastors in his parish, but all of them had been transferred after two years without the diocese management having contacted him.

There is still a lack of "appreciative treatment" of the victims of abuse, complained Sabine Andresen, chairwoman of the Independent Commission for the Reappraisal of Sexual Child Abuse. They would have to be actively involved in the process of coming to terms with the case.

On the territory of the current Archdiocese of Hamburg, according to the study, 103 affected and 33 accused priests were recorded. The Mecklenburg region, where half of the abuse cases were registered, is reportedly particularly affected.

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