Heat, debates, silence

adminonNovember 24, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

On Sunday, another 90 or so people came to the.000 people at the grand closing service. The 35. German Protestant Kirchentag in Stuttgart is history. What remains of the Christian meeting?

Sunday, 7. June 2015: The German Protestant Church Congress (DEKT) ends with a church service at the Cannstatter Wasen in Stuttgart. Some 300 kilometers to the southeast, the G7 summit of the most powerful economic nations begins at Elmau Castle in Bavaria. As far as the media presence of the major events was concerned, it was the same as with the thunderclouds that appeared here and there in front of the sun in the midsummer heat of Stuttgart. The Kirchentag in the Swabian metropolis rutted by the "Stuttgart 21" train station construction project was somewhat overshadowed by the politicians' meeting in the luxury resort at the foot of the Alps.

Cool heads despite heat

The approximately 97.000 permanent participants and 37.000 day visitors kept their cool despite record-breaking temperatures beyond 30 degrees. The sweaty heat "dripped easily" on the Kirchentag goers, organizers reported. "so that we may become wise" was the motto of the meeting. Even if perhaps some from the abundance of 2.500 events, I couldn't quite figure it out: There were them, the moments of insight. As well as insights into current political and social debates.

German President Joachim Gauck encouraged greater confidence, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) discussed the digital transformation, her Vice Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) commented on the TTIP transatlantic free trade agreement, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere (CDU) spoke out on church asylum. The topic of homosexuals and the church was on the agenda, as was the dialogue between religions. There were peace demonstrations and – reminiscent of "Stuttgart 21" – protest events under the title "Can train stations be a sin??".

Positive outcome

Even if never all can share everything: For the organizers, the Kirchentag more than met expectations as a forum for encounter and exchange. She has noticed a "new thoughtfulness," said DEKT Secretary General Ellen Ueberschar. The chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, was "inspired" and "enthusiastic". The local bishops, Frank Otfried July of Wurttemberg and his Catholic brother, Bishop Gebhard Furst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, expressed similar sentiments. "Where else can you find such courageous and serious debates about the important ies of our time?", asked Prince.

Church and Catholic Days – they are also an opportunity for contemplation and silence. Tens of thousands made morning pilgrimage to Bible studies. The events, at which prominent figures from church and society interpret texts from the Old and New Testaments, are traditionally part of the program. Among others, the chairman of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the prime minister of Baden-Wurttemberg, Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), and the former chairwoman of the EKD Council, Margot Kabmann, also attended the event.

Also resonates with Catholic Church

The House of the Catholic Church on Stuttgart's main shopping boulevard, Konigstrasse, met with a surprisingly large response. Above all, the "Room of Silence" attracted many people in the midst of the hustle and bustle and the heat. A similar atmosphere prevailed in and around the Berger Church. There the ecumenical association had pitched its tents ?other times?. Even celebrities such as Federal Family Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) made a detour there.

The joint appearance of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan brought goosebumps of a different kind. In the Hanns Martin Schleyer Hall, which was filled to capacity, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate appealed in a low voice not to lose faith in big politics – and to become active in order to fight for justice in the world. Actually not a bad message with regard to the G7 summit. At the end of the speech, the audience rose from their seats. Standing ovation for Kofi Annan.

Katarina sorensen wants to raise awareness of the acts

Symbolic image of abuse, shadow of a cross © Taigi (shutterstock)

Katarina Sorensen was abused as a child by her pastor for almost ten years. Now she is fighting for her case and others in the Protestant church to be dealt with – at state and federal level.

It has been over 20 years since Katarina Sorensen was sexually harassed and abused by the pastor of her church congregation. Now the affected person, who wants to remain anonymous and therefore appears under this pseudonym, goes public. Together with the Protestant regional church of Hanover, on 6. July at a press conference in Seevetal, Lower Saxony, Katarina Sorensen reported on her case. Nearby, in a parish in Nenndorf in the district of Harburg, a former pastor allegedly abused her between 1988 and 1997. Sorensen was 15 years old when the attacks began; the cleric, who has since died, was in his mid-40s.

Committed to youth work

"The pastor was very well known for his committed youth work," reports Sorensen. In the context of excursions and camps, he had committed the sexual abuse. She was not his only victim: "There is another victim in our congregation and there are others with whom he at least tried."

Planned abuse

The clergyman had first approached the girls cautiously – for example by hugging or massaging them – and then crossed boundaries. Sorensen did not find this pleasant, but wanted to be "loved and seen" by the pastor. "I knew that if I said something against him, he could ostracize me from the group very quickly."In the meantime, she said, she was certain that he had planned from the beginning to commit sexual assaults on young girls.

Difficult reappraisal

The processing of the case has been going on for some time. In 2015, Sorensen turned for the first time to the regional church, after she had long been looking for a suitable contact person. The church paid her a year later a compensation payment of 35.000 euros. But Sorensen continued to make the case for a further reappraisal of her story and other abuse cases afterward.

Even though the person affected now appears together with the church, she evaluates the cooperation quite critically: "For me, the path of coming to terms in the church was rather stony." Without support from other places, she would not have gone through the process, she says. Only in the past two years, he said, has it become much easier within the church to talk about the ie.

Courage to go public

Sorensen also addressed the Independent Commission on Child Sexual Abuse, before which she reported her case in 2018. In 2019, she described her story in a guest article in "Die Zeit" – without naming the church congregation and pastor in question. The fact that she is now making the case completely public was a conscious decision and took a lot of courage. "I want there to be an awareness that it happened."

Cooperation in dealing with abuse

In the meantime, Sorensen also advises the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) on dealing with abuse. There, among other things, she helped establish an independent point of contact for those affected by abuse. According to her own information, she has applied to serve on the EKD's victim advisory board, which is scheduled to begin its work this summer. "I hope that this panel will get a reasonable mandate."
The church, she demands, must in particular improve the structures that make it possible for those affected to come forward. Contact persons must be clearly named and properly trained. Finally, he said, there are many more victims who have not yet found the courage to talk about their cases.

In Nenndorf, Sorensen's commitment has already led to another victim contacting the regional church some time ago. Two more alleged victims of the pastor came forward after the press conference was announced. Oberlandeskirchenrat Rainer Mainusch thanked Sorensen for her courage in making the case public and called on others affected to come forward. According to church information, there are indications that the clergyman at least molested women during his assignment in Wolfsburg, which lasted from 1972 to 1986.

Several associations demanded over the weekend that children's rights be anchored in the Basic Law. The occasion was this year's World Children's Day on Friday. The FDP, on the other hand, was skeptical.

On Sunday, parties for girls and boys were held in Berlin and Cologne with, according to organizers, a total of about 200.000 visitors as well as in other places. The German Children's Fund and Unicef Germany underscored the demand that "all children must be better informed about their rights, that they must be taken more seriously and that they must be more involved in shaping our society".

This must go hand in hand with an improvement in the legal position of children in Germany, especially by anchoring children's rights in the Basic Law. Federal Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht and Family Minister Franziska Giffey (both SPD) also renewed their call for children's rights to be enshrined in the Basic Law.

"Include children's rights in the constitution"

The president of the German Child Protection League, Heinz Hilgers, expressed similar views. "In order to have a good constitutional basis for further steps, we need protection rights for our children, promotion rights for children, participation rights for children and the priority of the best interests of the child," Hilgers told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (Saturday). "These are the four points that we must include in the Basic Law. Otherwise it makes no sense."

Participation rights are also important with regard to cases of sexual abuse, he added. For example, he said, the boy who had been abused for years in Staufen, near Freiburg, had not even been heard, either by the administration or by the judiciary. "This must be possible, and it must be possible independently of the parents."

FDP: Strengthen parents, not the state

FDP parliamentary group vice chairman Stephan Thomae was skeptical. Such an amendment to the Basic Law could strengthen the role of the state through the back door at the expense of the rights of parents and children, he writes in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".

It would be better to insert children's rights as a sort of "serving" fundamental right, precisely to make it clear that parents have a special responsibility for their children and must promote and protect their welfare. State and society should be explicitly not mentioned. Thomae specifically suggested the phrase "parents serve the welfare and rights of children".

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