“So women have to ask the question of power”

adminonNovember 19, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Within the Catholic Church, the Superior General of the Oberzell Franciscan Sisters, Sister Katharina Ganz, has complained of asymmetrical communication "from the top down". This is the reason why women are now asking the question of power.

Only consecrated men have the sovereignty of interpretation over what is church, she said in an interview with the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (Friday).

The Superior General asks, "Why should sexual masculinity be a necessary condition for the man to represent Christ when, conversely, the Church is to be the bride of Christ's bridegroom? Then the church should consist only of women."Whoever thinks he can derive power relations from symbolic language would not be well advised.

No pope has yet defined the exclusion of women from ordination as dogma, religious said. "A vote of a council or synod of bishops on this does not exist."

"The church is marginalizing itself"

Consecration has given men a power "of which we have at best an inkling of how much abuse has been committed with it in the context of confession or pastoral care alone – not least in women's convents," said the superior general. Not only men would have committed violence. "Women's communities have also been guilty in the past, especially in home education. What makes the difference is the extent and intensity of sexualized violence."

It was a question of who was working toward a "different church". "In numerous countries, the effect of the current conditions of admission is that there are hardly any young priests left.

This may change the church much more fundamentally than some of the things women think and want," the nun said. Sacraments could simply no longer be administered. "The church is marginalizing itself."

The chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Nikolaus Schneider, has publicly asked former children in care on behalf of the EKD and the Diakonisches Werk for forgiveness for the suffering that was done to them in Protestant homes.

At the French Friedrichstadt Church in Berlin on Sunday, Schneider, who is also Rhineland president, read out a joint declaration. "Church and diakonia have become guilty before those who were entrusted to us and before God," it says.

As a former child of the home, Sonja Djurovic appreciated the request for forgiveness as a "sign of reconciliation". Many of those affected wanted to take the hand that was extended to them and longed for personal peace. At the same time, Djurovic appealed for understanding for former home children who do not want to accept the public apology. She again demanded compensation for the victims, which would have to go beyond the aid from a 120-million-euro fund approved by the Bundestag. "Many of us are disappointed," said Djurovic. "What was decided does not go far enough for us."

Protes
Several former home children had previously left the event amid shouts of protest. They accused the church of relativizing the injustice in the homes. Udo Trost, 57, of Gottingen, said that as long as he was still rebuffed in his attempts to explore his own fate, the public request for an apology was "window dressing". Like other home children, Trost demanded compensation.

Schneider, the chairman of the EKD Council, acknowledged that it was only "an impetus from outside" – journalists' research and reports from those affected – that led to the church and diaconia opening their eyes. The theologian ared that the Protestant Church would continue on the path of coming to terms with the past. He paid tribute to the "greatness" of the home children who made their life stories public and thus made clear the extent of the suffering. "I bow down before this greatness," said Schneider.

Confessing failure
What has happened in Protestant homes "in terms of misconduct clearly contradicts our Christian convictions," he said
Schneider: "It is difficult and painful for us to confess this failure."The Protestant church will participate in providing aid and material support to victims. At the same time, she said, she is aware that she cannot make up for lost life chances.

About 800.000 children and young people lived in German homes between 1949 and the mid-1970s, about 500.000 of them in church institutions. Many have been traumatized by emotional neglect, humiliation, punishment and beatings, and sexual violence. Young people were forced to do hard work without pay.

Injustice committed systematically
Sonja Djurovic emphasized in her speech that "forgiveness" must grow and does not happen overnight. She hopes that the dialogue between the church and the children of the homes will continue. Djurovic stressed that today's church representatives are not yesterday's perpetrators. However, the church and the diaconia have a legal and moral responsibility as the owners of the homes.

Children in care were victims of systematic injustice, said Djurovic, who as a teenager was imprisoned in a Bavarian girls' home run by deaconesses. Whether she could accept the request for forgiveness will have to be measured by what the church and diaconia do to actually provide the planned aid from the fund to those affected.

The Bundestag decided on recommendation of the round table a 120-Million-Hilfe-Fonds for former home children, which is financed in each case to one third by the churches, the federation and the countries. 100 million euros are earmarked for individual assistance, 20 million euros for pension back payments. The money is to be paid out from 2012.

The Catholic moral theologian Eberhard Schockenhoff has called for a significant change in the Church's sexual morality before the German Catholic bishops. Accordingly, he expressed himself in a keynote speech in Lingen.

Before the plenary assembly of the German Bishops' Conference on Wednesday, the Freiburg theology professor recommended a positive view of human sexuality.

Among other things, the moral theologian demanded that family planning, even with artificial contraceptives, should no longer be recognized as an act hostile to life, but as a service to life. Because this decision of conscience is based on mutual respect between partners and concern for the well-being of children.

Marriage understanding

Furthermore, the church should recognize that there are legitimate sexual relationships outside of heterosexual marriage. Lifelong marriage may be the best framework for lived sexuality, but it is not the only possible one.

According to Schockenhoff, the church should adhere to an understanding of marriage that sees marriage as a holistic community of a man and a woman. At the same time, he said, the Church must unreservedly recognize same-sex partnerships and refrain from "morally disqualifying the sexual practice lived in them.".

promiscuity, open multiple relationships and infidelity, on the other hand, Schockenhoff described as "morally questionable". This applies regardless of the sexual orientation of the persons concerned.

According to the speech manuscript, Schockenhoff made it clear that the loss of credibility of the Catholic sexual morality in force up to now was not caused by the current abuse crisis.

Rather, the church has not integrated the findings of contemporary science into its sexual ethics and still refers to the "poisoned view of sexuality" outlined by the church father Augustine (354-430). The latter interpreted erotic desire as a consequence of man's original sin.

Criticism of John Paul II's sexual teachings.

Schockenhoff also criticized the sexual teachings of St. John Paul II. (1978-2005). The latter's "theology of the body" is a "significant advance over Augustine's theology of original sin". Nevertheless, in this sexual morality, "the warning that spouses should not abuse each other as objects of their sexual desire" remains dominant.

At the same time Schockenhoff criticized the basic amption of John Paul II., that the Church's sexual teachings were not man-made, but "inscribed in the nature of the human person by the creative hand of God.". Such an amption prevents the church from admitting the dependence of its sexual teachings on historical aberrations.

The theologian described as a "ray of hope" the positive view of sexuality and the erotic dimension of love formulated by Pope Francis in his 2016 letter "Amoris laetitia". For the future, Schockenhoff recommended "revising the content of the building of the church's sexual morality" and making a course correction.

The goal must be "to affirm the fullness of meaning of human sexuality in its positive possibilities for shaping". This would "by no means require a complete break with the basic convictions of the previous church sexual doctrine.". Rather, it was a matter of adapting their insights to the current living conditions and new insights of the human sciences.

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