The pope and women

adminonNovember 2, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

An increase in the quota of women by 100 percent: At the executive level of the Vatican, this has been achieved with a stroke of the pen by Pope Benedict XVI. happen. The only female executive at the Holy See to date, Enrica Rosanna, a nun in the Congregation for Religious Affairs, has a colleague in the Pontifical Council "Iustitia et Pax" as of this week.

It is the Roman political scientist Flaminia Giovanelli. Both hold the position of undersecretary, which would correspond to a state secretary in a secular ministry. No woman has ever made it further, and Giovannelli is just the third to ever achieve this rank. The pontifical human rights council is well off with the personnel decision of course. In its own social teachings, the Catholic Church constantly demands respect for women's rights. However, this has nothing to do with stubborn quota regulations. From the magisterial point of view, the Creator wisely designed human beings as male and female. In his New Year's address to diplomats, Benedict XVI warned. therefore just again from "touching the biological basis of the distinction of the sexes in the name of the fight against discrimination". On the other hand, he also previously considered offering women, who largely carry church life at the grassroots level, "more space, more positions of responsibility, even in the leadership ministry". Gradually profilie Giovanelli obviously has the right qualifications for this: Academic, worldly, articulate and fundamentally Catholic. Born in Rome in 1948, she graduated from the international Ecole Europeenne in Brussels. After a degree in political science, she trained as a librarian at the venerable Vatican Library and studied religious studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In between, at the age of 26, she joined "Iustitia et Pax" as a small technical advisor. Gradually she distinguished herself in the church authority with seat in the Roman quarter Trastevere as an expert for development-political questions. As such, she maintained important contacts with institutions such as the International Labor Organization (ILO), the European Union and the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC). On the side, she also sits on the ecumenical contact group of the Holy See and the World Council of Churches. Ultimately, it was under Giovanelli's leadership that the Vatican moratorium on the global economic crisis – the call for a new financial system, published in the run-up to the 2008 Doha Round – came into being. In March of this year, she organized a major conference on the role of women in the promotion of human rights. Growing share in the world of work Her appointment completes the restructuring of the leadership of the Pope's Ministry of Human Rights and Development. Only in October Benedict XVI. Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson appointed successor to Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino. Bishop Mario Toso, until now rector of the Salesian University in Rome, has also been sitting at the side of the Ghanaian president since October. The fact that women are claiming a growing share in the world of work and thus also claiming leadership roles – this trend may also be rubbing off on the Vatican. As far as top positions are concerned, however, women are grossly underrepresented even in secular fields: In major U.S. corporations, for example, female managers make up just two percent – compared to 98 percent of male colleagues. The Vatican, meanwhile, still seems a bit unsure how to deal with the new phenomenon: When Rosemary Goldie, an Australian, pioneered the lay council's top job during the period of upheaval following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Pontifical Yearbook respectfully called her "vice-secretary.". Rosanna in the order congregation, on the other hand, is listed under the masculine form "Sotto-Segretario". Remains to be seen what title Flaminia Giovanelli will receive.

The accusations are fierce: since Wednesday afternoon, there has been public suspicion that Freiburg Archbishop Robert Zollitsch had something to do with aiding and abetting sexual abuse. The story was put into the world by "Report Mainz". And it quickly drew circles, although even before the broadcast the baselessness of the accusations became clear.

The background is the report by an alleged abuse victim of a monk from the Austrian Cistercian abbey of Wettingen-Mehrerau. The abbey, located near Bregenz, also includes the pilgrimage church in Birnau and other parishes on the German shore of Lake Constance. In one of the parishes the abuse is to have happened. Zollitsch, according to the ARD magazine with reference to a letter from the Freiburg public prosecutor's office, had in his former office as personnel officer of the Baden archdiocese in 1987 "arranged for" an assignment of the priest on the Birnau, although there had already been indications of sexual abuse by the Cistercian monk since the 1960s. Legal experts consider this simply impossible. Zollitsch, according to the Freiburg canon lawyer Georg Bier, was "never responsible for the pastoral care in the pilgrimage church, neither as personnel officer nor as archbishop". The abbey together with the associated parishes is independent, the employment of personnel is solely a matter of the abbot. Biers' colleague from Tubingen, canon lawyer Richard Puza, expressed a similar opinion. Exceptional case of the exceptional case So-called territorial abbeys, which often existed in the Middle Ages, are the great exception today. According to Bier, there are still a good dozen such exclaves worldwide. And that – as in the case of the 12. The church was founded in Switzerland in the 19th century. The fact that the abbey, which moved to Austria in the nineteenth century, is located in a parish that transcends both states and dioceses, is undoubtedly the exceptional case of the exceptional case. On Thursday morning, Abbot Anselm van der Linde acknowledged in a statement an "inadequate handling" of the order with perpetrators and victims of abuse. At the same time, he regretted that Zollitsch was now "suddenly and completely groundlessly" associated with cases of abuse. The archbishop has "nothing to do" with the events. Anselm stressed that he could not undo the injustice that had been done. At the same time, he appealed to victims to contact state authorities and, "if it is possible for them", to contact him. Investigations against order man run already for a long time The state authorities – in this case the public prosecutor's office in Constance. It has already been investigating the religious for a long time. To the conditions of the investigations senior public prosecutor Christoph Hettenbach did not want to comment on inquiry, since the files lay at present with the police. Meanwhile, the criminal complaint against Zollitsch was forwarded to Lake Constance by the Freiburg public prosecutor's office. According to Hettenbach, no files have been received in Constance so far; accordingly, the Freiburg takeover request could not be processed. Meanwhile, Bier considers the behavior of the Freiburg investigative authority, which had publicly confirmed receipt of the complaint, to be "irritating". At such an early stage, he said, a public prosecutor's office should not go public. However, at present apparently "everyone is afraid to act too late in the case of an allegation of abuse" because something "could stick to oneself". Unverified allegations of abuse, however, are problematic because a person affected is damaged even if it later turns out that everything is fictitious. The archdiocese stressed that the current president of the German Bishops' Conference had only learned of the allegations from the 1960s on which the complaint was based in 2006 and then acted quickly. Months ago, the archdiocese had already announced that it had called in the Cistercian Order and demanded consequences after the accusation became known. The archdiocese therefore speaks of the "recognizable intention to provoke media interest with the sensationally formulated accusation of 'aiding and abetting sexual abuse' against an archbishop.".

Bishop Vitus Huonder of Chur © CBA

The Swiss diocese of Chur is always good for headlines – or rather its bishop. On Friday, Vitus Huonder, who is still very fit, will reach the age of 75. The personnel merry-go-round is circling – but what will be?

This is not really how you want church to be: counting down the clock tower for years until finally the bishop reaches the age limit. But that's exactly how many in the Swiss diocese of Chur feel. They hope that soon after Friday the hands there will be back to zero: Because Vitus Huonder, who is still very fit, will turn 75 and must offer the pope his resignation from office. According to his critics, the conservative shepherd is one who likes to dismiss liberal requests of his flock with the attitude: Here I stand – I can't help it.

In the cantons of Graubunden, Schwyz and Zurich, there has long been a climate of ecclesiastical friction. Large differences in opinion and mentality collide in a small space. Like his predecessor Bishop Wolfgang Haas (1988/90-1997), Huonder has polarized his flock, which includes not only the rural cantons but also the financially strong Catholics of the metropolis of Zurich.

Discussion about conservative positions

Across the country, the bishop of Chur also acts as a loudspeaker for the conservative wing of the church – while his fellow bishops in the Swiss Bishops' Conference often have to struggle to recapture Huonder's verbal thrusts on sexuality, church interdiction or the protection of life. The Swiss gay umbrella organization even unsuccessfully filed criminal charges against the bishop in 2015: for publicly inciting violence against homosexuals.

Huonder, in office since 2007, insists on the letter of the Catholic, and he never shies away from demanding it as binding. Sometimes there were disputes about abortion funding, sometimes about how to deal with homosexuality, about marriage and the family or the leadership of the seminary. Dissatisfied people marched to the seat of the bishops' conference president in 2014 to demonstrate for Huonder's ouster. They complained: "We have had enough of disciplinarian attitudes, of hard-hearted theology and pessimistic bishops who distrust the faithful."

Huonder's supporters defend themselves against criticism

But it is also true that the Swiss are grassroots democrats. This is tradition since the legendary Rutli oath in the Middle Ages. And Swiss state church law also grants the laity more co-determination than many bishops would like – and than is provided for in general church law. This applies, for example, to the episcopal financial administration and to experimentation in church services.

Huonder's supporters, on the other hand, have always maintained that the bishop is acting in accordance with church doctrine and church law. It was the doctrine, not the person, that the critics disliked, he said. The critics, on the other hand, see this as Huonder's conflict strategy: to rush ahead and then to take one's own person out of the game by referring to the official doctrine.

Who follows?

Successors for the bishop's chair in Chur have been traded for some time already. A request was also sent to Rome to appoint an administrator instead of a new bishop on a transitional basis. Above all, many Catholics want a bit of peace for the quarreling diocese. Martin Kopp, Vicar General for the Urschweiz, formulates drastically: "If someone is simply elected from the camp that currently determines the course in Chur, and there is no new beginning, the diocese is dead."

Candidates for 2017 have included Fribourg Auxiliary Bishop Alain de Remy (58), formerly chaplain of the Swiss Guard, articulate and conservative; Chur Auxiliary Bishop Marian Eleganti (62) as a possible compromise candidate; Andreas Rellstab (50), once vicar general but now a parish priest in self-imposed exile in Zurich; and Capuchin Minister General Mauro Johri (69).

Also named were the two abbots of Einsiedeln: the former, "Twitter abbot" Martin Werlen (55), a liberal and explicit candidate of the "left" in the diocese, and his incumbent young successor Urban Federer (48). Both, however, are said to lack ambition for the difficult post in Chur. Huonder's shadow and vicar general Martin Grichting (49) is quite different, but his polemics have left a lot of scorched earth in the diocese. For whom the bell tolls, the bells of Chur will toll.

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