Clear decision in schleswig cathedral

adminonDecember 21, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Provost Gerhard Ulrich has been elected the new Protestant bishop for Schleswig and Holstein. On Saturday in Schleswig Cathedral, 77 of 136 members of the North Elbian Synod present voted in favor of it. His opponent, Horst Gorski, received 56 votes. Attacks by church-conservative Christians on the homosexual Provost Gorski had caused a stir prior to the election decision.

The decision between Ulrich and Gorski was made on the first ballot. There were three abstentions."Gerhard Ulrich will be a good bishop for us as a true North Elbe," said synod president Hans-Peter Strenge immediately after the election. The provost from Kappeln had proven himself in various leadership positions.Ulrich takes over the bishop's office on 1. October of Bishop Hans Christian Knuth (67), who will retire at the end of September after 17 years in office. Knuth wished his successor "all the best and God's blessing". Ulrich is "deeply rooted in the spiritual ministry," he said. At the same time, Knuth expressed his "full respect" for the defeated candidate Gorski from Hamburg-Altona.According to the church's governing bodies, the widespread discussion nationwide about the Hamburg candidate's homosexuality was "largely irrelevant" to the election. The College of Bishops and the Synod Presidium reiterated that homosexuality is not an obstacle to senior spiritual ministry.Ulrich was elected on 9. March 1951 born in Hamburg. He has been provost in Schleswig-Holstein since 1996 and was previously director of the North Elbian preacher's seminary in Preetz. After his military service, he had initially decided to study German, theater studies and drama before switching to theology. He was ordained as a pastor in 1981.On 8. November Ulrich is to be inaugurated in his new office. The new Schleswig and Holstein district to be formed in May 2009 includes eight church districts with about 1.15 million Protestant members.

The Irish primate, Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, says the church's ability to communicate has been undermined by the global abuse scandals: "There are those who believe they can no longer trust our message".

Martin said this as a keynote speaker at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin; "perhaps because they have been directly hurt and betrayed in their families by their experience of the Church – or because the revelations of such heinous crimes have shaken them to the core," The Tablet newspaper quoted from Martin's speech.

Church undermined

Child abuse scandals have also undermined the church's ability to spread its message about marriage and family, the primate acknowledged. Martin replaced Washington's Cardinal Donald Wuerl as the meeting's keynote speaker. The latter had withdrawn his participation after being criticized in an extensive abuse report by a grand jury in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania over his time as bishop of Pittsburgh.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Dublin's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin had described as "immense" the number of people sexually abused by clergy and abused in church institutions in Ireland. At the same time, he said, the number of those who have come forward is only part of the actual number of victims. "Many people still carry the grief of the abuse in their hearts," Diarmuid Martin said.

Challenge for the Church

In his address, Primate Eamon Martin said the church is challenged to find new ways and learn to "re-communicate our sincerely held perspectives" on marriage and family and other ies.

To the thousands gathered in the open-air arena in Dublin, he said, "Into this complicated world with its twisted minds, we have the joy and challenge of communicating a clear and positive vision of family and marriage, the good news that human life is sacred, that every person comes from God (…); that we are wanted by God, who loves each of us."

Have Britain's Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle married twice? The two speak in an interview of a "secret wedding" before the official ceremony. The highest Anglican bishop contradicts now.

Meghan and Harry, who left the British royal family last year amid major headlines, spoke about an alleged "secret wedding" in a major television interview with U.S. host Oprah Winfrey in early March. Three days before, the ceremony had taken place at Windsor Castle. In the interview, Duchess Meghan spoke of a private ceremony attended only by the couple and the archbishop. Welby now contradicts this account.

Such a "clandestine marriage" never happened, said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in an interview printed this week in the "World" and the Italian newspaper "La Repubblica," among others. At least, he said, he was not involved in such a ceremony.

"I signed the certificate"

Welby: "I had several private and pastoral conversations with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex before the wedding. The legally binding wedding took place on a Saturday (19. May 2018) instead. There I signed the wedding certificate. This is a legally binding document. If I had known about any other wedding, it would have been a serious offense."

However, the archbishop does not deny that there was a meeting between the fiancee and Welby, but it was not a wedding ceremony. He would not comment on the content of the conversation, saying, "If you ever talk to a priest, you can expect that conversation to remain private".

In the Anglican Church there are different interpretations as to whether marriage is to be considered a sacrament. Especially the "High Church", which resembles the Catholic Church in its appearance, represents this reception. For all Britons, however, marriage is a legally binding contract that must be entered into under witnesses.

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