Detached from the national church?

adminonDecember 13, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

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The Protestant congregation of the Bremen pastor Olaf Latzel, who has been provisionally deprived of his ministry, is preparing for a separation from the Bremen Protestant Church. The latter is keeping a low profile for now.

The congregation's convention had instructed its executive committee to make all necessary preparations to be able to pass a resolution to that effect in a special meeting, according to a resolution paper available on the congregation's website. The Bremen "Weser-Kurier" first reported on the step taken by the congregation. A statement from the Bremen Evangelical Church was not available on Thursday.

Appeal filed

Latzel served as pastor of the St.-Martini congregation in downtown Bremen in November last year before the district court of the Hanseatic city for incitement to hatred sentenced to a fine (Az: 96 Ds 225 Js 26577/20). The verdict is not yet final, because Latzel has appealed. Pending a final decision, the church leadership provisionally removed him from ministry; church disciplinary proceedings initiated months earlier are suspended.

According to the local court, the theologian had incited hatred against homosexuals in a so-called "marriage seminar" in October 2019. In the course of the seminar, he warned, among other things, that homosexuality is a "degenerative form of society" and "There are criminals from Christopher Street Day running around everywhere".

In the resolution, the convention backed the Rev. Latzel had in the view of the Convention in "his statements on practiced homosexuality at the marriage seminary in no way violated the duties arising from his ordination". With his teaching, the pastor had rather fulfilled his obligations to the church order. The convention instructed the parish council to exhaust all legal possibilities to achieve the full reinstatement of the pastor.

Pastor to be hired by congregation itself

The provisional removal from office was "unlawful" because the decision of the church leadership had been made without the consent of the congregation. The convention expressly confirmed Latzel's appointment as pastor of the congregation. In the event that the church leadership should not reinstate him, the convention passed a resolution to hire the pastor through the congregation itself.

After Bremen church catches on, congregation can declare "resting of rights and duties" to the church as a whole. The congregation would no longer be represented in the synod, which is called Kirchentag in Bremen. Moreover, it would be detached from the institutions and orders of the Bremen Protestant Church.

The Vatican has welcomed the convening of a roundtable on child abuse by Family Minister Kristina Schroder. "The Church is, of course, ready to take part in this and to work for it," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Tuesday.

The ie must be dealt with "in a complex and appropriate way" that does not limit investigations into child abuse to church institutions, he said.The Vatican spokesman called sexual assaults on minors in the church "particularly reprehensible" because of their moral and educational function. Those who are "objective and informed," however, know that the phenomenon also exists in other areas of society. "To focus the allegations solely on the Church leads to a false perspective," the Vatican spokesman stressed, referring to a majority of cases in non-church institutions that came to light in a recent Austrian investigation.Against the backdrop of accusations by German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP) that the Catholic Church is not cooperating sufficiently with the authorities, Lombardi thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) for her recognition. The latter had rightly certified the church's "seriousness and constructiveness" in its efforts to clear up the pedophilia cases.In response to the abuse cases in German schools, the Federal Family Ministry and the Federal Education Ministry announced a round table on Monday. It is to be presented for the first time on 23. Meeting on April to address prevention ies in particular. The Ministry of Justice, on the other hand, wants to convene its own round table with representatives of the Catholic Church; this is rejected by the German Bishops' Conference because it is not a specific problem of the Catholic Church.The Vatican spokesman stressed that the main church institutions had reacted "in a timely and decisive manner to the emergence of the problem.". They would have "in a certain sense accelerated" the emergence of the scandal by calling on victims of even long-ago abuse cases to report them. Moreover, according to the Vatican spokesman, the bishops' conferences concerned are considering revising their national guidelines. Thus, new strategies of prevention would be developed in order to do everything possible to prevent similar serious acts from happening again.Moreover, the Vatican spokesman defended the guidelines adopted by the Vatican in 2001 in dealing with sexual abuse by clerics. In the context of canon law, this counts as one of the most serious offenses. The guidelines adopted under the impression of the abuse scandals in the U.S. church are "wrongly blamed as the cause of an alleged culture of silence," he stressed in light of statements made by the federal justice minister. Rather, the guidelines of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would have alerted the bishops to the seriousness of the phenomenon and given impetus to draft their own rules.

It really couldn't have come at a worse time. With a television interview conducted from France, the former bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe (74), caused a storm of indignation. Belgium's Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck called for consequences from the church, church leaders expressed speechlessness and horror.

On Thursday evening, the private Flemish television station VT4 surprised viewers with the exclusive interview, which was conducted in the central French town of Salbris. Somewhere in the Loire Valley, Vangheluwe has been staying in a monastery since the Vatican recently ordered him to leave Belgium in a first measure and to receive spiritual and psychological care. Abuse victims had derided this measure as "vacation like God in France". Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi hastened to are that further measures could follow.

Vangheluwe himself, however, sees no reason in the interview to be transferred back to the lay state. Even the psychological support seems excessive to him. After all, he said, the assaults had ended 25 years ago, and he could not understand why now, a quarter of a century later, he should suddenly need treatment.

"Started as a game"
It all started "as a game," says the 74-year-old when asked how it all began in 1976 with his nephew, who was five years old at the time. Because there were not enough sleeping accommodations, the nephew had lain with him in bed during family visits. 13 years went by in what Vangheluwe described in the interview as, "It was not raw sexuality." This had not gone far, "it was a bit of a relationship". And finally: Yes, in the beginning a few times, this had also "happened a little bit" with a second nephew.

Jurgen Mettepenningen, a Belgian theologian and spokesman for the Belgian Bishops' Conference for a short time last year, said he felt sick to his stomach after the interview. Josef De Kesel, Vangheluwe's successor as bishop of Bruges, spoke of powerlessness, grief, pain, horror. His brother bishop Harpigny, bishop of Tournai, expressed the suspicion that Vangheluwe was a seriously ill man. All expressed shock at the effect the interview must have had on victims of abuse.

Great consternation
The conversation also caused consternation in Belgian politics. The church must react, demanded Justice Minister De Clerck and Defense Minister Pieter De Crem, both center politicians. The Socialists have demanded that the ex-bishop's pension of around 2.800 euros a month to block. Greens and liberals also expressed horror and concern.

Victim advocates pointed out that some of what Vengheluwe said could not be true and had long since been disproven. The responsible public prosecutor's office was quoted in the media as saying that the second case of abuse, which has now been admitted, is also time-barred under criminal law.

Numerous new cases of abuse
For Belgium's church, Vangheluwe's appearance is more than inconvenient. A year ago, his resignation triggered a scandal that is still far from being resolved. Tongues loosened in the wake of his confession. Numerous new cases of abuse in the church came to light – most of them long time barred by the statute of limitations. The Belgian judiciary used sometimes brutal methods to investigate whether there had been a cover-up on the part of those responsible for the church. A parliamentary committee of inquiry spent months investigating the events; only a few weeks ago it presented its final report.

Behavior bishops criticized the Vatican, which took a long time to draw conclusions from the abuse case Vangheluwe. Antwerp Bishop Johan Bonny let it be known publicly that he missed a word on the seriousness of the crime and an apology to the victims in the communication on the first measures taken against the ex-bishop. Bishop Guy Harpigny of Tournai now expressed the hope that the Vatican would react "as it should".

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