Follow-up to the cologne report

adminonDecember 13, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

The Cardinal Hoeffner Circle of Christian Members of the Bundestag seeks a debate with the role of its namesake. However, no final decision has yet been made on the future naming of the organization.

Christian Hirte (CDU), the chairman of the circle, told the "Christ Welt" supplement of "Die Zeit" published Thursday. As the paper further reports, the five-member leadership team first wants to talk to historians.

Expert opinion accuses Hoffner of dereliction of duty

Christian parliamentarians have been networking in the circle since the 1990s. Archbishop Joseph Hoffner of Cologne, who died in 1987, was a pioneer of Catholic social teaching and president of the German Bishops' Conference from 1976 to 1987. A legal opinion commissioned by the current archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, accuses Hoffner of several breaches of duty in dealing with sexual abuse cases.

CDU member of parliament Mechthild Heil, who is also the federal president of the German Catholic Women's Association, told the newspaper, "The phrase 'You don't speak ill of the dead' should not apply here".

The parliamentary state secretary in the Ministry of Development, Maria Flachsbarth (CDU), at the same time president of the Catholic German Women's Federation (KDFB), demands a hearing of experts still in this election period and added: "That we also invite affected people as experts is urgently needed." Hoffner was "an esteemed theologian of his time, but the name is up for grabs."

There are dissenting voices, too

Flachsbarth demanded at the same time that the parliamentarians must discuss the past of Hoffner also structurally. "The absolutist power of bishops – that is also an ie. Many of these structures are still as they were in Cardinal Hoffner's time."

On the other hand, a founder of the Hoffner Circle, former CDU member of parliament Georg Brunnhuber, told "Christ Welt": "You can't pull down someone who has an excellent reputation because of a single thing. There's no way I'd change the name."

Contrite: Donald Trump © Andrew Gombert

Donald Trump's misogynistic remarks have left his evangelical supporters in the U.S. scrambling for explanations. Many leaders of the Christian right defend him anyway – and are now facing headwinds.

Donald Trump has so far gone down well with devout Christians – evangelicals – in the U.S. Apparently his vulgar remarks about women, which came to light over the weekend, have not fundamentally changed that. The character of the Republican presidential candidate, for example, plays only a minor role in the view of Tony Perkins, leader of the influential "Family Research Council".

"Personally, my support for Donald Trump has never been based on shared values," Perkins stressed now. To that end, he shares concerns with Trump "on ies such as the Supreme Court being filled with justices who ignore our capture" or America's "vulnerability to Islamic terrorists".

Trump remains the better choice for many evangelicals

Compared to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Trump remains the better choice for Perkins. In return, the head of the arch-conservative family organization, which has taken up the cause of defending traditional values, generously overlooks the less than exemplary behavior of his candidate for the White House.

In the second TV duel with Hillary Clinton, Trump appeared remorseful on Sunday night (local time), but at the same time qualified his much-discussed sexist remarks, which date back to 2005, as "locker room talk".

Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, who was among Trump's earliest supporters on the Christian right, did criticize Trump's misogynistic remarks in the widely cited video as "lewd, hurtful and indefensible". Subsequently, however, Jeffress did just that. He probably would not want to see the candidate "as a Sunday school teacher". But when it comes to "family values," the pastor emphasized, "the most important ie for us is the catch-all court of law".

Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition made a similar argument. He said it is not merely a matter of character, but what the candidate stands for. "In the hierarchy of our concerns, an eleven-year-old private conversation with a talk show host on a bus trip ranks low."

Apology from Trump

Another influential evangelical, Pastor Mark Burns, argues that the Trump of 2005 is not the same person he is today. He has apologized, he says, and that should be all right. Foster Friess, a major donor to the Christian right, thinks so too, saying, "I'm not defending Trump. I forgive him. What is more fundamental about the message of Jesus??"

Southern Baptist Ethics Commission Chairman Russell Moore, on the other hand, can hardly believe how Trump's pastor friends are bending over backwards. "How unworthy is this? What a scandal in light of the message of Jesus Christ and the sincerity of our witness," Moore asks. He is joined by the president of the theological seminary of the largest single Protestant church in the U.S., Albert Mohler. "I feel humiliated by the arguments of some evangelicals. Lord, help us."

Petition of evangelical critics

While many evangelical leaders are holding Trump's ground, it remains unclear whether the faithful will follow them in doing so. Especially as there are breakaway movements within the U.S. evangelical movement from the political agenda of the Christian Right.

Within hours, a petition from evangelical critics of the presidential candidate reached out on "change.org" more than 18.000 signatures. "We, the undersigned, will never tolerate the racist, religious, and gender bigotry that Donald Trump continually and willingly foments."

The conservative Catholic advocacy group CatholicVote.org called for Trump's resignation after the video came to light. The Republican presidential candidate's statements about women were "disgusting and simply indefensible by anything," the private Catholic media network CNA/EWTN quoted from a statement distributed over the weekend by the Catholic lay organization. If Trump doesn't take the consequences himself and resign, the party will have to take action, it continued.

The "Women Religious for Human Dignity" have encouraged reformers in the Catholic Church to advocate for change as part of the Synodal Way project. They find: A reform backlog affects the future of the church.

This process can and must – for the sake of God and mankind – be a success, says a paper of the movement published in Munich on Sunday. Should the path lose the will to renew, "it would be a fatal sign for our church as well as for society. This must not happen."

In the Synodal Way, German bishops and lay representatives have been discussing the future of the Catholic Church since 2019. The starting point is a church crisis that has lasted for years and that has been exacerbated by the abuse scandal. The debate focuses on power, priesthood and sexual morality, as well as the role of women in the church.

Empowering women

Delays and small "repairs" are no longer sufficient; instead, binding decisions are needed. Regarding women's ies, the statement said, "The fact that a female undersecretary in the Vatican is given voting rights at a synod of bishops or that the German bishops, under public prere, appoint a woman as secretary general is a long overdue but still tiny step in the right direction."

The sisters still doubt that churchmen know "what we are called to do and what we are not called to do. That is why it is urgently necessary to redefine ministries that have so far been assigned to women and offices that have so far been the responsibility of men only. This presupposes that the assignment of general and special priesthood is rethought, that violence is shared and that offices are exercised in a gender-just manner. This includes a solid separation of sacramental authority and leadership power.

The crisis of the church due to the abuse cases is homemade and not caused by the "evil world," the statement says. It was not brought in from the outside, but caused by structures that misused power and thus encouraged abuse. This history of guilt must be looked at, even if this is not easy. One problem is the lack of consciousness of injustice of "some (or many) perpetrators".

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