From problem child to model boy

adminonDecember 15, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

The figures are astonishing: The Archdiocese of Berlin, which was in debt for more than 114 million euros a few years ago, is strictly adhering to the austerity measures it imposed at the time. At the turn of the year, bank liabilities still amounted to about 36 million euros, as Finance Director Bernd Junemann told the Catholic News Agency. From problem child, the archdiocese virtually transformed into a model boy in responsible budget management.

"Painful contributions" Without the help of the other 26 German dioceses, it would hardly have been possible. They promised the archdiocese 50 million euros in loans, 30 million of which were actually paid out. This did not happen entirely without conditions: a trustee committee made sure that the reorganization plan, which the archdiocese had drawn up with the help of a management consultancy, was adhered to. To its probably last meeting the committee in Berlin already met.The fraternal financial supervision of the other dioceses had its share in the fact that the archdiocese has now presented a budget for 2007 that is balanced without borrowing for the fourth time in a row. Junemann announced that the archdiocese will now not draw on the outstanding church loan of 20 million euros. This is likely to be very convenient for the other dioceses, many of which are now struggling with financial problems of their own to varying degrees.The archdiocese wants to be debt-free in ten years, according to its ambitious goal. This cannot be achieved without a "painful contribution" from all levels of the church, as Junemann acknowledged. Around 400 of formerly 2.700 full-time positions have already been eliminated in recent years, and several church buildings have been abandoned. After mergers, the 108 parishes in Berlin, Brandenburg and Western Pomerania are facing further drastic cuts in the next three years.

Own contribution for parishes By 2009, financial allocations from the archdiocesan ordinariate for "technical personnel" will be phased out, according to the archdiocese's latest official gazette. Personnel subsidies will then only be available for church musicians and the financial accountants of the congregations. Instead of the funds for janitors, sextons or cleaners, each congregation must then pay 2.000 euros per year for very small jobs, unless it can pay these employees from reserves or from its own income, for example from rentals.Some parishes want to compensate for the shortfall with the income from a foundation set up for this purpose, while most have to rely more on voluntary work. Berlin Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky sees the structural reforms not only as unavoidable steps toward financial reorganization, but also as pastoral opportunities for the 390.000 Catholics of the archdiocese. He called on the congregations to set priorities in their activities. The Archbishop of Berlin is sure that they could gain a higher profile by offering special church music or social services.

Gay marriage: not feasible for the church © dpa

With a new ecumenical “Coalition for Marriage,” Australia's Catholics and Anglicans are promoting a “No” vote in the referendum to introduce same-sex marriage.

The coalition was initiated by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney and the organizations “Australian Christian Lobby” and “Marriage Alliance”, it said in a press release on Monday.

In an interview with The Australian, Sydney's Archbishop Anthony Fisher warned that religious freedom and freedom of expression would be curtailed if supporters of “gay marriage” won the referendum. “Will teachers continue to have the freedom to teach church doctrine on marriage, or will they be forced to teach according to a politically correct curriculum?” asked Archbishop Fisher.

Advertising in families, communities and neighborhoods

On the website of the “Coalition for Marriage”, Internet users are asked to recruit supporters in their families, communities and neighborhoods in a snowball system. In doing so, the churches wanted to contribute to a “respectful” debate, said the Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Michael Stead, according to Australian media reports. People should be able to speak their minds – “without the fear of being labeled a bigot or a homophobe”.

Criticism of the “No” campaign

The ecumenical No campaign, however, has been met with criticism. Bill Crews, a pastor at the Uniting Church, reportedly said the coalition “speaks for only a portion” of Christians.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to let Australians vote on opening marriage by postal ballot. The voting process is scheduled to begin on 12. September and will cost the equivalent of a good 81 million euros. With the referendum by mail, Turnbull wants to avoid a parliamentary vote out of consideration for the conservative wing of his Liberal Party.

Actually, it was only supposed to be a routine visit: The regular report of a bishops' conference president on a national bishops' meeting to the pope and the curia. Of course, in view of the abuse scandals in Germany, Friday's papal audience for Archbishop Robert Zollitsch is attracting special attention in the media, politics and the church.

For the constantly newly reported cases of sexual as well as violent assaults by priests, often dating back 40 or more years, have put the German church in an explosive position and triggered a debate at different legal levels. Zollitsch meets in Benedict XVI. an interlocutor who, as a cardinal of the Curia, has already taken decisive and consistent action against cases of abuse by clerics like hardly anyone else. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he urged clear norms in the fight against sexual crimes committed by clergy against minors. His predecessor John Paul II. in 2001, in the letter "De delictis gravioribus", decreed that in the future all "particularly serious crimes" were to be reported to the supreme Roman authority for the faith as the highest ecclesiastical court. As cardinal prefect, Ratzinger played a leading role in guiding the U.S. bishops, who nearly a decade ago sought a convincing way out of the devastating series of scandals in the U.S. clergy in Rome and with the Vatican. As pope, he then made personal apologies to the victims of these despicable abuses with his trip to the U.S. in 2008. During his visit to New York, as he did a little later in Australia, Benedict XVI gave. He proposed an ecclesiastical three-step plan. He clarified that a pedophile cannot be a priest, thus he should be excluded from the priesthood. The acts would have to be dealt with on a legal and political level, justice would have to be done for the victims, and pastoral assistance would have to be provided. And, crucially, effective preventive mechanisms, beginning with the selection of seminarians and including the accompaniment of pastors. "I am ashamed, and we will do everything possible so that something like this does not happen again," Benedict XVI said. On his trip to the U.S. This three-step plan brought Benedict XVI. in mid-February to the Irish bishops, who have been rocked by a series of scandals similar to those in the U.S. Ireland's episcopate had also turned to the Vatican for papal authority to find a way out of the crisis of trust and credibility. It is considered unlikely that there will now be a similar cooperative reappraisal by the Vatican and the German church. Shortly after the publication of the Roman norms of 2001 and against the background of the U.S. scandals, the German Bishops' Conference had already ied its own guidelines on how to proceed in cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics. Legal experts in the Vatican describe these norms as good and very far-reaching. Admittedly, some formulations could be made even clearer in order to avoid misunderstandings in view of the practice already in force. One of the neuralgic points is the question of when the church should inform the public prosecutor's office about cases of abuse – a question on which German state criminal law has so far made no provisions in the case of child abuse. Otherwise, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi found that the bishops' conference and religious leaders had responded promptly, decisively and with a desire for transparency to the scandal allegations. It would distort the perspective to focus allegations of sexual abuse solely on the church, he added. Zollitsch will now report to the pope on the state of affairs. Certainly Benedict XVI. and its most important employees are already largely up to date, even if the Vatican has so far held back with an evaluation of the events in the German-speaking countries. Of course, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is concerned with the canonical side of the "delicta graviora", with the violations of priests against the sacrament of penance and the commandment of chastity. However, this internal church area – quite different from the criminal side of abuse – is subject to papal secrecy. The Vatican is convinced that all other ies are in good hands with the German Bishops' Conference. Further words from Rome in this regard could be misunderstood in the emotionally charged situations, was one of the fears in the Curia. For example, to avoid equating German conditions with the more drastic abuses in the U.S. and Ireland.

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