No more “no” to the “yes word”?

adminonDecember 21, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

With the power of outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush is also losing traction on some of his ideas. In addition to a change of course in U.S. foreign policy, the strengthened Democratic opposition is waiting to be able to set a new course in domestic policy as well. A particular thorn in the side of liberals is values-based ies. In recent months, for example, the so-called Virginity Rules and the 700 or so sexual abstinence programs across the country have come under increasing fire.

"Abstinence only" programs for public schools, a central project of Christian conservatives, involve teaching that rejects all sexual contact before marriage as immoral. Critics criticize only incomplete information and the complete lack of information on the use of contraceptives.Eleven U.S. states have rejected abstinence-only education for this year. States such as Colorado, Iowa, and Washington wrote into their school laws that such programs must henceforth be based on a broad "scientific basis". In addition, for the first time since Bush took office in 2001, the U.S. Senate cut the budget – which had since increased fivefold to the equivalent of 129 million euros.Opponents of the abstinence philosophy were helped in April by a long-term study that for the first time comprehensively examined the effectiveness of school-based abstinence programs. The Mathematica Policy Institute found no evidence that they help delay the onset of teen sexual activity.However, according to the study, teenagers have become more cautious overall with the "first time" – and are more likely to use contraceptives than in the past. The government statistics evaluated show that this trend began even before the abstinence program had grown into a statewide initiative. Since 1991, the much-discussed rates of teenage pregnancy in the U.S. have been falling.Oddly enough, however, everything is different in Bush's home state of Texas, where evangelical Christianity flourishes. Texas alone gets a total of 12.4 million euros for abstinence education, more than any other U.S. state. The question of virginity is as normal here as the question of faith.Posters with serious-looking young people stand along the highways with the inscription: "No is my answer until I say yes". Yet Texas has the least decline in teen pregnancies.Many abstinence advocates are less concerned with preventing early pregnancies and HIV infections than with spiritual rescue work. "Sex was made to bind two people together," explained Eric Love, in charge of abstinence education in Northeast Texas. Those who damage this bonding power need not be surprised that later marriages do not last. With people, it's like duct tape: "Once it's soiled, it doesn't stick well anymore.".

Pope Francis has appointed a committee to prepare for the worldwide bishops' meeting in February on dealing with abuse in the church. From Germany the psychologist and theologian Hans Zollner belongs to the team, as the Vatican communicates.

Jesuit to be committee's point person on dealing with abuse. Zollner heads the Center for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Also with external experts

In addition to Zollner, the meeting's preparatory committee includes Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Oswald Gracias of Bombay, as well as Malta's Archbishop Charles Scicluna.

Outside experts, women and men, also to contribute to shaping conference, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke says. According to the report, their main purpose is to highlight what needs to be done for greater transparency and accountability. Representatives of victims of abuse are also involved in the preparations, as are the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Children and the undersecretaries of the Vatican Office for Laity, Family and Life, Gabriella Gambino and Linda Ghisoni.

Bishops in responsibility

At the meeting of 21. to 24. February in Rome, the presidents of all bishops' conferences want to discuss better child protection in the church with the heads of curia and top representatives of religious orders. The goal of the meeting, which is unprecedented in its nature, is for church leaders to "develop a comprehensive awareness of the devastating consequences that clergy sexual abuse has on adolescents," Burke said. He said the meeting was primarily for bishops, who bear "much of the responsibility for this serious problem".

The view is very varied: to the east and south the Rhine bridges to Mannheim, to the north the industrial plants of BASF, to the west the foothills of the Palatinate Forest. "I have never lived as comfortably as I do here," says Friedhelm Hengsbach. This is the top floor of the Heinrich Pesch House in Ludwigshafen, a Catholic educational center in the Speyer diocese. The economist, who turns 75 on Sunday, lives in a community with three other Jesuits, "a kind of men's commune.

By his own admission, his style of work is not much different from that in Frankfurt Sankt Georgen, where the religious taught Christian social science and business and social ethics from 1985 until his retirement in 2005, and for a decade and a half headed the Oswald von Nell Breuning Institute for Business and Social Ethics, named after the doyen of Catholic social teaching. Hengsbach is still much in demand and on the road, he publishes, gives lectures and interviews.

At the same time, Hengsbach argues for social justice, as he has for decades. He is currently intensively involved with the financial markets, "whose speculative attacks are running riot on currency, food and bond markets". He sees the "war between private capital power and democratically legitimized states" as the core of the crisis. For Hengsbach, the conflict between private interests and public interest. Digitalization of financial markets provides "an additional push for acceleration". It is about quarterly reports and annual profits, not about sustainability.

Debates within the church
The long-standing member of Attac's scientific advisory board is not only sharply critical of the social policies of the CDU/CSU, FDP, SPD and Greens, Hengsbach also repeatedly intervenes in debates within the church: For every Christian becomes untrustworthy if he is committed to justice in the world, but "a swamp of unjust conditions spreads in his own store.".
That is why he wants reforms of the church "at the head and the limbs": a better position for women, a different sexual morality, the abolition of compulsory celibacy, the participation of all Christians in the appointment of pastors, bishops and popes, who, according to his conception, should also hold their offices only for a limited period of time.

Hengsbach also wants to abolish the church tax and demands that the churches, as employers, fit into the general labor law. The Jesuit knows that he does not make friends everywhere with his positions. He goes so far as to say that the church as an institution is "infested with structures of sin. Hengsbach, who joined the order after graduating from high school and studied in Munich, in Buren in Westphalia, in Sankt Georgen and Bochum, sees himself in his political commitment "in the succession of Nell-Breuning, according to whom commitment in faith goes hand in hand with social commitment. The one is an expression of the other."

The native of Dortmund, whose heart beats rather for Schalke 04, represents his positions scientifically soberly. Even though he attests that his church "cannot claim to make the cause of God visible". Does Hengsbach see himself as a rebel? No, he ares, and seems confident: numerous Catholics share his opinion. Much is still happening under the covers, but perhaps a change is just beginning. He also likes this view.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply