Spiritual event with sporting elements

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Not only the major social ies are on the agenda under the slogan "What a trust". This time, the Kirchentag will also include a sports program. The German president and chancellor have confirmed their attendance.

Pray, sing, discuss – this time in Dortmund. Around 100.000 participants are expected from the 19. to 23. June Protestant Kirchentag expected in the Ruhr metropolis. The program will again include ethical debates – especially on climate and the environment, refugees, right-wing populism, fake news and poverty among the elderly.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his three predecessors, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), and other representatives from politics and society are attending. Unlike the Kirchentag in Berlin two years ago and the 2018 Katholikentag in Munster, the AfD will not get a forum this time around.

"What a trust"

After 1963 and the Ruhr District Church Congress in 1991, the Protestant Christian meeting takes place in Dortmund for the third time. Under the slogan "What a trust" it offers no less than 2.000 individual events, around one-third of them cultural. According to the motto of a workshop "Are you still silent or are you already singing??"Pop-Rock aus'm Pott" and other spiritual music plays a major role on the main stages at Hansa-, Friedensplatz and Altem Markt as well as several side stages.

"Sport is like religion and faith"

In the city of this year's runner-up BVB, the Christian meeting comes up with a special feature: For the 70th anniversary of the Kirchentag, there will be a center for sports for the first time at the suggestion of the host Evangelical Church of Westphalia (EKvW).

"Sport – like religion and faith – is one of the great social binding forces of the present," emphasizes President Annette Kurschus. At the center, athletes, academics, fans and critics discuss team spirit "on the pitch" and in church, or the desire or compulsion to succeed. Ice rink, dance floor or a sailboat on Lake Phoenix invite practical exercises.

At a climbing tower, participants are to practice the trust for which the Kirchentag advertises in its motto. Federal President and Chancellor also deal with confidence. The panel with Steinmeier, former Research Minister Annette Schavan and science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar will discuss "trusting the future in the digital modern age". And "Trust as the basis of international politics?" is the theme of Merkel and Liberia's ex-president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Creation and the environment

According to Kurschus, the common thread of the Christian meeting is the topic of migration and integration, which she herself will discuss with former German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere. On the complex of creation and the environment, which is also part of the DNA of the Kirchentag, the responsible federal minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) explains her view of things, as does "Fridays for Future" activist Luisa Neubauer. The prime ministers of Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria, the Green Winfried Kretschmann and the Christian Socialist Markus Soder, argue about what is still conservative and what is already right-wing populist.

The Kirchentag presidium, headed by Hans Leyendecker, has already found an answer to the question – and has not invited AfD representatives to the debates. Because in the meantime there are connections of the party to the right-wing extremism and anti-constitutional networks. Leyendecker identifies an advancing radicalization of the party and sees it on the way to a frontal attack on democracy.

Panel on "German Angst"

Representatives from the ecumenical community have a natural place. A little less than usual already – however, in 2021 there is yes the 3. Ecumenical Church Congress. Dortmund gives more weight to interreligious dialogue, for example at the panel on "German Angst. Meant to address the question of the status of Islam in Germany. As in previous years, a "Center for Muslims and Christians" and a "Center for Jews and Christians" will open in the city in the Ruhr area.

Gender justice and sexual diversity get wide coverage. A traffic light in the Kirchentag app will indicate the extent to which events on this or other ies are overcrowded. Many a person who discovers in the program the workshop "painting vulvas" will see red quite independently of the digital display.

It's not just the White House – various social ies were also decided in the U.S. election. Same-sex marriage, allowed in California since May, may now have to be struck down again.

In California, same-sex marriage is apparently on the brink of extinction following a referendum. After incomplete results, voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a life union between a man and a woman. Same-sex marriage, which has been allowed in the state since May, would thus have to be abolished again.Voters in Washington state approved an initiative to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Mentally sane seriously ill patients with a life expectancy of six months or less are to be given the right to have lethal drugs prescribed by a doctor under certain conditions in the future.West Coast state becomes second state with legalized physician-assisted suicide under new law. Oregon had already passed such a measure in1997.

Anti-abortion law comes nic In referendums in South Dakota and Colorado, citizens rejected complete abortion bans. In the state of South Dakota, voters opposed an initiative to ban abortion almost entirely. Abortions would have been legal under the bill only if the pregnancy endangered the life of the pregnant woman or if the pregnancy resulted from rape. In Colorado, voters rejected an anti-abortion law that said humans should enjoy full civil and human rights from conception.In California, the Supreme Court had ruled in May, laws against same-sex marriage discriminated against gays and lesbians and violated the California Constitution. Since then, more than 10.000 same-sex couples married, as many as 18, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper's estimate.000. Conservative Protestant, Catholic and Mormon groups in particular fought for a ban on gay marriage.

Thanksgiving services for the new pope took place in several dioceses on Sunday. An overview.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch has called on Christians to be encouraged by Pope Francis and to publicly confess the faith. Then, he said, "the election of the cardinal from Argentina will not be the only surprise that shakes us up". The president of the German Bishops' Conference and Archbishop of Freiburg said on Sunday at a thanksgiving service in Freiburg Cathedral. With prayers and trust in God, Christians are able to "contribute to the renewal of the church as it is needed by us today, in our time".

According to Zollitsch, the Pope is a "sign of the community and an instrument of unity". He had the task "as a pontiff, as a bridge builder, to connect, to strengthen the togetherness and to keep the unity in diversity alive."The archbishop is convinced that Pope Francis brings with him many experiences that will be helpful in his task: "It is the bridge across the Atlantic, to the more distant continents, that he will build. It is the bridge to the poor and needy, which he has already trodden as archbishop in Buenos Aires. It is the bridge of credible and humble appearance that he built at the very beginning of his public ministry."

Zollitsch expressed himself impressed by the courage expressed by Pope Francis in choosing his name: "Francis – that is more than a name. This is also connected with a program."St. Francis of Assisi was radically serious about following Christ "at a time when many in our Church had become more and more distant from Jesus Christ through power games and politics.".

Archbishop Schick: A breath of fresh air
Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick expects a fresh wind in the church from the new pope. "The ship of Peter, which – thank God – has become an ocean liner, will become faster and more dynamic," Schick said in Bamberg Cathedral. For the first time, the Catholic Church is led by a pope whose homeland is in the southern half of the globe. "The poor of the South, the hungry, the exploited, the enslaved, come to the center of the world. We can expect more global justice and more solidarity, which will do us all good."

Tebartz-van Elst: Pope's election shows church as universal church
According to Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the election of a South American as pope shows "how much our church has become a universal church". This is accompanied by a "salutary relativization of too strong German and Eurocentric fixations," Tebartz-van Elst said Sunday at a thanksgiving service in Limburg.

Pope Francis was confronted with great social challenges in his homeland in South America and, following in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, identified with them. In the pilgrimage church there, the most impressive of the murals shows how the saint supports the church, the Limburg bishop said: "This is Peter's ministry! This is how Pope Benedict XVI described him. lived and understood, and Pope Francis sees himself in this vocation."Apostolic service in continuity and authenticity consists in serving the whole of the Church with one's own charism.

Tebartz-van Elst also emphasized that with his choice of name, the pope has set a path that he wants to follow with the church. St. Francis knew how to build the Church from within at a time of great political upheaval and social change. This is also the vocation and mission of the new Pope.

Archbishop Schick: Pope will bring a breath of fresh air
Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg expects a fresh wind in the church from the new pope. "The ship of Peter, which "thank God" has become an ocean liner, will become faster and more dynamic," Schick said Sunday in Bamberg Cathedral at a thanksgiving service for Francis' election.

For the first time, the Catholic Church is led by a pope whose homeland is in the southern half of the globe, the archbishop explained. "The poor of the South, the hungry, the exploited, the enslaved come to the center of the world. We can expect more global justice and more solidarity, which will do us all good."Francis has shown with his choice of name that he stands for a poor church, which is there for the poor. In addition, his name stands for the will for peace, understanding between religions and the preservation of creation.

Schick said he had met the current pontiff at a synod of bishops in 2001 and was convinced: "He is a good pope."With him, modesty and decisiveness complemented each other.

Archbishop Thissen: Worldwide injustice cries out to heaven
Hamburg Archbishop Werner Thissen has accused Europeans of living at the expense of the poor. The lifestyle of the people in Europe and in the countries of the North leads "to the fact that we break the earth and that we harm the poor". In an interview with Deutsche Welle on Sunday, Thissen went on to say that the unjust distribution of goods on earth "cries out to heaven. And this cry we must hear."

This also means a request to the Catholic Church in Germany, the archbishop warned. It must share its goods more with those who have less, he said: "In Germany, too, we must and want to be a church at the side of the poor." Thissen referred to the commitment of the Episcopal Relief Organization Misereor, for which he is responsible within the Catholic German Bishops' Conference.

Catholic services over the weekend collected for Catholic Relief Services projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The 2013 Lenten campaign's motto is "We're fed up with hunger!". Misereor is one of the largest development organizations in the world. In the more than 50 years of its existence, the relief organization has supported more than 100.000 projects with around six billion euros.

At the same time, Thissen expressed skepticism that the new Pope Francis would take up concrete demands from Germany and Europe for changes in sexual morality and the priestly obligation of celibacy. It will be learned that these problems would not be in the foreground worldwide. "In the foreground must be the question of justice," said the archbishop. He's counting on the pope to address this ie of justice and push for change to lift people out of poverty and dependency, he said.

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