Criticism of the vatican questionnaire for the family synod

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Criticism of the vatican questionnaire for the family synod

Difficult to understand language, theological terms – with these words, several dioceses criticize the Vatican's questionnaire in preparation for the second Synod on the Family. our site has spoken with Dr. Michael Dornemann from the Diocese of Essen spoke.

Interviewer: Mr. Dornemann, you have analyzed the questionnaire and the participation of the faithful in it. First of all, the questionnaire itself. What is your concrete criticism?

Dr. Michael Dornemann (Head of the Pastoral Department in the Diocese of Essen): The questionnaire is very different from the one that was sent out in preparation for the first Synod on the Family. This time the results of the last synod have been included in the questionnaire. Therefore, the questionnaire no longer openly asks about family situations, but rather anticipates theological results and canonical language formulations. This makes the language style difficult to understand and the questions very complex – partly with explicit theological terms. This has made it difficult for many to answer the questions. Some believers therefore suspected that a broad survey was not really what was wanted.
Interviewer: That is, people actually thought: the Vatican doesn't really want to hear us at all. He asks such complicated questions that we cannot answer at all.
Dr. Michael Dornemann: At least that became clear from some of the answers we received. And also in the official statement from the Priests' Council, the Religious Council and the Diocesan Council it is expressed that many said: We partly had to put a dictionary of foreign words next to it in order to even understand what was meant. This has deterred many of the faithful and prevented them from responding.
Interviewer: That means that also in Essen there was a rather reserved participation in the questionnaire?
Dr. Michael Dornemann: Yes, and I hear that now also from other dioceses. The Essen number from ca. 14 individual responses – in addition to the official response from the Diocesan Council, the Priests' Council and the Religious Council – lies in the measure of the other dioceses. They all register a low participation. In Mainz, for example, 21 people took part.
Interviewer: Can you give an example of complex formulations that you criticize??
Dr. Michael Dornemann: It asks about "powerlessness in the face of socio-economic reality". Of course, we know what is meant by this. In terms of content, this is also a justified concern. Families face many challenges: How to get family and work life together? Is the salary enough to feed a family?? That is, there are very practical questions behind this formulation. And, of course, many ask themselves: Why is it necessary to use such complex wording to describe such simple backgrounds??
Interviewer: Let us look at the contents. For example, people would like to see a more merciful approach to remarried divorcees, a more modern attitude on the part of the church toward contraceptives, and blessing ceremonies for homosexual couples. All this was already said about the first family synod. How realistic do you think it is that these topics will have a better chance of being heard at the second Synod on the Family in October?.
Dr. Michael Dornemann: I think that this will be very difficult in the fall. The questionnaire and the answers we have now received make it clear what difficulties the bishops are now facing. The answers clearly show that many Catholics consider the Christian understanding of marriage as indissolubility and fidelity to be important. They also make it clear that it must be different from same-sex couples living together. But everyone also says very clearly: It cannot be that the church acts in a discriminatory and exclusionary way towards homosexuals. So there is a demand for church symbolic acts, blessings or also further creative ideas, so that homosexuals are strengthened in their living together. Many responses make it clear that the church should not act from above, especially in this area.

The interview was conducted by Hilde Regeniter.

About flip-flops, jesus slippers and monastic dress codes

Even in the heat with the cassock through the city © Francisco Osorio via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) (private)

A "Sahara outbreak" is pushing temperatures toward the 40-degree mark and putting sweat on people's foreheads. Extreme conditions for weathermen and weather-sensitive people. The summer has just begun.

Damn hot here. High Ulla continues to keep temperatures in Germany at record levels. According to forecasts, the 40-degree mark could be cracked this Wednesday – before it is expected to cool down again somewhat in the coming week. The monkey heat makes man and animal to create. Seniors in particular should make sure to drink regularly and more than they are used to, Barmer reported. The substitute insurance company activated a hotline at the beginning of the week that gives callers tips on how to deal with the tropical weather.

Meanwhile, the Kommern open-air museum, located in the Eifel region, canceled its "With Horse and Ox" event planned for the weekend. It is simply too hot for agricultural work with museum animals, they said. Shade wanted – only where? Swimming lakes and outdoor pools are the first things that come to mind. A walk in the woods would also be a good idea.

"There is a high risk of forest fires"

Not however, if it goes after FDP agrarian expert Karlheinz buses. "The forests in Germany are extremely dry, especially in Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. There is the highest risk of forest fires," the member of the Bundestag told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland and called for a temporary ban on entry.

On hot days, the all-time classics for cooling off include churches and the tombs of famous personalities. Always hotly traded: the Hohenzollern crypt under the Protestant cathedral in Berlin. Pleasant temperatures also prevail in Cologne Cathedral, with 22.2 degrees on Tuesday afternoon almost certainly one of the coolest places in North Rhine-Westphalia. Summer-clad visitors are handed colorful scarves by the Cathedral Swiss to cover themselves appropriately in the house of God.

In the south of the republic, a visit to what is believed to be Germany's highest monastery beckons. At the Franciscan monastery in Siegsdorf in the district of Traunstein, at an altitude of 832 meters above sea level, it's easy to get along – especially since the "balcony of the Chiemgau" is also home to a monastery inn with acknowledged good cuisine.

It's all a question of dress code

Of course, only those who don't have to go to work can enjoy all this. Office workers, on the other hand, are faced with the anxious question of what to wear – and what not to wear. "While one expects from the Surf teacher and the service forces of a beach bar formally informal like Flipflops, applies to insurance representatives, bank employees and attorneys rather the opposite , knows Moritz baron Knigge. The expert adds, however, that heat waves are now easier to bear because "Birkenstocks are on the rise and ties are on the retreat".

Praise and thanks be to the "Jesus slipper". But the matter of the dress code remains complicated, and is worth two stories to the style magazine "Spiegel" these days. On Spiegel Online you can read a philippic against flip-flops, the "thongs for the feet. The print edition celebrates the sandal for the lady as salvation from wearing painful high heels. "The equality of the sexes is also reflected in the height of the heels."

Lighter colors and thinner fabrics in the monastery

Even religious are concerned, as Sister Praxedis, Superior General of the Augustinian Sisters of Neuss, recounts. In high temperatures, she and her fellow sisters resort to a gray or white habit that is "a bit thinner". Pity those who work in the kitchen – and sweat. The heat doesn't even stop at monastery walls. Light meals, salads and cold soups are on the menu, says Sister Praxedis. "And on Sundays we have ice cream!"

The only place you're likely to encounter freezing contemporaries at the moment is at the ongoing UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany. Rooms at the World Conference Center are cooled down to a perceived 18 degrees, attendees report – as the first heat wave of the year reignites the debate over climate change and its consequences.

One of the most provocative martyrs of the nazi era

Scene in the film "Ein verborgenes Leben (A Hidden Life)" (A Hidden Life) © DreamWorks SKG/ Cannes Film Festival

Star director Terrence Malick creates a cinematic memorial to him, now in theaters. But who was Franz Jagerstatter, later beatified, who was beheaded for refusing to swear an oath to Hitler??

Of all the martyrs of the Nazi era, he is certainly one of the most provocative figures. He was not an intellectual, did not belong to any resistance group or organization, but was a simple man who followed his conscience: Franz Jagerstatter, whose life story can now be seen in Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life" in the cinema.

From the beginning, he saw through National Socialism as a "godless power". And this is precisely where the provocation lies: if a peasant from Sankt Radegund near Linz in Upper Austria was capable of doing this, why did the educated and socially superior lack this clear-sightedness and consistency?? Jagerstatter, who died on 20. Born Franz Huber on May 1907, he was born on 9. His beheading on Aug. 1943 was a nuisance to many of his contemporaries.

From the simplest of backgrounds

The man, who came from the simplest of backgrounds, has fascinated many for decades with his straightforwardness – even though his life by no means led seamlessly to conscientious objection and the subsequent death sentence. The young Franz, who inherited the farm from his adoptive father Heinrich Jagerstatter, was considered a fun-loving, sometimes irascible person. He was the first in the village to own a motorcycle and had an illegitimate daughter.

After a conversion experience he thought about entering a monastery, but his local priest advised him against it. In 1936 he married Franziska Schwaninger, with whom he had three more daughters and who became his "spiritual companion in life". She encouraged him to pray and read the Bible together, and he took on the task of sexton in his village. On 10. In April 1938, he was the only one to vote in Sankt Radegund against the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich.

Refused military service

In 1940/41 Jagerstatter was still ready to serve as a driver in the Wehrmacht, but after his discharge – he was called back to the farm by the mayor as "indispensable" – it was clear to him that he would not follow a further call up. When the time came two years later, he declared that he would act against his religious conscience if he fought for the National Socialist state. His intensive struggle with this question, also his self-doubts, are witnessed by his notes in three notebooks and his letters.

Relatives and friends, including several clergymen and the Bishop of Linz, Joseph Flieber, whom he asked for advice, had tried in vain to diade him from his plan. Only his wife supported him. Father Heinrich Kreuzberg, who visited him in prison in Berlin-Tegel, reported in a letter to Franziska Jagerstatter how pleased and relieved her husband had been when he told him about the Austrian Pallottine Father Franz Reinisch, who had refused military service on the same grounds.

Death sentence for "decomposition of military power

Am 6. July 1943 the Reich War Court sentenced Jagerstatter to death for "subversion of military power. On 9. August he was beheaded. Dechant Albert Jochmann, who accompanied him on his last journey, said: "He lived as a saint and died as a saint."

Of course, it was still a long way to go before this assessment was accepted by the general public. After 1945, Jagerstatter was not even recognized in Austria as a victim of political resistance. Widow Franziska did not receive a widow's pension under the War Victims Welfare Act until 1950. In 1964, the American Gordon C. Zahn presented the first biography of Jagerstatter, which made him internationally known. During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Archbishop Thomas D. Roberts explicitly referred to Jagerstatter's decision of conscience.

It was not until 1997 that the process of beatification was officially opened. On the 1. June 2007 Pope Benedict XVI confirmed. martyrdom, on 26. October 2007 the beatification took place in the Linz Mariendom. As a memorial day the 21. May set. At the solemn service, his widow Franziska, who died six years later shortly after her 100th birthday, wore a sash. Birthday died, a relic of her husband to the altar.

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