Church 2011: A necessary departure

Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening is the title of an appeal in which theologians from universities - especially from German-speaking countries - called for a reform of the Roman Catholic Church in February 2011 . The memorandum called for more participation and more legal culture, among other things. It was prepared by an editorial team of eight and signed by 311 Catholic theologians (including over 200 active professors), religious educators and other scholars.

Some of the signatories already supported the Cologne Declaration in 1989 and in 1995 the We Are Church initiative . An impetus from Austria in 1995 was the desire of the church people .

content

The authors refer to the cases of abuse that have become known at the Canisius College in Berlin and the deep crisis of the Roman Catholic Church resulting from these and other cases . In 2010 more members left the Catholic Church than ever before. Far-reaching reforms are necessary to resolve this crisis, and 2011 must be a year of new beginnings for the Church. In the opinion of the authors, the aim must be to achieve a greater correspondence between the social structure of the church and religious aspirations.

The memorandum therefore calls for an open dialogue in the following fields of action:

a stronger participation of the faithful at all levels of the church, also when appointing important ministers ( bishop , pastor ),

the promotion of parish life by counteracting the formation of large parishes, the believers take responsibility and married priests (abolition of the obligation of celibacy for ordained ) and women are admitted to church office (see also lack of priests ),

the improvement of legal protection and legal culture in the church and, as a first step, the establishment of a church administrative judiciary,

Respect for the individual conscience, especially in the area of personal life decisions and individual ways of life (remarried, divorced, same-sex partnership ),

Reconciliation with those of whom the Church is guilty and

Reforms in worship by allowing more cultural diversity and expressions of the present.

List of signatories

A total of 311 people have signed the memorandum: German-speaking countries

Signatories from non-German speaking countries

Xavier Alegre
Joseba Arregi Olaizola
Jesús Asurmendi
Lourdes Barrenetxea Urkia
Gregory Tree
José Manuel Bernal Cantos
José Bernardi
Ignace Berten
Montserrat Biosca Duch
Alberto Bondolfi
Eberhard Bons
Agnes Brazal
José María Castillo Sánchez
José Centeno
Aldir Crocoli
Ton Danenberg
Juan Antonio Estrada
Marcio Fabri
Rufo Fernández Pérez
Dolores Figueras Fondevila
Bejamín Forcano Cebollada
Judette Gallares
Máximo García Ruiz
Marcelo Juan González
Jan Jans
Werner G. Jeanrond
Miro Jelecevic
Elisa Jiménez Xifre
Janez Juhant
Walter Lesch
Julio Lois Fernández
Aloysius Lopez Cartagenas
Gerar Mannion
Ivo Marković
Juan Masía Clavel
José Mario Méndez Méndez
Anthony T. Padovano
José Antonio Pagola Elorza
Luis Augusto Panchi
Federico Pastor Ramos
Jesús Peláez del Rosal
Richard Penaskovic
Margarita Pintos de Cea-Naharro
Félix Placer Ugarte
John Mansford Prior
Julio Puente López
Mertxe Renovales
Susan Roll
Giuseppe Ruggieri
José Sánchez
Santiago Sánchez Torrado
Joseph Selling
Thomas Shannon
Jon Sobrino
Jacqueline Stewart
Silvana Suaiden
Luíz Carlos Susin
Paulo Suess
Juan José Tamayo Acosta
Marie-Jo Thiel
Christoph Theobald
Luiza etsuko Tomita
Andrés Torres Queiruga
Caroline Vander Stichele
Rufino Velasco Martínez
Marciano Vidal Garciá
Evaristo Villar Villar
Javier Vitoria
Lode Lucas Wostyn
Juan Yzuel
Marta Zubia Guinea

Reactions

Church reactions

Hans Langendörfer , secretary of the German Bishops' Conference , declared that they were ready for dialogue. However, some of the demands of the memorandum are "in tension with theological convictions and church stipulations of high binding force".

The reactions among the German bishops and cardinals were generally subdued and inconsistent. Bishop Felix Genn , Münster, did not consider the memorandum proposals to be “the way to overcome this crisis”. Cardinal Walter Kasper also rejected the memorandum. The demands are known and "said by many other groups almost ad nauseam". In the memorandum he missed the naming of the actual problem that the church had, namely the so-called God crisis by Johann Baptist Metz : "Instead, the memorandum remains stuck in a self-employment that he himself fully rightly criticized." The bishop of Fulda also , Heinz Josef Algermissen , found the memorandum “too striking”. The dialogue initiated by the bishops should not be “blocked from the start by a know-it-all”. In contrast, Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier saw the theologians' memorandum as an expression of confidence in the Church and in its strength for renewal.

The chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Robert Zollitsch , expressed fundamental understanding for the demands of the memorandum and explicitly did not want structural issues to be excluded from the dialogue initiated by the bishops. On the other hand, the memorandum fell short of the mark, as it reinforced the problematic impression that a renewal of the Catholic Church would be limited to working through “lists of defects”. The memorandum neglects the religious element. Zollitsch, on the other hand, rejected the implicit accusation that the episcopate is characterized by general resistance to reform and paralysis as a caricature.

Notker Wolf , the abbot primate of the Benedictine order , viewed the memorandum critically despite numerous points that were worthy of approval.

Supportive responses

For the Central Committee of German Catholics , its chairman, Alois Glück, praised the memorandum as an “important contribution to the dialogue process on the future of the Catholic Church in Germany”. The Federation of German Catholic Youth welcomed the memorandum and the dialogue, which must be conducted soon and comprehensively. The German Catholic Women's Association and the Catholic German Women's Association also welcomed the memorandum. In addition to these major associations, diocesan councils and commissions also welcomed the memorandum and expressed their wish for a comprehensive dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. The working group for students of Catholic theology in Germany , the board of directors of the scholarship holders of the Cusanuswerk and the Forum University and Church (FHoK) spoke out in favor of an open and respectful discussion of the points named in the memorandum. Occasionally, it was regretted that the discussion so far has been dominated by marginal positions and that the discussion has narrowed down to a few scandalous topics such as celibacy. In addition, the wish was expressed that Pope Benedict XVI. used his visit to Germany to get in touch with the whole range of opinions.

Numerous other initiatives at local and diocesan level were formed to support the memorandum. In the Archdiocese of Freiburg, around 300 priests expressed their support for the memorandum as the start of an open discussion process. On the basis of this initiative, priests and deacons of the Diocese of Würzburg also formulated a petition for support for the memorandum. 300 religion teachers launched and signed their own support initiative. The Federation of German Catholic Youth launched its own Facebook page to support the memorandum. In addition to the memorandum, there are online signature lists for other supporters as a joint campaign by the Readers' Initiative Publik e. V. and from We are Church and as a private initiative of two theology students from Jerusalem.

In a statement on the criticism put forward primarily by Cardinal Walter Kasper , Hans Kessler , Eberhard Schockenhoff and Peter Walter contradicted the argument that the crisis of the Catholic Church could be narrowed down to a crisis of faith. Instead, for them there was a close connection between the church and God's crisis. The authors emphasized that questions such as the admission of divorced people to communion and other issues could not simply be answered in the spirit of the times. On the other hand, one could not ignore the points warned in the memorandum with reference to a “God's crisis”, but should address them in dialogue.

Johann Baptist Metz expressed himself similarly . He replied to the divine crisis addressed by Cardinal Walter Kasper, among others, that its causes also included the problems addressed in the memorandum and that they therefore had to be addressed.

Critical reactions

The creators of the online petition “Petition pro Ecclesia” opposed the demands of the memorandum “Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening” and accused its authors of having deceived and unsettled the faithful. In a period of around two months they were able to collect over 15,000 signatures from Catholics for the items listed in their petition. A similar petition was formulated by theology students under the title "Memorandum 'plus' Freedom".

Essentially, critics criticized the fact that the memorandum got lost in structural issues and contributed little to a new religious reflection. Instead, "the Church" is denounced across the board. The portrayal of the Bible as a pure "message of freedom", however, is shortening. Victims of abuse did not demand freedom, but justice. The claim of God against humans is thereby ignored and the relationship between humans and God is literally reversed. Existing problems such as a shortage of priests , a decline in membership, etc. are, in the opinion of the critics, less due to the institutional structure than to the secularization affecting the Catholic Church . As a rule, reference is made to the Protestant or Anglican Church . There, the requirements of the memorandum were met without the general situation differing significantly from that of the Catholic Church. In the opinion of the critics, the demands of the memorandum therefore missed the reality.

The connection made in the memorandum between the cases of abuse in Catholic institutions and the general crisis of the Catholic Church has been particularly sharply criticized as supporting prejudice . The authoring and supporting theologians were also accused of hiding their own share in the current crisis of faith. The memorandum itself is an expression of a widespread attitude that puts ecclesiastical political engagement ahead of religious and thus only makes a further contribution to secularization within the church . The need to change celibacy was contested with reference to the Permanent Diaconate . The question of the ordination of women , on the other hand, is definitely decided by the magisterium and the discussion ends (cf. Ordinatio sacerdotalis ). The demand for the establishment of an ecclesiastical administrative jurisdiction, however, was accepted with approval.

Corresponding positions were represented by theologians, for example Manfred Lütz , Thomas Söding , Manfred Hauke , Helmut Hoping , Jürgen Manemann , Hubert Windisch , Jan-Heiner Tück , Wolfgang Ockenfels , Joseph Schumacher and Bernhard Körner , who, however, also saw many points addressed in the memorandum that were outside the binding teaching could be approached. As journalists, Matthias Matussek and Andreas Püttmann in particular, as well as George Weigel in the English-speaking world, were critical of the memorandum.

A differently motivated criticism of the memorandum came from the emeritus theology professor Hans Küng . The wording of the memorandum was too soft for this; he would have preferred clearer words instead.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ wording

^ Matthias Drobinski : Reform from within. Theologians against celibacy. on sueddeutsche.de, February 3, 2011

↑ ^a ^b Signatories - 240 of the 311 signatories are from German-speaking countries

↑ After analyzing the 250 signatories, Alexander Kissler came to the conclusion that there were around 104 active professors of Catholic theology in Germany. The remainder consisted of retired (40% of the signatories were over 65 years old) or former professors, pastoral theologians, religious educators and other scholars. Cf. Alexander Kissler: The fraudulent labeling. In: The daily mail. February 19, 2010 ( Executive Summary )

↑ Declaration on the memorandum “Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening”. Press release of the German Bishops' Conference, No. 14 of February 4, 2011

↑ See the analysis of the WDR church editor Theo Dierkes in the Tagesschau from February 4, 2011, online ( Memento from February 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

↑ See the interview with Bishop Genn , February 11, 2011

↑ Kasper's full statement can be found at http://www.kardinal-kasper-stiftung.de/Theologen-Memorandum.html

↑ Gernot Facius: "Stale beer in old hoses". In: The world. February 12, 2011

↑ Conflict over celibacy. Süddeutsche Zeitung Online, February 12, 2011

↑ Robert Zollitsch: List of shortcomings in faith. In: The world. February 20, 2011

↑ KNA: “Would our church be happier with that?” ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) kathisch.de, February 28, 2011

↑ zdk.de/aktuelles , accessed on February 12, 2010

↑ Church needs change. on bdkj.de, February 4, 2011

↑ Memorandum gives new impetus to the dialogue - Catholic women welcome the appeal “Church 2011” as an important impetus for the internal church reform process. ( Memento from February 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on kfd-bundesverband.de, February 7, 2011

↑ Frauenbund welcomes the signal of departure from Catholic theologians. ( Memento from April 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on Frauenbund.de, February 9, 2011

↑ See the statements of the Diocesan Committee of the Diocese of Münster ( online ( memento from February 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )) or the Diocesan Council of the Diocese of Hildesheim ( online ( memento from February 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))

^ Federal Student Council of Catholic Theology in Germany (AGT): Press release ( Memento from February 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), February 7, 2011

↑ Board of studying Cusan: Press release (PDF file, 336 kB), February 5, 2011

^ Forum University and Church (FHoK): University pastoral support supports Memorandum Church 2011. February 10, 2011

↑ 100 Freiburg priests support reform appeal. on Voice.de, February 20, 2011

↑ See supporters of the memorandum “Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening”. Priests and deacons of the Archdiocese of Freiburg support the memorandum.

↑ See supporters of the memorandum “Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening”. Priests and deacons of the Diocese of Würzburg support the memorandum. ( Memento from May 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

↑ See call for solidarity. Religion teacher for an open dialogue process.

↑ See Facebook page Church needs change.

↑ www.kirchenaufbruch-jetzt.de

↑ http://kirche2011.de/ ( Memento from February 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

↑ Hans Kessler, Eberhard Schockenhoff and Peter Walter: The church stands in its own way. ( Memento from March 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: Frankfurter Rundschau. February 24, 2011

↑ KathWeb: Johann Baptist Metz defends theologian memorandum, kathweb.at, March 16, 2011, online

↑ Catholic News Agency: counter-memorandum calls for preservation of celibacy. ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) In: kathisch.de, February 9, 2011

^ Petition pro Ecclesia

↑ A year later . Press release of February 8, 2012, accessed February 20, 2013.

↑ Cf. Memorandum "plus" freedom ( Memento from January 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

^ Manfred Lütz: A document of resignation and despair. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. February 6, 2011

↑ Norbert Göckener: Professor Söding criticizes fellow theologians. Kirchensite.de, February 17, 2011

↑ Manfred Hauke: Dialogue requires commitment. on die-tagespost.de, February 7, 2011

↑ Cf. Regina Einig: “It must remain recognizable what the bishops stand for” Interview with Helmut Hoping, Die Tagespost. February 9, 2011

↑ https://www.publik-forum.de/publik-forum-05-2011/den-glutkern-entfachen

↑ Hubert Windisch: The church at the crossroads. kath.net, February 14, 2011

↑ Jan-Heiner Tück: Unfinished Conflicts. NZZ Online, February 16, 2011

↑ This is where the grotesque revolt of theological dwarfs is documented. Interview with Prof. Wolfgang Ockenfels OP, kath.net, February 17, 2011

↑ Joseph Schumacher : A commentary on the memorandum of the theologians of February 3, 2011 ("Church 2011"). (PDF file; 88 kB) February 18, 2011

↑ See KathWeb: Grazer Theologe Körner: "Memorandum promotes striking thinking". ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) February 27, 2011

^ Matthias Matussek: The church and the wrecking balls. Spiegel Online, February 6, 2011

^ Andreas Püttmann: Resolutions blessed theology officials far from reality. on kath.net, February 10, 2011. The article also appeared in a heavily abridged version in the supplement Christ and World No. 7 of ZEIT.

↑ George Weigel: The chutzpa of the German theologians. ( Memento of May 31, 2012 on the Internet Archive ) Denver Catholic Register, March 2, 2011

^ Raimund Weible: Nine professors from Tübingen sign the call for church reform. In: Schwäbisches Tagblatt. February 6, 2011

[1] wording

[SZ-2] Matthias Drobinski : Reform from within. Theologians against celibacy. on sueddeutsche.de, February 3, 2011

[unterzeichner-3] Signatories - 240 of the 311 signatories are from German-speaking countries

[4] After analyzing the 250 signatories, Alexander Kissler came to the conclusion that there were around 104 active professors of Catholic theology in Germany. The remainder consisted of retired (40% of the signatories were over 65 years old) or former professors, pastoral theologians, religious educators and other scholars. Cf. Alexander Kissler: The fraudulent labeling. In: The daily mail. February 19, 2010 ( Executive Summary )

[5] Declaration on the memorandum “Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening”. Press release of the German Bishops' Conference, No. 14 of February 4, 2011

[6] See the analysis of the WDR church editor Theo Dierkes in the Tagesschau from February 4, 2011, online ( Memento from February 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

[7] See the interview with Bishop Genn , February 11, 2011

[8] Kasper's full statement can be found at http://www.kardinal-kasper-stiftung.de/Theologen-Memorandum.html

[9] Gernot Facius: "Stale beer in old hoses". In: The world. February 12, 2011

[10] Conflict over celibacy. Süddeutsche Zeitung Online, February 12, 2011

[11] Robert Zollitsch: List of shortcomings in faith. In: The world. February 20, 2011

[12] KNA: “Would our church be happier with that?” ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) kathisch.de, February 28, 2011