Thomas Frings

Thomas Frings (* 1960 in Kleve ) is a Roman Catholic priest . In February 2016, his announcement to resign from all offices in the diocese of Münster and - for the time being - to go to the Dutch Benedictine abbey of Sint-Willibrord met with a strong public response. He justified this step with the inexorable "loss of meaning of the faith lived in the church".

Life

Thomas Frings is the great-grandson of Michael Frings (1795-1872), the grandson of Heinrich Frings (1885-1946), a grandnephew of Cologne Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Frings (1887-1978) and Alfons Frings (1893-1968) and a cousin by Michael Frings (* 1949). He studied theology as well as art history and classical archeology and was ordained a priest in 1987. After pastoral care as chaplain in Freckenhorst and parish administrator in Münster - Angelmodde , he became pastor of St. Ludgerus , Münster- Albachten in 1997 , and dean of the St. Lamberti deanery , to which Albachten belongs, in 1999 , as well as chairman of the diocese's art commission. Since 2009 he has been pastor of the Holy Cross congregation in Münster, since 2010 a member and since 2014 moderator of the diocesan priest council .

He announced his resignation after Easter 2016 on February 14, 2016. The first communion in Heilig Kreuz on April 10, 2016 was also his farewell service.

In spring 2017 his book Aus, Amen, Ende? I can no longer be a pastor like this . On April 9, 2017, the Hessischer Rundfunk broadcast a conversation Frings' with Lothar Bauerochse and Klaus Hofmeister .

In the summer of 2017, Frings ended his stay at the St. Willibrord monastery and returned to the service of the Münster diocese, initially as an interim pastor administrator.

He has been working as a priest in Cologne since 2018. In 2020 he was chairman of the Cologne Carnival Society Die Grosse von 1823 .

Declaration of resignation

In his personal statement, Frings stressed that he would remain a priest and explained in a newspaper interview that the church is “the objective framework of my subjective faith. ... I think and live in the church, for me my place is in the church, with 2000 years of history. I don't want to be anything else than a priest. ”In his illustrated description of the loss of importance of church religiosity and the contradictions associated with it, he refrains from accusations in any direction -“ not the communities in which I was active, not the pastors and not the bishop and the diocese leadership with whom I have worked for 30 years ”. "A change from someone other than to be expected from yourself, however, I consider to be one of the problems itself."

Publications

Out, amen, end I can no longer be a pastor like this. Herder. Freiburg im Breisgau 2017, ISBN 978-3-451-37797-6
God doesn't work. That's why I believe in him. Freiburg im Breisgau 2019.