Kirchentag, Munich
CATHERINE PEPINSTER AND CHRISTA PONGRATZ-LIPPITT
Shared values, common hopes
For more than 60 years, German Protestant Christians have come together for the Kirchentag, a gathering like no other in Europe, which combines worship, debate and music. Held this year in Catholic Munich, it was the second ecumenical gathering in its history
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ike so many of the other churches of Munich, the Frauenkirche, in the heart of the Bavarian capital’s old town, became a venue for this year’s Kirchentag, the biennial gathering of German Protestant Churches. Crowds flocked to the Gothic cathedral for worship and music during the four days of the event, which owes its origins to concerns among Protestant Christians following the isolation of the Church from the State during the Nazi era. This year the 200,000 people attending the Kirchentag included not just Protestants but Catholics too, for this was the second time that the event was an ecumenical one. As those crowds made their way into the Catholic Frauenkirche, they would have passed a relief of a former Archbishop of Munich – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who spent five years in the city, before departing for Rome and latterly the papacy. And certainly, the fig- ure of Joseph Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict XVI, loomed large over the Kirchentag pro- ceedings. His absence somehow amplified his presence. There were plenty of people at the Kirchentag who thought that the Pope, as a Bavarian native and former archbishop of the host city, should have attended the event. The Pope, of course, had a prior engagement in Fátima. But to many, the decision to be in Fátima – a place of pilgrimage that embodies a traditional Catholic piety – rather than be at the ecumenical Kirchentag – which had people defying Catholic restrictions on inter- communion in 2003 when it was held for the first time in Berlin – said much about the Pope’s view of interchurch relationships. Just how interchurch dialogue is developing during this papacy was apparent during the lecture given by Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Bishop of Mainz, during the third day of the Kirchentag. His passionate support for ecu- menism was applauded by a crowd of several thousand, crammed into one of the huge halls of Munich’s international trade centre. But Lehmann’s outlining of how ecumenism is developing – through finding common ground in the area of biomedical ethics, end-of-life issues, and the treatment of refugees – indi- cates how interest during this pontificate has moved away from still insurmountable ecu- menical problems such as the Eucharist to joint defence of common Christian values in increasingly secular European societies. But the Catholics and Protestants of
10 | THE TABLET | 22 May 2010
Angela Merkel addresses the Kirchentag meeting. Photo: CNS/Michaela Rehle, Reuters
Germany who attended the Kirchentag clearly don’t want matters such as intercommunion and mixed marriages put on the back boiler. They gave resounding applause to Cardinal Lehmann as he said: “People are impatient. Sometimes we have been too polite and got used to what we have… We must not put out the ecumenical fire. “Developing an identity is difficult in ado- lescence,” said the cardinal. “Ecumenism is in adolescence. You preserve what you have but you share treasures as well … You cannot just list the sins of one another.” There was a hint from Cardinal Lehmann
that Pope Benedict’s own enthusiasm for ecu- menism was lukewarm. He cited the publication of Dominus Iesus (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document of 2000, signed off by the then prefect, Joseph Ratzinger, which said that non-Catholic Churches were defective), the overtures to the Lefebvrists, relaxations on use of the Tridentine Mass and its prayer for the Jews as “irritations for ecumenism”. When Cardinal Lehmann was asked
whether Pope Benedict might attend the next ecumenical Kirchentag, his reply was rhetor- ical: “Would that be asking too much of the Pope?” As to the Munich event: “He will want a careful report of what is going on here,” sug- gested the cardinal, to much laughter from the audience.
Despite this sense that ecumenism is in some ways a thwarted project, and Germany,
like other European nations, is facing eco- nomic difficulties and splits over its role in bailing out bust countries such as Greece, the Kirchentag still focused on optimism. Its title, “Damit ihr Hoffnung habt” – “That you may have hope” – set the gathering’s tone as did its ideals: strengthening faith, preparation for responsibility in the Church, witness to the world and solidarity with others. Those same themes were to be found in the speech given by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, where she tackled the diffi- culties of social cohesion in an increasingly divided Europe and endorsed the fundamental and profound influence of Christianity on European values. Mrs Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran pastor, seemed comfortable at such a religious gath- ering in a way it would be hard to imagine a British politician would. The Christian image of humanity and the understanding of what human beings are called to do is the original foundation on which her party, the Christian Democratic Union, and its coalition partners, the Christian Social Union, base their politics. “It is a view of the human being who … understands freedom as responsible freedom, a freedom that is always related to others…” said Mrs Merkel. “Christian values, which have their roots in the Christian image of humanity, are of course the primary yardstick for what we [politicians] do every day to mould/fashion society… the social market economy is unthinkable without the Christian faith and it will remain our yardstick …” Trying to get these Christian values accepted across Europe, and the globe, meant giving witness to them courageously and making clear to everyone what Christians stood for, Mrs Merkel told her audience of thousands. Differences also had to be overcome with more tolerance within Europe, she said. Elsewhere at the Kirchentag, in the very
first all-English event, Professor Grace Davie also spoke of the influence of Christianity in the formation of European culture. But Professor Davie, the leading British sociologist of religion, also highlighted the paradoxes of contemporary Europe. While the place of reli- gion in the public square is much more notable now than it was 10 years ago, in many European countries the population is losing its connection with the concepts, knowledge and vocabulary of religion that could once be taken for granted.
It was hard to conceive of this at the Kirchentag itself, when so many hundreds of
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