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thousands of people had come together for talks, worship, Bible study and concerts, but those attending were certainly aware of many crises facing the Church in Germany and other European nations: crises of faith, of falling membership and vocations, and crises of authority. The organisers did not shy away from these crises, particularly the gravity of the clerical sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Professor Hans Küng spoke of a crisis of credibility in the Church, created by the sex- abuse scandal. Piecemeal change was not enough, he said. Instead there had to be a second Reformation, which rather than cause schism would lead to greater unity. He could understand, he said, the many people who were complaining about the unbearable dis- crepancy between Jesus’ life (style) and that of the church hierarchy.

“I can’t for the life of me imagine Jesus at a solemn pontifical Mass in St Peter’s,” Küng said.

When the Kirchentag programme was first

drawn up the sex-abuse scandal was not in the headlines, but the organisers subsequently put on additional sessions to address the crisis. Fr Klaus Mertes, the Jesuit who first reported sexual abuse at the Canisius College in Berlin, urged the Church to examine its structure in the light of the scandal during a session where victims of abuse pleaded to be heard. The Bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann, who is also in charge of the German bishops’ con- ference’s abuse commission, said he was shocked about the way the debate was being conducted. This was not the time to talk about church politics, he underlined. He was booed loudly.

the scandal or covering it up, as there once clearly was. The Church now endorses the view that perpetrators must be rooted out. But there is also a distinct difference: the Church seems not yet ready to go one stage further and consider – and then tackle – sys- temic, institutional fault lines that may have exacerbated the scandal. Perhaps the lasting impact of the Kirchentag on its participants can be summed up by a concert performance, part of the musical pro- gramme that is integral to the event’s atmosphere. In 1946 Richard Strauss wrote Metamorphosen, a work of mourning for the wrecking of German culture by atheistic Nazism and the destruction of the Munich Opera House by aerial bombardment. It is a contrapuntal piece built round the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica symphony. Rosie Harper, chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham and one of the 300-strong British contingent to the Kirchentag, was among those who attended the concert. “The pain it conveys is almost unbearable,” she said. “But to hear it in a rebuilt church in the centre of the city gives depth to the theme ‘that you may have hope’ in a way that tran- scends words.”

W

hat these special sessions revealed was a marked change in thinking on abuse. There is now little stomach for ignoring

DAVID BLAIR

‘Mr Jonathan must make a break from the rulers who looted Nigeria of billions’

Five years ago, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria conducted a courageous exercise. It dared to publish an estimate for the amount of money stolen or misused by all the country’s governments in the four decades after independence in 1960. The total came to a staggering

US$400 billion – an amount roughly equivalent to all the Western aid given to Africa during the same period. Thanks to the deeply corrupting consequences of possessing the largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria’s leaders had bled their country dry by the simple method of grand larceny. This is the country that a modest, shy and formerly obscure 52-year-old politician has now inherited. Goodluck Jonathan, once vice president, became the acting holder of the top job after the head of state, Umaru Yar’Adua, was taken ill last November. Mr Jonathan became president when Mr Yar’Adua died on 5 May. Mr Jonathan’s spokesman

effusively declared that his goal was to “secure Nigeria’s path to greatness and guarantee our place among the great nations of the world in the shortest possible time”. For all his ambition, however, Mr Jonathan exemplifies perhaps the most profound of all Nigeria’s many afflictions. In the end, the perennial problems of corruption, poverty and religious strife can only be tackled by a legitimate ruler with genuine popular support. But Nigeria has never possessed such an incalculable asset. Through no fault of his own, Mr Jonathan has won the presidency by right of inheritance, rather than through a free election. Moreover, his accession to power breaks an unwritten rule of profound importance for Nigeria’s internal stability. This informal code holds that the presidency must rotate between the country’s largely Muslim north and Christian south. Yar’Adua was a northern Muslim who became president in 2007 and had been expected to serve two terms until 2015. Only then was the top job supposed to return to the hands of a southerner. Instead,

Yar’Adua’s death has thrust Mr Jonathan, a Christian from the Delta region of the south, into the presidency five years early. Many expect Mr Jonathan to honour the unwritten rule as far as possible by serving as a caretaker leader until the election in 2011, when the presidency might be handed back to a northern Muslim. But African leaders rarely give up power so easily. Recent events suggest that Mr Jonathan might be digging in and preparing to contest next year’s election. Even while the unfortunate Yar’Adua was lying stricken in a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia, Mr Jonathan used his position as acting president to purge the government of political rivals. Last week, Mr Jonathan continued this process by choosing a conveniently obscure vice president who lacks a power base and would be unlikely to challenge him in the next election. If, however, Mr Jonathan does try to extend his rule, he will only achieve legitimacy by winning a free and fair contest. Nigeria’s last election was a travesty even by the standards of African polls. The ballot-rigging was so egregious that hardly anyone believed the official results; in large areas of the country, voting simply failed to take place at all. Mr Jonathan has pledged to clean up the system in time for the next contest. If he wants to continue his rule with genuine legitimacy, he must keep this pledge and then win a credible election. Then he must placate the Muslim north, who expect to have one of their own – perhaps Ibrahim Babangida, a wily former military ruler with a reputation as the master manipulator of Nigerian politics – assume the mantle of power in accordance with the unwritten rule. If he achieves all this, Mr Jonathan

will have the standing to begin to tackle Nigeria’s many other problems. But it all starts with legitimacy. Outsiders often ask why so many African governments fail to carry out necessary reforms. The answer is that real change inevitably alienates powerful constituencies – and only secure rulers with popular support can afford to take the risk. So Mr Jonathan must make a clean break from the rulers who looted Nigeria of so many billions. If he cannot win the legitimacy they never possessed, the country’s people must hope that he simply stands aside.

■David Blair is Middle East and Africa news editor of the Financial

Times.

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