Indifference, irritation and, inevitably, protest will likely mark a papal trip to the former East Germany that includes an historic meeting in the one-time home of Martin Luther to find ways Catholics and Protestants can work together to save Germany’s soul.
Nearly a quarter of a million Catholics will throng open-air services celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on his Thursday to Sunday state visit to Erfurt, Berlin, a Catholic enclave at Etzelsbach and staunchly Catholic Freiburg in southwest Germany.
However, unlike in the Rhineland and his native Bavaria, where Catholic majorities ensured him a warm homecoming on his two previous visits to Germany as pope, the 84-year-old Joseph Ratzinger will encounter deep suspicion in eastern Germany, an area traditionally Protestant, but now mostly atheist after four decades of Communism.
The meeting with Germany’s Protestant leaders will take place in Erfurt’s 13th-century Augustinian monastery, where Martin Luther lived on and off as a Catholic monk from 1505 to 1511 before defying Rome by writing his 95 Theses in 1517 and later translating the Bible into German.
In the city’s cobbled streets, churches, restaurants and shops vie to claim historical links to the priest behind the Reformation and split with Rome.
LUKEWARM WELCOME
Few posters or papal flags welcoming the pope can be seen, though on the steep steps up to the medieval Catholic cathedral a drunk yells instructions to builders erecting an altar for a Mass for 85,000 people.
“He’ll find himself in an unusual situation with a very high number of atheists. It’s a joint challenge for us,” Ilse Junkermann, Erfurt’s female Protestant bishop who will host the historic talks, told German church media.
In the student council room at Erfurt University, Luther’s alma mater, students Karola Lieb and Benno Kirtzel, both 21, say few people their age go to church, which they pin on state disapproval of religion in the former German Democratic Republic.
“The Stasi used to take note if you were very active in the church and you could have big problems,” law student Lieb said.
Kirtzel, who was raised in a tiny Catholic minority in Thuringia where Erfurt is the state capital, is the target of jokes about sexual abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic Church.
With a guitar on his back and a plectrum as an earring, he and a youth choir will play warm-up for the Mass in Erfurt and expects Catholic pilgrims “to go back stronger in their faith.”
NOT IN MY BED
Lieb describes herself as “very atheist” and disagrees with the pontiff’s prohibition on artificial contraception, but believes he has a right to be heard in Germany, as representative of a faith that “influences my values, even though I am not a Christian.”
However, she adds: “Most people I know are not interested in going to the Mass and want to leave the city because the trams will stop and the shops will be shut.”
The pope will say Mass for 70,000 at Berlin’s Nazi-era Olympic Stadium on Sept. 22, the same day he meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel — daughter of a Lutheran pastor in communist-era East Germany — and speaks in parliament.
For the gay, lesbian and humanist groups hoping to mobilize 20,000 protesters on the day, faith or atheism is not the question.
Like left-leaning members of parliament who plan to boycott the pope’s address, the protesters say he has a right to visit his Catholic flock, but should not be given a political stage for dogmatic beliefs that they say infringe on human rights.
Benedict’s love of Mozart and “classic German intellectual” demeanor, as one priest put it, do little to recommend him to Berlin, with its image as one of Europe’s most progressive, egalitarian and party-loving capitals.
He even compares unfavorably for locals with John Paul II, his crusading anti-communist Polish predecessor who walked under the landmark Brandenburg Gate with then German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1996, a victory lap for two men who helped reunify Berlin.
“They both had similar views of homosexuality, but I get the impression that Benedict has really done his utmost to set it down in stone as the church’s position,” said Guenter Dworek, of the German Lesbian and Gay Association.
“The pope has no business in my bed,” reads the slogan on free condoms that are being handed out by the youth wing of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) that governs Berlin.
While police will keep the protesters out of earshot when the pope speaks, Berlin’s gay SPD Mayor Klaus Wowereit showed where his sympathies lay by criticizing Catholic dogma that “belongs to previous millennia.” His security chief Erhard Koerting said it “might do the pope good” to hear the protests.”
“Benedict XVI is not the hardliner he is so often made out to be,” Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the Catholic Church in Germany, said in Die Welt newspaper.
Conscious of tensions over social issues, but also over the cost of the visit — which also sparked fury in austerity-hit Spain when the pope attended a Catholic youth rally there — the church has set up a “Benedict Fund” to combat famine in Africa.
SYMBOLISM
Benedict, a theologian well versed in Luther, will meet Protestant leaders in the flagstoned meeting chamber of the old Erfurt monastery where Luther was received as a novice. The church next door still has the austere stone altar and stained-glass window from Luther’s time.
Lothar Schmelz, curator of the building which ceased being a monastery when the last monk died in 1556 and is now used for spiritual retreats, brims with pride at the rich symbolism of the ecumenical meeting, but cautions against high expectations.
At the snail’s pace of religious diplomacy, where disputes last centuries, the Lutherans want progress on the Vatican’s refusal to recognize them as a church, rather than a wayward congregation, and relaxation of its ban on mixed Protestant-Catholic couples taking communion together.
‘ROTTEN POPES’
This would be welcome ahead of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Reformation in 2017, Nikolaus Schneider, head of the German Evangelical Church, told Vatican Radio in an interview, which gave a glimpse of ancient grievances still nurtured.
Schneider said the anniversary would be thoroughly ecumenical, “not a boastful celebration to shine our light on the dark background of medieval Catholicism and the rotten popes of that era.”
I came to Taiwan to pursue my degree thinking that Taiwanese are “friendly,” but I was welcomed by Taiwanese classmates laughing at my friend’s name, Maria (瑪莉亞). At the time, I could not understand why they were mocking the name of Jesus’ mother. Later, I learned that “Maria” had become a stereotype — a shorthand for Filipino migrant workers. That was because many Filipino women in Taiwan, especially those who became house helpers, happen to have that name. With the rapidly increasing number of foreigners coming to Taiwan to work or study, more Taiwanese are interacting, socializing and forming relationships with
Whether in terms of market commonality or resource similarity, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is the biggest competitor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The two companies have agreed to set up factories in the US and are also recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law by former US president Joe Biden. However, changes in the market competitiveness of the two companies clearly reveal the context behind TSMC’s investments in the US. As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and
We are witnessing a sea change in the government’s approach to China, from one of reasonable, low-key reluctance at rocking the boat to a collapse of pretense over and patience in Beijing’s willful intransigence. Finally, we are seeing a more common sense approach in the face of active shows of hostility from a foreign power. According to Article 2 of the 2020 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), a “foreign hostile force” is defined as “countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China [ROC]. The same stipulation applies to
The recent termination of Tibetan-language broadcasts by Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a significant setback for Tibetans both in Tibet and across the global diaspora. The broadcasts have long served as a vital lifeline, providing uncensored news, cultural preservation and a sense of connection for a community often isolated by geopolitical realities. For Tibetans living under Chinese rule, access to independent information is severely restricted. The Chinese government tightly controls media and censors content that challenges its narrative. VOA and RFA broadcasts have been among the few sources of uncensored news available to Tibetans, offering insights
RSS