GROWING NUMBERS of Catholics are leaving the Church in Germany in protest at the behaviour of the Bishop of Limburg who has spent an estimated €31 million (£26m) on renovations to his palace. The thousands who have left both locally and nationally have alarmed the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Moreover, the crisis caused by the behaviour of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has divided church leaders, with the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, taking up a position directly opposed to that of the German member of Pope Francis’ advisory Council of Cardinals, Reinhard Marx.
Besides having spent an estimated €31m on his residence, including €15,000 (£12,672) on his bathtub, Bishop Tebartz has also received two court orders for perjury from a Hamburg court and nine for breach of trust from a court in Limburg. Under the German system, people leave the Church by signing the appropriate documents. They then no longer pay the automatic church tax, but lose church-linked privileges. Dioceses can easily monitor numbers, and register sudden trends. In Chancellor Merkel’s opinion, Bishop Tebartz and the situation in Limburg are proving a great burden on the Catholic Church, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said. “The German Government naturally has no advice to give regarding the ongoing discussions in Rome, but one may conceivably express the hope that the solution found will be positive for the faithful and will strengthen people’s trust in the Church,” he added.
On the eve of his departure for Rome this week, where he has a long-standing appointment with the Pope, the president of the German bishops’ conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch said, “We have an enormous credibility problem on our hands and it’s the German Church that is bearing the damage.” Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier said: “The situation has escalated so greatly that it must be said that the Bishop of Limburg can no longer function as a bishop.”
However, the CDF prefect Archbishop Müller, recently confirmed in his post by Pope Francis, has come out strongly in defence of the Bishop of Limburg. At a Mass at Rome’s Camposanto Church on 11 October, Archbishop Müller said, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that the accusations against the Bishop of Limburg were “an invention of journalists” and part of a “media campaign”. In September he told the Tagespost daily that the campaign against the bishop was a “building of lies” and “the Bishop of Limburg stays”. Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich for his part has defended the media against accusations that it launched a campaign, and said what was happening in Limburg was “disturbing”.
Bishop Tebartz did not say Mass in Limburg Cathedral last Sunday and quietly slipped away to Rome. The cathedral bells were rung 13 times to signify that it was now “one hour past 12” as far as the bishop was concerned and it was now time for him to go.
According to the head of the German section of Vatican Radio, Fr Bernd Hagenkord SJ, the world Church in Africa, Latin America and Asia is “raising its eyebrows in wonder” on hearing of the enormous sums of money the German Church has at its disposal.
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