Don’t exclude anti-migrant party, says bishop

German bishops voiced their concern at the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany’s double-digit gains in three state elections on 13 March, but avoided blanket condemnation of the AfD, which has many Catholic and Protestant members, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

The party won more than 12 per cent of the vote in Rhineland-Palatinate, 24 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt and 15 per cent in Baden-Württemberg, after campaigning against what it called Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “catastrophic” decision to accept a million migrants and refugees.

The Bishop of Erfurt (in former East Germany), Ulrich Neymeyr, criticised the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) for refusing to invite the AfD to the 100th anniversary of the German “Katholikentag” in Leipzig in May.

“The far right-wing parties are experiencing an upswing in our society but that is why it is important to dialogue with them,” Neymeyr told Deutsche Welle the day after the elections. He himself had met with AfD politicians in Erfurt, he said. It was crucial to discuss how to integrate quite so many migrants, most of them Muslims, into German society on a nationwide basis. “When so many people enter a country without being controlled, this is a huge problem,” he said. It was important now to watch the AfD and see if “its aversion to other religions and cultures increases,” Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg (in former East Germany) said. Problems could only be solved “with heart and mind, not with anger and hatred”.