Bishop warns of anti-refugee ‘outbreaks of hatred’

German church leaders have deplored the growing anti-refugee feeling in their country and urged Catholics to work against it, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. “A full 26 years after German reunification, some people seem happy to build a new wall in human hearts and minds - this time, not between East and West, but between North and South,” said Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne. “Today, this wall separates transit zones, the Mediterranean and safe countries of origin. It fosters violence against refugees, character assassination and ideologically motivated incitement.”

The cardinal was reacting to angry demonstrations against the mass arrival of refugees from Syria and other countries, staged in late October in Dresden, Erfurt and Cologne, where an independent candidate, Henriette Reker, was elected mayor on 18 October after being stabbed by a German national who had protested about Germany’s immigration policy, according to officials. Speaking in Düsseldorf, Cardinal Woelki predicted people would continue to “flee terror and violence” throughout the winter and said the Catholic Church was duty-bound to “respond to needs, with or without the approval of the powerful”.

“Recent outbreaks of hatred” were also condemned by the newly installed Archbishop of Berlin, Heiner Koch, who said he feared that protests against refugees, arriving in Germany at a rate of 150,000 a month, reflected the “radicalisation and brutalisation of parts of society”.

The lights of Erfurt’s Catholic cathedral were turned off to show opposition to last week’s demonstration, and church administrators said they intended to do the same during a planned follow-up late-October rally. Lights were also turned off at Cologne’s historic cathedral in disapproval of the protests, which were organised by the Dresden-based anti-Islamisation Pegida movement and the right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD.