Cardinal Reinhard Marx says he wrote to German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday, declining to accept Germany's only federal decoration.

He was scheduled to receive the Federal Cross of Merit at Berlin's Bellevue Palace today, April 30.

In his letter to Steinmeier, Marx said he was convinced declining the honour was the right step.

He explained his move was in consideration of those "obviously offended by the award and especially ...the survivors [of sexual abuse],".

Furthermore, he didn't want to draw negative attention to other award recipients or the office of the Federal President, he said.

"The criticism that is now being expressed by people who are affected by sexual abuse in the area of ​​the Church, I take very seriously, regardless of the accuracy of the individual statements in open letters and in the media."

In an open letter to Steinmeier, a member of the Affected Persons Advisory Board of Cologne archdiocese urged Steinmeier to withhold the honour.

Peter Bringmann-Henselder - himself a recipient of the Order of Merit with Star for his work on behalf of abuse survivors, said he would hand back his own medal if the award to Marx went ahead.

If Marx were to receive the Federal Cross of Merit, it would call "everything into question for which we fight and work," he wrote.

"Otherwise, everyone who has already been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for their services to the victims of sexualized violence should return it, as it will lose its actual value, the honor of a meritorious activity, when it is awarded to Cardinal Marx."

Bringmann-Henselder added that he has the support of other Affected Persons Advisory Board members.

"We do not understand how you can award Cardinal Marx the Federal Cross of Merit, a man who is still criticized for not having consistently investigated cases of sexualized violence in his former diocese of Trier and who is accused of covering up cases in that context."

As archbishop of Munich and Freising, Marx had so far failed to publish a 2010 report on cases of sexualized violence in the archdiocese, Bringmann-Henselder continued.

This contrasts, he commented, to the Archdiocese of Cologne's 800-page Gercke Report, which was issued in March this year.

Marx has not responded directly to Bringmann-Henselder's letter's claims about the 2010 report.

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is reportedly planning to publish a new study documenting cases of sexualized violence between 1945 and 2019.

Marx says he hopes his decision not to receive the honour would show "that further processing and, if possible, healing in the area of ​​sexual abuse in Church and society remains an important concern for me."

Source

• Catholic World Report
• Image: DW

He offered his opinion at Katholikentag, a Muenster-based conference drawing tens of thousands of Catholics from German-speaking Europe.

"Let us seek ways of expressing the common Christian faith by sharing in the Last Supper and Communion. I am sure thousands of Christians in interdenominational marriages are hoping for this."

Steinmeier said he was speaking "not as Federal President, but as an avowed Evangelical Christian who lives in an interdenominational marriage."

His views followed last week's Vatican direction to German bishops to come to an agreement among themselves about whether Protestants married to Catholics may receive Communion under certain circumstances.

While most of the German bishops' conference supported the sharing of communion, seven said it violated Church teaching.

The issue dominated the Katholikentag conference.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is the president of the German bishops' conference and the main proponent of the plan, echoed Steinmeier's words.

"When someone is hungry and has faith, they must have access to the Eucharist. That must be our passion, and I will not let up on this," he said.

He says Protestant spouses of Catholics "in individual cases" and "under certain conditions" may receive Holy Communion, provided they "affirm the Catholic faith in the Eucharist."

One celebrity who spoke at the conference was Protestant German comedian, Eckart von Hirschhausen.

He demanded to be "handed that wafer" because, since he is married to a Catholic, he pays Church tax.

"I don't see the point of a public debate about wafers," he said, referring to the Blessed Sacrament. In his view, climate change is a far more serious issue.

He later apologised for his comments.

Cardinal Rainer Woelki disagreed. "As a Catholic, I would never speak of a wafer," he said.

"Using this concept alone demonstrates that we have a very different understanding" of the Blessed Sacrament, in which "Catholics encounter Christ Himself."

Woelki called for all parties to "consider and recognise that the Eucharist is ordered to the unity of the creed."

Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg criticised the tone of the conference, saying it was in danger of being "intrumentalised" by supporters of the proposal.

Public pressure that does not appreciate the depth of the doctrinal issues at stake is very unhelpful, he said.

In his view, the intercommunion debate in Germany is a matter of doctrine that requires the unanimity of the universal Church if it is to proceed.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic Register
• Catholic Citizens of Ilinois
• Image: Deutschlandfunk
  

Speaking after a ceremony celebrating the centenary of a synagogue in the southern German town of Augsburg that survived the Nazi regime, Steinmeier said:

"The social media often propagate the spread of hate messages and anti-Semitic provocation."

Besides centuries'-long anti-Semitism in Germany, he says anti-Jewish sentiment is also a factor among some newly-arrived Muslim migrants.

Attacks on people because of their beliefs are the same as attacks on society as a whole, he says.

However, on a positive note Steinmeier, who is a Jew, also points out:

"The majority of German society and the civil administration ... has positioned itself clearly against anti-Semitism and condemned it ... and that is very important.

"It seems a miracle that today it [the synagogue] - 80 years after the breakdown of civilization during the Holocaust - has become a vibrant Jewish community."

Source

• DW
• Image: Reuters