For vocations and liturgy, Rottenburg-Stuttgart adds a third auxiliary

A third auxiliary bishop for the German Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart was appointed today. 50-year-old Msgr. Gerhard Schneider joins Auxiliary Bishops Thomas Renz and Matthaus Karrer, and ordinary Bishop Gebhard Fürst at the head of the diocese which covers the central and eastern parts of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The diocese becomes one of six in Germany with three auxiliary bishops. In recent years, the Diocese of Münster and the Archdiocese of Hamburg actually took steps to decrease their number of auxiliaries.

The appointment comes at the request of Bishop Fürst, who expects that it will lead to a “strengthening in the ministry towards vocations and young people in spiritual professions, as well as the celebration of the liturgy with art and Church music.”

Msgr. Schneider, who worked at a bank before studying theology in Rome and Tübingen, was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Fürst in 2002. From 2004 to 2009 he was attached to the theology department of the diocese at Tübingen, after which he took over the leadership of the preliminary seminary Ambrosianum. Since 2010 he has been responsible for vocations ministry in the diocese. Since 2012 he has also been a member of the diocesan chancery for liturgy, including art and music, and vocations. Msgr. Schneider will continue this work as auxiliary bishop.

Msgr. Schneider sees his new mission as a clear challenge: “As Church we are in the midst of  deep crisis and we must regain a lot of trust. That must become visible in what we do and how we do it.”

Bishop-elect Schneider will be the titular bishop of Abbir Germaniciana, a titular see located in modern Tunisia. It was most recently held by Bishop Leo Schwarz, auxiliary of Trier, who died last November. The consecration of Msgr. Schneider will take place before the summer holidays in July. Consecrating bishops will almost certainly be Bishop Fürst and the other two auxiliary bishops of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

Photo credit: P.Rainer Mozer / Katholisch.de

 

 

Bishop Voderholzer’s remedy to dropping numbers

In a homily at the pilgrimage site of St. Anna Schäffer in Mindelstetten, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg addressed the recently released statistics regarding church attendance and such in the Catholic Church in Germany. He compares them to the equally disastrous numbers in the Lutheran church and explains that the standard liberal remedies of constantly wanting to change church and faith, and getting rid of perceived oppressive dogmas, is not the solution to the crisis.

According to Bishop Voderholzer, the numbers point out something else: an evaporation of faith. He also puts this into perspective, saying that the Lord never promised his followers to be a majority anywhere. Rather, he foresaw difficulties and opposition. So, depressing numbers should, in themselves, really not be a cause for us to give up.

“Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord!

Last Friday, the 21st of July, the statistics for the Catholic Churc and the Lutheran Church in Germany for the year 2016 were published. You will probably have heard a few things about it via radio and television or in the newspaper.

The outcome was not very surprising. Like before, the number of people leaving the Church are disconcertingly high, even when they have dropped by some 11 percent in the Catholic Church as compared to 2015. The number of baptisms has increased slightly, the number of marriages decreased soewhat. In Hamburg and Berlin the number of Catholics has grown, due to the influx of Catholic foreigners; but in general the number of Catholics is growing smaller.

Dear sisters and brothers, I do not want to bore you with numbers and statictics today, on the Anna Schäffer Day of Remembrance. But the public reactions to these numbers are noteworthy and lead us to look further.

As a remedy to turn these trends around and to preserve our social relevance we are continuously advised to – literally – “open up and rid ourselves of rigid conservative dogmas.”

In this case, these are:

Abolishing the celibacy of priests;

Removing the different tasks and appointments of men and women in the Church and admitting women into apostolic ministry;

Consenting to the demand of full legal equality of same-sex partnerships with marriage;

Admitting everyone to Communion, and so on.

You know the list of demands as well as I do.

Dear sisters and brothers! The problematic nature of this advice becomes clear with a quick glance at the statistics of the Lutheran church. If the application of the aforementioned pieces of advice would really be a way of improving the situation of the Church, flourishing life must be visible in the Lutheran church.

But what do the numbers say? More people leave the Lutheran church – and have done so, with the exception of 2014, for years – than the Catholic Church, despite the fact that in the Lutheran church these demands have all basically been fulfilled and all these alleged impediments to being church are no longer present. But this is generally ignored in public, even though the numbers were presented on the same day. Isn’t the reason that this is being ignored perhaps that it would reveal the blatant weakness, yes, the inconsistency and absurdity of this “good” advice to the Catholic Church?! Can one, in all seriousness, present the path of the Lutheran church as a remedy, when it is so often led to an even greater distance to the faith and the church? I say this without malice! I know Lutheran fellow Christians who completely agree with my assessment and who warn us Catholics not to make the same mistakes.

We must look much further in the whole debate. The statictics reveal a secularisation which has been progressing for years, a loss of church affiliation and lastly a decline in the substance of faith, an evaporation of the awareness of God. That is why we do not really have a shortage of priests, but a much more fundamental shortage of faith. The priest shortage is a symptom, like a fever. But the fever is not itself the disease, but it indicates the presence of an inflammation. I am certain: the fever of the priest shortage indicates the disease of lack of faith. As an aside, the Lutheran church has also long known the phantom of lack of priests, as there are too few young people who study theology and are willing to also put themselves professionally at the service of the Gospel; all this without celibacy and with the possibility for women to also assume the office of the priesthood! This should give us a sense of the true reasons for the lack of church adherence.

Dear sisters and brothers, come together at the grave of Saint Anna Schäffer! We all have the image and the fate of the Church at heart. But not in the sense that we belong to her as to a club whose public image and strength are the ultimate goal; but for the sake of the message and the sake of the people, for whose sake God became man in Jesus Christ. In the Church He takes us into service for His Gospel. The Lord did not promise us that we would always be the majority; rather, He predicted headwind and resistance.

For that reason we should not concern ourselves too much with numbers and statistics. What should concern us is that the Gospel can lighten up our environment, through our lives in faith. Everywhere where we overshadow the Gospel because of inattentiveness, lovelessness and hard-heartedness, we are called to convert and once more give the Lord space.

Instead of constantly changing the structures, also and especially the sacramental structures of the Church, instead of diluting the message of the Gospel and instead of proclaiming a light version of Jesus, evangelisation is called for, a saturation of society with the Spirit of Jesus. And the first and all-important step on that way is a daily striving towards holiness, the daily listening to God’s word and the willingness to begin the reform of the Church with myself. That is reformation: the renewal of faith, the restoration of the image of Christ which was engraved in us in Baptism and Confirmation. Where this is granted to us in God’s mercy, where we succeed in this, we will make the people of our time once again curious about the faith which supports us. And then we can also explain the hope that lives within us.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord! In the endeavours of evangelisation in our time Saint Anna Schäffer is in every aspect an example and also an advocate.

She wanted to devote her life to the mission abroad. But the Lord had destined her for the mission in her own country. Before becoming a comforter and source of joy in faith for many, she had to allow herself to be evangelised again, and radically so. Accepting her suffering as a partaking in the cross of Christ was anything but easy. Bedridden and with her gaze upon the cross she faced this process of inner healing and transformation. She so became a bright sign of God’s work, a messenger of faith to countless people and ultimately a saint of the Catholic Church.

And so we pray today for her intercession, that the Lord will grant each and everyone of us the grace to begin the reform of the Church in ourselves; that we muster the courage to lt ourselves be evangelised anew every day and in this way be prepared to serve the mission of the Church – for the salvation of humanity and the glory of the triune God, whose is the glory, today, every day and forever. Amen.”

For Hamburg, a first homegrown bishop

As expected, the Archdiocese of Hamburg as given a single auxiliary bishop on Thursday, and as equally expected, he is one of the three area deans appointed by Archbishop Stefan Heße last year as part of the organisational overhaul of the archdiocese. And although the new auxiliary bishop has been the area dean for Mecklenburg in the east of the archdiocese, as an auxiliary bishop he will reside in Hamburg. In the past Hamburg had two auxiliaries, one in Schwerin, the other in Hamburg. But as part of the reorganisation that number has been reduced to one, residing in the metropolitan heart of the area.

Bishop-elect Horst Eberlein was born in 1950 in Walsleben (Altmark) and ordained to the priesthood in 1977. He was a priest in parishes in what was then the Apostolic Administration of Schwerin, which in 1994 became a part of the newly erected Archdiocese of Hamburg. He is then the first bishop to be appointed from among the clergy of Hamburg itself. His predecessors as auxiliary bishops came from Schwerin (Norbert Werbs) and Osnabrück (Hans-Jochen Jaschke), and the archbishops were also called from other circumscriptions. Archbishop Heße, for example, came from Cologne.

Since 2015, Bishop-elect Eberlein has been a non-resident member of the cathedral chapter, and in 2016 he was appointed as one of three area deans, representing the archbishop in Mecklenburg, the most eastern part of the archdiocese. As auxiliary bishop, Msgr. Eberlein will support the archbishop in running the archdiocese. The consecration of the new bishop is set for 25 March, in St. Mary’s cathedral in Hamburg. It will be only the second time that that church has been the setting for an episcopal consecration, after that of Archbishop Heße in March of 2015.

As auxiliary bishop, Msgr. Eberlein has been given the titular see of Tisedi, in modern Algeria. In the past, from 1999 to 2005, another German bishop, Gerhard Feige, held that title when he was auxiliary bishop of Magdeburg.

Photo credit: Klaus Bodig / HA

Bishops coming, bishops going – a look ahead at 2017

On the threshold of 2017, a look ahead at what we may expect when it comes to the leadership of the various dioceses in Northwestern Europe.

There have been years when the changes were rather significant, but 2017 does not look to be one of those. At the start of the new year, three dioceses are without a bishop: Groningen-Leeuwarden in the Netherlands (map at right), Mainz in Germany and the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in Norway. It is a safe bet that the first two will receive their new bishops in 2017, but Trondheim may well be left as it has been for the past seven years: without a bishop, and with the bishop of Oslo serving as Apostolic Administrator. But on the other hand, for a see that just built and consecrated its new cathedral, and which, like the rest of Norway, has seen a significant increase in Catholic faithful, this does not seem like a situation that will continue forever. So who knows what the year will bring.

In Groningen-Leeuwarden, the new bishop will succeed Bishop Gerard de Korte, who was appointed to ‘s-Hertogenbosch in March. Almost ten months in, the vacancy is the longest for the Dutch Catholic Church in recent years. The new bishop of Mainz will follow in the footsteps of Cardinal Karl Lehmann, who led that ancient see for 33 years.

There are a few bishops who will reach the age of 75 in 2017, and thus will offer their resignation. In Germany, these are Bishop Friedhelm Hofmann of Würzburg on 12 May and Norbert Trelle (at left) of Hildesheim on 5 September. Joining them is Bishop Frans Wiertz of Roermond in the Netherlands. He will be 75 on 2 December, but I would not be surprised if his retirement will be accepted earlier, as the bishop has been struggling with eye-related health problems.

There is one bishop serving past the age of 75. Bishop Luc Van Looy of Ghent has been asked to continue serving for another two years, so that Belgian see will remain occupied for the duration of 2017.

A less certain area to make predictions about is the appointment of auxiliary bishops. I expect, however, that two German dioceses will receive one auxiliary each. The Archdiocese of Hamburg has been without auxiliary bishops since October, when Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke retired. As the archdiocese is being reorganised, the number of auxiliary bishops will be decreased from two to one, and we may well see one of the three new area deans (representing the archdiocese’s constituent areas of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg) to be made a bishop. Further south, the Diocese of Münster has confirmed its request for a new auxiliary bishop after Heinrich Timmerevers was appointed to Dresden-Meißen in April. This will bring the number of auxiliary bishops back up to five, one for each pastoral area.

In Rome, lastly, there will be no new consistory. Only four cardinals will reach the age of 80 and so cease to be electors. They are Audrys Backis, Archbishop emeritus of Vilnius, Lithuania (and former Nuncio to the Netherlands) (at right); Raymundo Damasceno Assis, Archbishop emeritus of Aparecida, Brazil; Attilio Nicora, Pontifical Legate to the Basilicas in Assisi, Italy; and Lluís Martínez Sistach, Archbishop emeritus of Barcelona, Spain. The number of cardinals who will be able to participate in a conclave will still be 116 at the end of next year, so there will be no need to bring their numbers up.

In Germany, the numbers speak

The Catholic Church in Germany has published its annual statistics overview over 2015, and for the first time in several years there is a positive development to be noted when compared to the previous year. It remains to be seen if this development continues into the future, but it does begs the questions if this is the result of something like a Francis Effect, or of some other recent trend in the Church or the world. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, commenting on the numbers, believes it is due to there not only being an interest in what the Church has to offer, but also an active desire fore the sacraments:

“The statistics over 2015 indicate that the Church in Germany remains, as before, a strong force, whose message is heard and accepted. There is evidently not only an interest, but also an active desire for the sacraments of the Church, as the slight increase in the number of Baptisms and marriages shows. Although the number of people leaving the Church has decreased when compared to 2014, the number remains high, indicating we should persevere in our pastoral efforts. We need a “demanding pastoral approach” which does justice to the various realities of people and communicates the hope of the faith in a convincing manner. The completion of the Synod of Bishops in the past year, as well as Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter Amoris laetitia are important signposts.

“But the naked numbers also show that the Church in our country is an integral part of our society. We will develop our pastoral efforts further on the basis of these statsitics. A lot has already been done in the dioceses. I am thinking of the process of dialogue concluded in the past year, which has contributed to a renewal in the Church. Pope Francis encourages us when he says that the path to the Church of the future is the part of a “synodal Church”. This means that all the faithful, laity and clergy, are required! In the future, we will bear witness of our faith together and proclaim the Gospel with conviction.”

The cardinal, who serves as the president of the German Bishop’s Conference, is optimistic, and the latest numbers do warrant some measure of optimism. Many dioceses are reporting changes in trends of several years, especially in the number of baptisms and marriages, revealing that 2014/2015 is, for now a turning point in some areas. When comparing the 2015 statstics with those of 1995, 20 years ago, it becomes clear how welcome this change is. The number of Catholics is still lower than in 1995, sometimes significantly so (of note are the Dioceses of Görlitz and Magdeburg). Baptisms, however, are more frequent in some dioceses than they were in 1995. Berlin, Dresden-Meißen and Erfurt all report increases. It is interesting to see that both these dioceses and those with the most extreme drops in Catholic faithful are in the east of Germany, where secularism is most prevalent after decades of communist rule. This increase can be partly attributed to immigration, from both Poland and the further abroad.

Marriages are still in crisis, however, with the numbers halved in some places over the past 20 years (Bamberg, Berlin, Dresden-Meißen, Erfurt, Görlitz, Hamburg, München und Freising, Passau and Würzburg are the only dioceses to have kept their numbers at 50% or above).

A Cold War arrangement ends as Germany is set to lose a bishop

The place of the German dioceses in the world Church is unique in several ways. Their relations with Rome are dictated by concordats which also influence the appointment of bishops (rather than the Pope choosing a new bishop from a list of three candidates, it is the other way around for most dioceses in Germany; it is the Pope providing a list of three candidates to the cathedral chapter of a given diocese, who then make their choice for the Pope to appoint). And there is also an unofficial tradition when it comes to auxiliary bishops: in at least the major (arch)dioceses, there will always be the same number of auxiliary bishops. For example, Cologne has three, one for each of its pastoral areas, and Hamburg has two.

Or had, at least.

In the Archdiocese of Hamburg the tradition is about to change. Hamburg is perhaps a little too young to have very old traditions, but this goes a bit further back than the archdiocese. Established in 1994, the archdiocese was given two auxiliary bishops, one residing in Hamburg, the other in Schwerin. And in Schwerin, the tradition of having a resident auxiliary bishop goes back another 40 years, to 1973, when the area, then still part of the Diocese of Osnabrück, was made a nominally separate Apostolic Administration. This because of the political situation at the time: the new Administration was that part of Osnabrück which lay in the communist German Democratic Republic, divided from the rest of the diocese by the iron curtain. As this border between west and east prevented easy travel by the bishop from Osnabrück to the faithful in Mecklenburg and Vorpommern, the Holy See appointed an auxiliary bishop to reside in Schwerin, who could be a bishop for the faithful there when the ordinary could not. After the German reunification, major parts of Osnabrück, including Schwerin, were split off to become the new Archdiocese of Hamburg, but the auxiliary bishop in Schwerin remained, now as an auxiliary bishop of Hamburg. Since 1981, that has been Bishop Norbert Werbs, who retired in May of 2015. No successor has been appointed since then, and none will, it now seems.

A spokesman of the archdiocese said that, in the future, the sole auxiliary bishop would reside in Hamburg, like the archbishop. That single auxiliary is currently Hans-Jochen Jaschke (at left) who is set to retire upon his 75th birthday on 29 September of this year. Not only is this the end of a cold war arrangement, one of those which so marked the recent history of the German dioceses – of which Hamburg is the only one incorporating parts of both former East and West Germany – but also a move that decreases the number of German bishops by one. Before now any retiring bishop, be he an ordinary or auxiliary, could expect a successor to be appointed within reasonable time (auxiliaries quicker than ordinaries).

The decision to no longer appoint two auxiliary bishops for Hamburg was made by Pope Francis and Archbishop Stefan Heße together, it is said. In preparation for the selection of the single new auxiliary, to be appointed when Bishop Jaschke retires, the archbishop has asked for suggestions from some 100 people in the archdiocese.

Coming and going – Looking ahead at 2016

A new year, so time for a look at what 2016 may bring in the field of new bishop appointments. As ever, reality may turn out different, but we may make some assumptions.

In the Netherlands, to begin with, a new bishop will arrive in the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Bishop Antoon Hurkmans (right) has already has his resignation on health grounds accepted and it shouldn’t take more than a few more months for his successor in the country’s largest diocese (in numbers at least) to be named. Will it be current Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts? Who’s  to say.

In Germany, three prelates are expected to retire this year. First of all the long-serving Bishop of Mainz, Cardinal Karl Lehmann (left), who will reach the age of 80 in May. Losing his voting rights in the conclave and his memberships in the Curia, his retirement is expected to follow around the same time. The Diocese has already announced that Cardinal Lehmann will continue to live in his current home, while the former abode of Cardinal Volk, bishop of Mainz from 1962 to 1982. Cardinal Lehmann has headed Mainz since 1983.

In Limburg we may finally expect the arrival of a new bishop. Administrator Bishop Manfred Grothe (right) will be 77 in April and has already retired as auxiliary bishop of Paderborn. In March, it will be two  years since Bishop Tebartz-van Elst was made to retire, and according to Bishop Grothe, the time is just about ready for his successor to be named.

In the Archdiocese of Hamburg, the last auxiliary bishop, Hans-Jochen Jaschke (left) will reach the age of 75 in September. This may mean that Archbishop Stefan Heße will be requesting one or more new auxiliary bishops from Rome, either this or next year.

In Belgium then, Ghent’s Bishop Luc Van Looy (right) will turn 75 in September. The Salesian, who became president of Caritas Europe and was among Pope Francis’ personal choices to attend the Synod of Bishops last year, has been bishop of Ghent since 2003.

In Rome, another Belgian bishop will reach the retirement age in April, Archbishop Frans Daneels (left), secretary of the Apostolic Signatura and a Norbertine priest, may return to Averbode Abbey in Belgium, where he made his profession in 1961.

There are also a number of vacant dioceses which we may assume to be filled in 2016. In Germany these are, in addition to the aforementioned Diocese of Limburg, Aachen, where Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff retired from in December, and Dresden-Meißen, vacant since Bishop Heiner Koch was appointed to Berlin in June.

^Map showing the three currently vacant dioceses in Germany. From left to right: Aachen, Limburg and Dresden-Meißen.

In Belgium, the Diocese of Bruges is vacant, following the appointment of Jozef De Kesel as archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. The name of Bishop Léon Lemmens, auxiliary bishop of Mechelen-Brussels, has been mentioned as a successor in Bruges.

Two circumscriptions which have been vacant for  number of years, and which are expected to remain so for the foreseeable future, are the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in Norway, vacant since 2009, and the Military Ordinariate of the Netherlands, vacant since 1993. Bishops Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo and Jozef Punt of Haarlem-Amsterdam continue to act as Apostolic Administrators of the respective bodies.

Pallium day, new style

On the feast of the two foster fathers of the Church, Saints Peter and Paul, it’s also Pallium day. The new metropolitan archbishops come to Rome to receive the sign of their union with the Holy Father and take it back home to their provinces. But this time around we’ll see the introduction of the new form of the ceremony. While the archbishops still receive their pallia from the Pope, the official act of imposition will take place in their respective cathedrals, and it will be the Apostolic Nuncio, the official representative of the Pope, who will do the honours. This to emphasise the home churches over Rome, although most archbishops still travel to Rome to concelebrate today’s Mass with the Holy Father.

This is the list of the 46 new archbishops who will receive palia:

• Archbishop Richard Daniel Alarcón Urrutia, Cuzco, Peru
• Archbishop Oscar Omar Aparicio Céspedes, Cochabamba, Bolivia
• Archbishop Freddy Antonio de Jesús Bretón Martínez, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic
• Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, Valencia, Spain
• Archbishop-elect Erio Castellucci, Modena-Nonantola, Italy
• Archbishop Blase Joseph Cupich, Chicago, United States of America
• Archbishop Alojzij Cvikl, Maribor, Slovenia
• Archbishop Filomeno do Nascimento Vieira Dias, Luanda, Angola
• Archbishop José Antonio Fernández Hurtado, Durango, Mexico
• Archbishop Anthony Colin Fisher, Sydney, Australia
• Archbishop Denis Grondin, Rimouski, Canada
• Archbishop Justinus Harjosusanto, Samarinda, Indonesia
• Archbishop Stefan Heße, Hamburg, Germany
• Archbishop Vicente Jiménez Zamora, Zaragoza, Spain
• Archbishop Beatus Kinyaiya, Dodoma, Tanzania
• Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde, Mombasa, Kenya
• Archbishop Heiner Koch, Berlin, Germany
• Archbishop Peter Fülöp Kocsis, Hajdúdorog (Hungarian), Hungary
• Archbishop Florentino Galang Lavarias, San Fernando, Philippines
• Archbishop Julian Leow Beng Kim, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Archbishop Djalwana Laurent Lompo, Niamey, Niger
• Archbishop David Macaire, Fort-de-France-Saint Pierre, Martinique
• Archbishop Thomas Ignatius MacWan, Gandhinagar, India
• Archbishop Thomas Aquino Manyo Maeda, Osaka, Japan
• Archbishop Eamon Martin, Armagh, Northern Ireland (pictured at right before the tomb of St. John Paul II today).
• Archbishop Edoardo Eliseo Martín, Rosario, Argentina
• Archbishop Jean Mbarga, Yaoundé, Cameroon
• Archbishop Max Leroy Mésidor, Cap-Haïtien, Haiti
• Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta, Mérida-Badajoz, Spain
• Archbishop Benjamin Ndiaye, Dakar, Senegal
• Archbishop George Njaralakatt, Tellicherry (Syro-Malabar), India
• Archbishop Francescantonio Nolè, Cosenza-Bisignano
• Archbishop Juan Nsue Edjang Mayé, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
• Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly, Cashel and Emly, Ireland
• Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra, Madrid, Spain
• Archbishop Antony Pappusamy, Madurai, India
• Archbishop Vincenzo Pelvi, Foggia-Bovino, Italy
• Archbishop José Antonio Peruzzo, Curitiba, Brazil
• Archbishop Gustavo Rodriguez Vega, Yucatán, Mexico
• Archbishop Charles Jude Scicluna, Malta
• Archbishop Menghesteab Tesfamariam, Asmara (Eritrean), Eritrea
• Archbishop Edmundo Ponziano Valenzuela Mellid, Asunción, Paraguay
• Archbishop Lionginas Virbalas, Kaunas, Lithuania
• Archbishop John Charles Wester, Santa Fe, United States of America
• Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki, Köln, Germany
• Archbishop Stanislav Zore, Ljubljana, Slovenia

One of these is not a bishop yet. Archbishop-elect Erio Castellucci will be consecrated and installed as archbishop of Modena-Nonantola on 12 September, which is also the date from which he can actually wear his pallium. The newly appointed archbishop of Berlin, Heiner Koch, is also yet to be installed (on 19 September).

Next to Archbisop Koch, two other German archbishops will also receive the woolen pallium. For Cardinal Woelki it will be his second: he already received one after becoming the archbishop of Berlin, but as the pallia are attached to the archdioceses more than to the person, he will receive a new one since he is now the archbishop of Cologne. Hamburg’s Archbishop Stefan Heße (pictured below offering Mass at the Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio – title church of another German, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, emeritus of Munich –  yesterday) is the third German prelate receiving the pallium.

Archbishop Heße was interviewed on Saturday by the German section of Vatican radio. He emphasised the value for the Church in Hamburg, which is small in number and large in territory, to be so closely united to the Pope, and he also explained how he will mark the official imposition of the pallium in Hamburg, which will take place in November:

“I was only ordained as bishop a little over three months ago, and that was actually the key moment: and I think also for the people in the Archdiocese of Hamburg, who have waited for their new bishop and have accepted me kindly. That was even the first consecration of a bishop in Hamburg’s Mariendom, as all previous bishops already were bishops before. I was consecrated there, and they made every effort to celebrate that. Therefore I said that we should tone it down a bit with the pallium. The pallium is a sign which is inserted in the liturgy. That is why the imposition in Hamburg by the Nuncio will take place during a Mass, which we will celebrate on the first of November. We will invite all altar servers from the Archdiocese of Hamburg and organise a day for them, since these young people are so close to the liturgy. That is why i thought we should celebrate it with them; and it is also a chance for me to come into contact with the youth and also emphasise the community with Rome and the Pope through the pallium.”

There is one more archbishop who should receive the pallium, but who can’t because of the political situation in his country. He is Archbishop Paul Xiao Ze-Jiang, of Guiyang in China. While the Holy See recognises him as the archbishop of Guiyang, the Chinese government says he is merely the bishop of Guizhou, which is a circumscription they have created in 1999 out of Guiyang, Nanlong (the only suffragan diocese of Guiyang, without a bishop since 1952) and Shiqian (an apostolic prefecture without a prefect since 2011). It is unknown if and when Archbishop Xiao will receive his pallium.

Photo credit: [1]  Archbishop Eamon Martin on Twitter, [2] Archdiocese of Hamburg on Twitter, [3] UCAN directory

Grumblings in the east

Following the appointment of Archbishop Heiner Koch (pictured at left with Berlin’s  cathedral chapter) to Berlin, the other bishops of eastern Germany have expressed concern at the trend that seems to be developing, a tendency for bishops in that part of the country to be reassigned within a few years after being made ordinaries there. And they have a point.

• In 2010, Bishop Konrad Zdarsa left Görlitz after having been the bishop there for three years and three months.
• In 2014, Cardinal Rainer Woelki left Berlin after having been its archbishop for three years.
• And on Monday,  Bishop Heiner Koch left Dresden-Meißen after almost 2 and half years.

The dioceses of eastern Germany, or most of the territory of the former communist German Democratic Republic have a fairly short history in their current form. On the 27th of June, 1994, Erfurt, Magdeburg and Görlitz were promoted from Apostolic Administration to full dioceses, Berlin, which had already been a  diocese since the 1930s, became a metropolitan archdiocese, reflecting the new freedom of governance that the Church had now gained in the former communist parts of Germany. The Apostolic Administration of Schwerin, in the north, became part of the newly established Archdiocese of Hamburg in October of that same year. Dresden-Meißen was the odd one out, having existed in its current form, except for a change of name in 1979, since 1921.

The short tenures of Bishops Zdarsa and Koch and Cardinal Woelki in the dioceses mentioned above came in all cases after significantly longer tenures of their predecessors: In Dresden-Meißen, Joachim Reinelt had been bishop for 24 years; in Berlin, Cardinal Sterzinsky was ordinary for 17 years; and in Görlitz, Bishop Rudolf Müller enjoyed 12 years as bishop. The contrast is evident.

In fact, the eastern German episcopate as a whole is young. Only Magdeburg’s Gerhard Feige (pictured) has a decade as bishop behind him, and the next senior is Görlitz’s Wolfgang Ipolt, ordinary for a mere four years.

In light of all this, Bishop Feige said about the transfer of Archbishop Koch, “Given the particularly difficult situation of Catholics in the new federal states, this is likely to add to a further destabilisation of the situation of the Church […] Unfortunately the impression is being given that the eastern German dioceses are something like ‘railway shunting yards’ or ‘traineeships’ to qualify bishops for ‘higher offices'”. Bishop Ipolt said that he hoped these rapid reassignments would not become habit. “In the future we need active shepherds for the people of God, here in the Diaspora of the east of Germany”. Together with Erfurt’s Bishop Ulrich Neymeyr, he does think that Archbishop Koch’s two-year experience in the east will be a boon in Berlin.

A bishop is the visible head of a local Church in matters of doctrine, worship and governance. The priests of a diocese assist him in these tasks. Stability is a great good in these matters, so it should be avoided to move bishops too often. In that sense I can understand the concerns of the bishops outlined above. On the other hand, as Archbishop Koch himself has also said, in the end a bishop goes where he is called, just like the Apostles, whose successors they are, went where they were sent.

The Archdiocese of Berlin has a bishop again, but Dresden-Meißen is vacant again. Should the bishops of the east be worried that another one of their ranks will be asked to move there? Anything is possible of course, but I don’t think that this is likely, especially since the concerns have now been voiced. But if the residing ordinaries are not be moved anymore, there are two auxiliary bishops in the area who could conceivably be tasked with governing a diocese of their own. Erfurt’s Bishop Reinhard Hauke has already done so during the two-year vacancy of the see there, before Bishop Neymeyr arrived last year. Berlin’s Bishop Matthias Heinrich is 60 and has been an auxiliary for six years.

Among the bishops, three big events

A noteable day for the German episcopate yesterday as three major life events occured.

First, there was the news of the death of Bishop Manfred Müller, bishop emeritus of Regensburg. The 88-year-old prelate had been bishop of the southern diocese from 1982 to 2002, when he was succeeded by now-Cardinal Gerhard Müller (no relation). Bishop Müller led the commission for education in the German Bishops’ Conference, and after his retirement he lived in Mallersdorf monastery, which is where he died yesterday morning.

^Bishop Müller launches the website of the Diocese of regensburg, in this photo from 2001.

Later on the same day, which was his 75th birthday, Bishop Norbert Werbs, auxiliary bishop of Hamburg, saw the acceptance of his resignation. Bishop Werbs was the longest-serving auxiliary bishop of Germany, first for the Catholics in Schwerin, then nominally part of the Diocese of Osnabrück although it lay in Communist East Germany, and since 1994 in the restored Archdiocese of Hamburg. He remains a keen photographer and amateur engineer, wont to repair his own car when it breaks down.

^ A keen photographer, Bishop Werbs is the subject of an extensive photo gallery  on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

Lastly, yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the ordination of Archbishop Stephan Burger of Freiburg im Breisgau. Still one of the younger bishops in the country, the archbishop was ordained with 22 other priests in 1990. Yesterday, he stated in a homily to mark the anniversary:

“To not be confused, remaining true to the Good News of the Lord, to hold fast to the fact that He is the way, the truth and the life for us, that is also the commandment of the day, for the present time…

25 years ago we did not step forward to proclaim the failures of man and Church, but this Word that goes out from the Father and which is Christ Himself.

Structures are subject to the progression of time, but the love of Christ isn’t, His message isn’t, and therefore the nature of the Church is ultimately unchangeable”.