German church leaders: 'Christian' in party name should mean something
BERLIN, Germany (CNS) -- German church leaders have criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing Christian Democratic Union for moving away from its Christian ethos.
In an interview with Germany's Rheinische Post in late January, Bishop Gerhard Muller of Regensburg said having the word "Christian" in a name should mean "something concrete."
"A party which stands for an unconditional defense of life and then begins to waver betrays itself and democracy. Humanity can't be treated instrumentally -- its dignity provides the frontier for political compromises," he said.
Such parties "should abandon the current opportunism -- people won't vote for anyone who fails to uphold their own principles," he said.
Media analysts say the Christian Democratic Union's new coalition with the Free Democratic Party has moved it to the left and risked alienating conservative supporters. A recent poll showed 4 percent of practicing Catholics had resigned their membership in the party.
Within the Christian Democratic Union, a group calling itself the Working Group of Committed Catholics has formed to discuss how to maintain the party's traditional Christian identity.
In January, Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising told Der Spiegel that the party's tax policy had "proved beneficial above all for rich people," adding that he also objected to its support for stem-cell research and aspects of its family policy.
"What's lacking for me is a decisive acknowledgment of the Christian faith and church -- the CDU's program talks only very generally about Christian values, which is too hazy," said Archbishop Marx, who heads the social action commission of the German bishops' conference.
"The 'C' in Christian carries an obligation toward Jesus Christ. It isn't just an adjective like 'liberal' or 'social,' whose meaning can be freely interpreted," he said.
German government figures show Catholics make up 31 percent of Germany's population of 82.3 million, compared to 30.8 who belong to the Evangelical Church in Germany, a federation of Lutheran, Reformed and United churches. About 2 percent of Germans are Orthodox.
In a pastoral letter before the September elections, the German bishops urged voters to back candidates who would uphold "the firm order of values found in our constitutional law and Catholic social teaching." They said Catholics should support candidates who would defend life at all stages and maintain Germany's social security system at a time when child poverty was "a scandal needing quick eradication."
Copyright © 2010 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Comments (1)
Politicians holding a big C in front of their fat bellies
By M Scherer-Emunds on Friday, February 5, 2010Having grown up in Germany, this news story reminds me of my dad's frequent griping about those damn politicians "holding a big C in front of their fat bellies." In the post-World War II years he had initially been a loyal follower of the Christian Democratic Union, which had some strong roots in the Rhineland's political Catholicism. But he became increasingly disillusioned with the party's pro-business conservatism in the wake of both Vatican II's larger vision of Catholicism's role in the world and of German Chancellor Willy Brandt's 1970s agenda of social justice and a more conciliatory Ostpolitik (seeking constructive engagement with Germany's Eastern Bloc neighbors).
Truth be told, the CDU's "C" has long been primarily a convenient "holiness by association" mantle to cloak the party in righteousness. Like many Republicans, leading CDU politicians for many decades knew how to pay lip service to the pro-life cause to win the support of staunch Catholics (like my aunt), but they never really did much of anything to actually restrict abortion, while merrily continuing to advance their real agenda, which indeed has "proved beneficial above all for rich people."
