Of course, it is risky to say anything specific about the current, highly complex state of the Catholic Church in Germany in just a few words. However, I do not want to meticulously refer to this or that symptom in order to analyse it in its entirety, but rather sketch out a kind of impression: What is currently oppressing (or inspiring?) church life subcutaneously, so to speak? Are there undercurrents that are rising with the current mood?
I believe that the situation of the church in this country is certainly precarious and that it is being put to the test, but the foundations are not crumbling as a result. Rather, it is being exposed, and this can or should have a strengthening effect - not overnight, but in the foreseeable future. Three such tests seem worth discussing for the purpose of this lecture.
Origin and historical character of the church
At the moment, society is changing rapidly and profoundly; the public mentality is changing with the upheavals. It is taken for granted that change is fundamentally good and must be in line with the feelings of those affected, usually the majority. For the most part, Catholic believers agree with the attitude to life of their environment, i.e. the present. But the Church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, is rooted in a very specific historical epoch. It has been moulded over centuries and is committed to its historical heritage. It recognises normativity in this.
As is well known, Mediterranean antiquity is at the forefront (for the sake of simplicity, I will leave aside the significance of other cultural regions of this period). This "indelible seal" (Elisabeth Langgässer), as it were, continues to have a multi-pronged effect to this day, whether consciously recognised or not. However, it is precisely the tangible, repeatedly confirmed or newly added heirlooms from back then that continue to assert their right to exist. Consider, for example, the role of the Roman pater familias in the organisation of the local church office or the importance of hierarchical authority back then, which still structures Catholicism today, but also makes it robust.
An antique attitude to life has become an institution in the Catholic Church, which means that the acid test is pre-programmed. The declared hierarchy is a difficult fit with the (at least still and hopefully sustainable) democratic consciousness in our latitudes. And then there is the fascination of the "new": visions and facts in the field of the family, the strong, media-celebrated emphasis on ideological autonomy, the question of God and his experience without regard for institutional or traditional constituents.
How can we overcome the challenges within the church? Through an evolutionary transformation? Then the impatiently throbbing impetus "forwards" would have to be stopped. Or a revolution after all? That would lead to further divisions. Or does the prudence of Pauline colouring help - test everything and keep what is good (cf. 1 Thess 5:21)? But who decides how to test and what to hold on to? What is the appropriate standard? How far are changes allowed to go? Or should the church finally convert to the "world" after all? The tensions are obvious. But that is the situation.
By the way: Jesus was also a child of antiquity. The church came into being because he was seen as the epitome of the genuinely theological. This conviction was understood to be exclusive and inclusive at the same time: Only in Jesus is found what God ultimately has to give to the world; but Jesus' voice rises up everywhere in the world and excludes no one. With the ancient Logos idea, this universalism of salvation based on conversion and grace could be widely understood, but today? The monogenetic preaching ethos of the beginning is contrasted with a multigenetic sense of religion, embedded in a large-scale social and ideological transformation process. How can faith in Christ be articulated in this context? Certainly not in such a way that the biblically grounded Jesus loses his right to vote in the church and becomes the mythical symbol of a completely unbound religious heuristic.
The role of fundamental options
In the Catholic Church, along with ancient institutions and patterns of thought in the narrower sense, concepts of reality of a general nature are also effective: fundamentally the Gospel - and philosophies, options, paradigms related to it. I am reminded of Plato christianus (Endre von Ivanka), prepared by the genius of Augustine in ancient times and received by other brilliant minds, such as Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century. In the meantime, scholastic Aristotelianism had established itself, which together with Augustine's legacy, albeit in a certain tension with it, gave the official doctrinal rhetoric of the Church a lasting polish. The theological and anthropological profile of Christianity was formulated on this basis: Man was wonderfully created by God, but has become alienated from God and comes into his own anew and more wonderfully through the intervention of Christ, called grace. Since the Easter event, the church has played a mediating role in this structure as a proclaiming and faith-forming authority.
However: The idea that humanity as a whole was willed into sin and doomed by original sin because a rift ran through the world, that ultimately the one Christ saved all - this expansive narrative has since been largely abandoned. Whether this is due to the abandonment of all metaphysics, the end of general concepts and their previously postulated reality content or simply the division of the human ratio into many pragmatic rationalities can be left open here.
In any case, the collision between a Christianity characterised by antiquity and the Middle Ages, which has been masterfully elaborated, and a changed social understanding of reality is obvious. Even Catholic believers hardly think systemically any more. But they share the mentality and the bias code of an "enlightened" society, which is, of course, chasing completely new universals through the media landscape. Keyword mercy: As much as there used to be a struggle to understand it, the topic has now been thoroughly forgotten, across the board. Whereas it used to be said that without grace no one comes to God, the opposite is now true: heaven must hope for grace.
This reversal was probably actually initiated with the Enlightenment of the 18th century, when a Voltaire, for example, broke with the piety of the 17th century embodied in Pascal. For Voltaire, the barrier of original sin, which could only be overcome by a metaphysical feat as proof of the grace of the Son of God, no longer existed. For him, God is pure, self-evident, "tolerant" benevolence; nobody has to ask for it or even "tremble" at it. It radiates unconditionally from God and embraces the creature without conditions - why the church? Voltaire believed in God, but that is no longer common knowledge. Theological considerations now leave the public completely cold. It seems that the existence of the church is only recognised when people rub up against it. Its reputation is in the cellar, unless one experiences effective social work or resourceful religious animation as one offer among many others.
I see another major test for the church in Germany (although the phenomenon is by no means limited to our country): It is the refusal, which is sinking deeper and deeper into the general perception, to grant the church as an institution any competence in relation to God. Blurred images of him, set high above the clouds, are set against a hierarchy that is dismissed as purely the work of man. The junction of heaven and earth due to the church is no longer recognised.
The problem of a lack of coherence
The fact that the dialogue between then and now, between the sacred and the profane, between freedom and commitment, may not succeed is probably also a test for the church today and in our latitudes. At the same time, the thoughts and actions of many Christians, whether they have official church responsibility or not, lack inner consistency and consequence. The church as a formal phenomenon has increasingly taken on the appearance and behaviour of a chimera. But did it have a choice? How should it present itself in view of the many areas of friction in a society in transition? How is the church experienced in terms of its preaching, its celebrations and its piety? Here are three examples that, in my opinion, show how tricky the situation is. For there are significant divergences.
The role of the church's sacramental ministry and the call for the synodal in a new interpretation diverge. Hierarchical patterns play into democratic expectations and vice versa, without a dogmatically and pragmatically viable balance being achieved. The conflict grows accordingly. On the one hand, the office is glorified eo ipso, on the other hand it is denigrated eo ipso; it is declared sacrosanct, then again destructive. Pope Francis and those responsible for the synodal path in Germany rightly condemn what they call "clericalism". But anyone who takes a closer look at the matter knows that such excesses do not necessarily result from the Ordo sacrament, but can threaten any group that has the microphone, so to speak.
The centuries-old understanding of the official church liturgy and the individual celebration needs of many Christians are diverging. Rituals are definitely en vogue and their popularity is increasing. Families and pastoral staff create them freely and imaginatively at home or for church services. Interest is focussed on creating and expressing feelings. This expectation is also applied to the official church liturgy - and obscures it. What does the celebration of the Eucharist mean, for example? You can see it less and less: Is it to be understood as highly sacred or purely pastoral, does it demand reverence or spontaneous creativity, does it have an ancestral hierarchical order or does it explode this in the direction of a fraternal experience?
My third example is that the believers' personal feelings about the church diverge. What is the church anyway? One traditional answer is: it is mater et magistra, mother and teacher. Many people take offence at this. But the Second Vatican Council was not really able to overcome this attitude. Has the subsequent period been able to? On the other hand, what is lost when the Church suddenly begins to be ashamed of its teaching mission? The Church can also appear as a kind of "field hospital", as the current Pope reminds us. This is certainly a legitimate and necessary image in view of the recently documented, terrible incidents, and consistency is truly needed in this field.
The appeal that the church must be "open" and "colourful" is booming; what does it mean in concrete terms? Once again, divergences emerge: the thoroughly moulded belief system here, the doctrinaire unconcern, even hostility there; the claim to leading people according to uniform principles here, the accusation of arrogantly and presumptuously standardising everything there; the church that rests in itself as a mystery here, the church that, if it does not show itself to be of service, "serves nothing" (Jacques Gaillot) there.
The current situation is a precarious one.
