It doesn’t work without churches

At the opening press conference of Catholic Day, a journalist stood up and asked if the meeting of the lay church was a dying event. He had reason to ask that. The number of participants is decreasing, as is the number of church members. The program was also slimmed down. 1200 events on the last Catholic Day became 500 in beautiful Erfurt.

In a sense the question is typical. Anyone who is still connected to the Church in one way or another must explain and even justify themselves today. The decline of the institutions is then mentioned, as well as the abuse scandal, the latter with full justification.

Of course, one might ask the critics why they withdrew their loyalty to an ultimately indispensable institution. Because despite all the anomalies, as revealed in the abuse scandal, the following is true: the content, the Christian message, does not exist without the homes – those buildings and their operators that rise into the sky across the country.

Indispensable in times of radical selfishness

Churches are places where people experience – and should experience – themselves as limited. The border is called God. Churches are also places where we think systematically about the relationship between I and we, that is, about what the individual must do so that the whole can live. The biggest whole is democracy. Yes, non-church-affiliated individuals and groups are pursuing similar questions. But in times of radical selfishness that is increasingly expressed politically and now threatens to undermine democracy, the churches remain irreplaceable, even given their size. As the former constitutional judge Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenförde put it, they contribute to those intellectual and moral conditions that the free, secularized state itself cannot guarantee. This is even more true in a world that is heading towards self-destruction on almost all levels.

Thuringia, whose capital is Erfurt, provides examples of this. In 1989, church people played an important role in promoting the peaceful revolution. Here the sense of freedom and justice was kept alive. Here democracy could be practiced in moderation. It was therefore no coincidence that many church representatives ended up in politics.

35 years later, the AfD is a rising party in Thuringia that does not think in terms of cohesion, but of division. Their radical message can clearly survive where Christianity has partially and completely disappeared. Because, among other things, it teaches people not to see themselves as divisive victims of circumstances, but as subjects who are free but also responsible. Conversely, it is no coincidence that the AfD sees even less land in Thuringia where Christians have more influence than elsewhere: in Catholic Eichsfeld.

“Maybe we’re getting smaller and weaker.”

No, there is no reason for illusions. The smart and radically honest chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, said in Erfurt: “Maybe we are becoming smaller and weaker.” In fact, Christian traditions have been irrevocably broken down in some parts.

Anyone who can still experience vibrant communities and high-quality church services today is fortunate. Nevertheless, churches can hold open a space of possibilities in a present that seems increasingly self-centered and therefore increasingly threatening. Christianity tells people, “You are not the measure of all things. The I does not exist without the you. This insight creates a ‘we’. This could be a life saver.