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Symbol image raffle ticket/main prize/tombola © M. Schuppich (shutterstock)

The joy over the main prize at the annual church raffle of the "Bethel Baptist Church" in Uniontown in the US state of Pennsylvania did not last long: A pastor who drew the prize told the winner that unfortunately the fishing trip she had won would not take place.

Interviewer: This Monday, clergy in German dioceses will bless homosexual couples in church services under the motto #lovewins. It is a very clear sign of resistance. Is defiance and disobedience sometimes the only solution?

Monika Kleine (managing director of the Social Service of Catholic Women / SkF): I don't know if it's not a narrow interpretation to always interpret this as defiance. This pigeonhole is much too narrow for me. I have a completely different approach, namely the question: What gives us the right to deny this right to people who want to place their relationship – regardless of gender – under a blessing?. I would argue it much more strongly on this question of attitude. In any case, I do it for myself and we in our association. I believe that other associations see it very similarly.

Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer © Maria Irl (KNA)

In a statement published Wednesday on his diocese's website, he recommended waiting for the results of the commission appointed by Pope Francis. He could not imagine, however, that this committee would come to different conclusions than the International Theological Commission of a few years ago.

According to a statement on the eighth plenary assembly, which ended Sunday. In early March, Marie Collins of Ireland was the last of an original two abuse victims to withdraw from the panel. She justified her step with a lack of cooperation from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. British abuse victim Peter Saunders has had his mandate suspended since February 2016.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony © Paul Haring (KNA)

Mahony, on 27. Born Feb. 1936 in Hollywood, he was the first native-born archbishop of Los Angeles. He became involved with immigrants from Latin America, many of whom lived as farm workers in Southern California. His tenure was overshadowed by sexual abuse cases.

Commissioning of parish and pastoral ministers in 2020 © Beatrice Tomasetti (DR)

this site: How does your association assess the current situation in the Archdiocese of Cologne?

Regina Oediger-Spinrath (Spokeswoman of the Association of Pastoral Care Workers*): I would also like to speak for the association of parish workers, because we are very closely networked, even though we are two separate professional groups, but we have a very similar effect in the archdiocese. We really had a lot of meetings and feel in our own ranks, but also in the places where we are deployed, in parishes, institutions, associations, that at the moment the bishop is no longer trusted to be able to cope with this crisis and to lead the church in the crisis and out of the crisis.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki © Bert Bostelmann (KNA)

CBA: Cardinal, what is your assessment of the regional conferences of the Synodal Way?

Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki (Archbishop of Cologne): I think it was valuable to speak in a smaller setting. This had a positive effect on the climate of discussion, and it was possible to listen to each other better and to appreciate the other's argument better. That was a welcome difference from the first synodal assembly.

Members of the Socialist Party (PS) spoke out in the Walloon parliament in favor of including all listed churches and chapels in the country in a register and checking their condition and visitor numbers. The data collected in this way should, among other things, provide information about the costs that would be incurred in the long term as a result of necessary restoration work. At the same time, such a register would provide an objective basis for deciding whether the preservation of a place of worship is worthwhile or whether a conversion might make sense, explained MPs Isabelle Simonis and Daniel Senesael, who introduced the proposal to parliament this week.

CBA: Father Wilmer, you were abroad for many years, most recently in Rome. With which eyes do you see the German church?

Wilmer: From the Roman point of view, the German Church is important because there is a high level of reflection there. The German church is representative of ecumenism – that is, the consideration of how Christians as a whole can grow together and work together.

View of Essen Cathedral © Ilija Ascic (shutterstock)

The scientific study will be conducted by the Munich-based Institute for Practical Research and Project Consulting (IPP), he said.

The investigation was a consequence of the abuse study of the German Bishops' Conference presented in the fall of 2018, it said. However, the processing of sexualized violence in the Catholic Church should not stop at this quantitative survey of past acts of violence.