Monsignor Christian Hermes © Harald Oppitz (KNA)
In dealing with sexual abuse, the Catholic city dean of Stuttgart, Christan Hermes, shows no understanding for why consistent action has not been taken long ago. Expressions of concern must not become "empty gestures".
Stuttgart's Catholic city dean Christian Hermes calls for concrete fundamental changes in his church in the debate over how to deal with sexual abuse. Mere expressions of consternation by the pope and bishops run the risk of "becoming empty gestures," Hermes said on the homepage of the Catholic Church in Stuttgart. Church members and public wanted to see action.
"Why don't we know which bishops and which ordinariates have not been cooperative?"
Hermes said: "In the context of modern political developments, it seems to me and to many people I talk to that it is no longer possible to understand why undoubtedly good achievements such as co-determination, separation of powers, checks and balances or an independent judiciary should not correspond to the divine mandate of the church."
He said the question arises why consistent action has not been taken long ago: "Why do we not know which bishops and which ordinariates have not been cooperative and do too little in prevention? Which bishop, which personnel manager has not clarified or covered up what and where, or has not listened to victims or has not taken the ie seriously??"
Where bishops put the protection of the institution before that of the victims or rejected a critical view from the outside under reference to rights of self-determination, they found within the church and socially "rightly no more understanding", so the clergyman.
Celibacy no guarantee for good priests
Hermes goes on to emphasize that the church has "done a lot of damage with often neurotic misguided sexual morality aimed at suppression, repression or denial – even more so in the past than today.". He is also critical of mandatory celibacy among priests. Celibacy, he said, is not a trigger for abuse, "but it is also not at all a guarantee – which it should be – that we have good priests".
Hermes says: "It is clear to me that opening up the church office to men who have proven themselves in marriage and family, and also to women, would change the setting and break up the male clique."