Church Response to Extremism in Germany

And on the background of two developments which are

maybe worrying you as well,

the steady decline of Catholic Church in Germany

and the astonishing rise of extremist parties

in Germany who threaten to tear up the consensus

for Europe, which you spoke about today in Metz.

Uh, I do hope to continue to work with leaders

in the church in

Germany to find ways to respond to that.

It would be interesting to

study, analyze if and how there may be a

relationship, for example, to the growth of,

of these groups on the far right,

and even the far right is being splintered now, as you see th-

one

particular group is becoming even much more extreme with

other so-called far-right groups.

At the same time, with, uh, some

expression of a combination of these far-right

points of view with a certain kind of religion,

which,

uh, in not only my view, but, uh, both the leaders of the Catholic

Church and the Protestant Church in Germany have spoken out about

that's not an authentic expression of Christianity.

And again, we can go back to the values of the

Gospel, which are not about

hatred and division, but they're about understanding and

compassion and accompanying.

I hope deeply, uh, and, and hopefully the Church can also

be a part of this, that we can find ways of, if you will,

reaching out to

a majority of people of goodwill who will understand how

important that their commitment, even

in terms of participating in political processes, will

enable them to make clear choices for the common good and

not for extremist ideas that

perhaps will do much more damage, uh, than, than we are even

aware of right now. So

I think we will all be encouraging in that sense.

Uh, again, on our part as a Church,

social doctrine of the Church,

talking about, teaching about, preaching about what we believe are

these life-giving values and not destruction,

division, and hatred.