BERLIN – The Catholic Church is not there. “At Christmas we showed that we can celebrate Mass in a prudent way. And at Easter we don’t want to give up ”. The head of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, rejects the invitation of Angela Merkel and the governors to hold the ceremonies for the most important digital Christian holiday. He insists on allowing the faithful to follow them to church. Last year, during the first lockdown, the churches had given up their functions but all.
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Last night the chancellor had emerged from a fifteen-hour meeting with the regional prime ministers with the recommendation, indeed, the “prayer” to renounce all masses. And it has launched, for the five days around Easter, the hardest lockdown since the beginning of the pandemic: even supermarkets will remain closed. The intent is to break the third wave of infections, in full acceleration due to the British variant that according to Merkel is now “prevalent” in Germany.
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But the bishops say they are “surprised” by this request and remember that the masses “are not a secondary matter”. The representative of the Bishops’ Conference to the government, Karl Jüsten has already announced talks with the Ministry of the Interior and with the competent regional institutions to organize Easter services as safely as possible.
“We will do whatever is necessary to respect the distancing rules”, he wrote on the portal “katholisch.de“. For the feast of the Resurrection, Jüsten asked that the government respect” religious freedom and freedom of worship. “During yesterday’s long meeting, it seems that Markus Söder, governor of Bavaria, the most Catholic land in Germany, said that “we do not want to put pressure on the churches”.
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The Protestant Church (EKD) has not yet decided. But the president of the EKD, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, expressed a similar judgment to Catholics on the recommendation to keep masses digitally: “It surprised us very much, it is the most important holiday of Christians”. But before discussing it, the leaders of the Protestant Church want to understand from the government why anti-Covid measures should not be enough to guarantee a safe conduct of ceremonies. But in the meantime, the Evangelical Church of Württemberg has already made it known that it too will reject Merkel’s prayer.
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