Christians all over Germany commemorated the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday with Stations of the Cross processions. In their sermons, many bishops referred to the suffering of the people of Ukraine, Israel and Gaza.
The chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), Bishop Georg Bätzing, addressed the people Good Friday called to seek God more intensely. “If you are serious about this, you can find the answer: today, in the cross, in broad daylight,” said Bätzing in his Good Friday sermon in Limburg, according to the manuscript. The Limburg bishop further asked who today has the luxury of “searching thoroughly for the real, human being in a time of polycrises in which pragmatically effective strategies have become relevant and necessary for survival?” The bishop advised looking for the answer in the Gospels of the Bible and in the Easter services.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx warned against exploiting religion in political conflicts. “It is a scandal when religions contribute to unpeace,” said the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, according to the speech manuscript, in his Good Friday sermon in Munich’s Liebfrauendom. In the eyes of many people, religions no longer appeared as tools of peace that could contribute to dialogue, but as “aggression amplifiers and polarizers that divide people from each other.”
Bild: ©KNA/Katharina Gebauer (archive image)
The cross of Jesus is a sign of change for the better, said the Archbishop of Bamberg, Herwig Gössl.
Bamberg Archbishop Herwig Gössl has called on people to understand the cross of Jesus as a sign of change for the better. “This will break the endless spiral of violence and counter-violence, and overcome the ever-increasing hatred and all calls for revenge and retaliation,” said Gössl, according to the manuscript, on Good Friday in Bamberg Cathedral. A new beginning will be possible under the cross.
Don’t confuse truth with power
The Aachen Bishop Helmut warned against confusing truth with power. “It happens in a never-ending way Of Ukraine“Russia wants to use its power to enforce its view of history,” he said, according to the manuscript of his Good Friday sermon. “Whoever’s power wins, the truth is on his side, is the bitter, murderous mistake.” According to this, truth is not compatible with mistakes and errors. ” This is what everyone who is on the weaker side knows and feels and suffers from, who still protest courageously and yet lose everything: those locked away in prisons and torture chambers, those convicted in show trials, those who died as acceptable victims in Gaza or those who died arbitrarily murdered in terrorist orgies in Israel or, most recently, in the concert hall in Moscow.”
According to Fulda’s Bishop Michael Gerber, Russia’s leadership does not have the legitimacy to exploit the terrorist act in the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, which left more than a hundred dead, for its own goals. Despite the cruelty of such attacks, the dignity of the alleged perpetrators must always be preserved, said Gerber on Good Friday in Fulda Cathedral, according to the manuscript. He urged differentiation. “People’s solidarity and our prayers must clearly be with the victims of these cruel attacks,” said Gerber. A functioning state system shows its power not only in the prevention of such acts of terrorism, but also in the constitutional punishment of potential perpetrators if such acts do occur.
Bild: ©KNA/Julia Steinbrecht
“People’s solidarity and our prayers must clearly be with the victims of these cruel attacks,” said Gerber on Good Friday in Fulda Cathedral.
According to the Münster Bishop Felix Genn, the death of Jesus on the cross also results in “an almost political program”. This means “never using weapons to try to get the right to inherit land,” said Genn in his Good Friday sermon in Münster. “It is the program of non-violent love, a program to stand up for those who are being unjustly attacked and persecuted,” said the bishop, according to the previously published speech manuscript. This also applies to the war against Ukraine in which the Western world is fighting.
Violence and death never have the last word
According to Mainz Bishop Peter Kohlgraf, human dignity is demonstrated by not allowing other people to become a number, but rather seeing them as a brother or sister. “Therefore, inhumane dictatorships will never have the last word in the end, nor will violence and death,” said the Bishop of Mainz with conviction.
In Speyer Cathedral, the suffering and death of Jesus was commemorated in the Good Friday liturgy with Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann and Auxiliary Bishop Otto Georgens. As the auxiliary bishop explained in his sermon, he did not seek revenge and retaliation even in the face of violence, but rather “became master of violence and overcomes it through mercy and love.”
At the 30th Stations of the Cross on the dump at the former Prosper Haniel mine in Bottrop, Essen Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck related the treatment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to the trial of Jesus before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. “The times in which we live urge us to search more for the truth and at the same time to endure the fact that, in a paradoxical sense, it often cannot be answered simply and clearly,” he said. According to the bishop, the question of truth is often deliberately concealed. Despite heavy rain showers, around 800 people took part in the Stations of the Cross. (mtr/KNA)