Protestant Church Dissatisfied in run up to World Youth Day

Pope Benedict will have to work hard to appease German Protestants that he is serious about pledges to improve relations as he returns to his native Germany for World Youth Day, which starts today.

The Pope’s return to his homeland this week will be the first time he has been in Germany since he was appointed as pontiff.

The preparations for World Youth Day are about to pay off as the Pope attends the massive event, expected to be attended by some 800,000 young Roman Catholics in the Rhineland city of Cologne.

But some Protestants, however, are keen to remind the world that half of the Christians in the land where Martin Luther began the Reformation in 1517 do not follow the Vatican. Others have recently expressed offence at some comments from the event’s organisers and critical comments from some cardinals.

The Pope will have to find the right tone to address both Germany’s Protestants and Catholics, who cooperate extensively with one another in Germany’s increasingly secularised society.

Protestants respect the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as a Pope who understands and appreciates their views far more than any pope before him, but also feel threatened by his deeply “Roman” posture and his keenness to reawaken a strong Catholic identity among Catholics worldwide.

The differences are becoming clearly visible on important issues,” said Bishop Wolfgang Huber, chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the main Protestant church of Germany.

“We’re heading for an ecumenism of clear identities, not a relationship of undifferentiated sameness.”

Protestants were recently angered by comments made by the Pope when he was still in the post of the Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog under the late Pope John Paul. At this time he said that Protestant denominations were “not churches in the real sense”.

The announcement by the Pope to set Christian unity as a primary goal of his papacy was warmly welcomed by many who now feel that the Pope is not doing enough to realise this promise.

“The motor is sputtering a bit,” said Rev Nikolaus Schneider, head of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland.

Cardinal of Cologne Joachim Meisner appeared to confirm the feeling that Germany’s Protestants would be overlooked in the Pope’s visit, telling the Westdeustche Zeitung that Pope Benedict would work more with Orthodox churches, whose dogmas are closer to Rome.

Cardinal Meisner said: “Some concrete gestures are due here, probably not possible with the Protestants.”

Another German cardinal, Walter Kasper, told Focus magazine that the Orthodox were “probably the most important partner for us.”

German Protestants at one point felt they might not even get to meet the Pope during his visit.

Last month, Schneider expressed the view that “If we don’t get an invitation, that would mean things have changed.”

Huber also remarked, “It’s understandable that people ask whether they’re welcome or not.”

The Protestants have made it clear they intend to use their short audience with the Pope to bring up some issues currently dividing the church.

“We can’t avoid the question of joint church services,” Huber said. The Protestants have expressed openness to the idea of sharing worship with Catholics as equals, but the Catholics have so far refused to share Communion with them.

“The ministry issue is unresolved,” said theologian Eberhard Juengel, referring to the Vatican’s long-standing refusal to recognise Protestant clergy as fully-fledged priests.

This has not hindered close Protestant-Catholic cooperation and togetherness at this week’s World Youth Day event, where hundreds of Protestant families in the Cologne area have offered spare beds to foreign pilgrims. Some Protestant churches have also opened their doors to be used as a meeting place for Catholics while they are in the city.

“Cologne is far away. I’m not going to let anything ruin the good ecumenical co-operation we have here,” said Rev Volker Hendricks, head of a Protestant congregation near Krefeld.