In a Feb 16 interview Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg also criticized the Catholic Church’s traditional ties to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), questioned the necessity of clerical celibacy, and deviated from the Church’s stated views on childcare.

Conservative members of the Bishops’ Conference were quick to distance themselves from the archbishop’s comments, while others claimed his words had been distorted and there were no plans to abolish mandatory celibacy for the clergy.

Elected leader of the German Church on Feb 12, Archbishop Zollitsch told Spiegel he hoped to improve relations with Germany’s Protestant Church the EKD in the wake of last summer’s statement by the Vatican that the Lutheran and Anglican Churches were “not proper Churches.”

The Protestant Church “is Church. I cannot deny it,” ["ist Kirche. Ich kann ihr das nicht absprechen"], Archbishop Zollitsch said.

He also stated that clerical celibacy was “not theologically necessary,” ["nicht theologisch notwendig"], but noted such a change would be a “revolution” that would require the calling of a Council to enact.

In a Feb 20 statement released on behalf of the Bishops’ Conference, Dr Gerhard Ludwig Müller (pictured), Bishop of Regensburg, stated Archbishop Zollitsch’s words had been misconstrued. Theological subtleties could not be expressed easily “in a fast interview,” he explained.

“The Latin rite of the Catholic Church holds to the sensible union of the priesthood and the celibate life for love of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is and will continue to be the Catholic Church’s discipline,” Bishop Müller said, and will not change “now or in the future.”

The Archbishop told Spiegel he endorsed the use of crèches or child day care programmes --- a stance contrary to the church’s view that women should refrain from working outside the home in order to rear their children. “We need nurseries because many parents simply need them,” he said.

He also questioned the CDU’s pursuit of “neo-liberal” economic policies, saying its neglect of the “social market economy” had “diminished” its historic links to the Catholic Church. Many of the Green and Social Democrat Party’s policies are “important to us, more so than ever before” Archbishop Zollitsch said.



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