Crocker Snow Reports From Germany; The Role of the Church

[Crocker Snow] Greetings from West Germany. This is Crocker Snow speaking from the studios of Radio Deutsche Welle Cologne, the city of the world-famous Gothic cathedral. It's a temptation to think of Germany as a country where everything is black and white. Of course this isn't true but it is valid to think of much of the country in terms of black. This is the color of the robes worn by the Catholic clergy. As such it is a symbol of the Catholic Church. Black Bavaria is Catholic Bavaria, a black newspaper is a Catholic one. Down through history the two German churches, the Protestant and the Catholic, have had an especially strong influence on the country. This is not totally a thing of the past. In recent history, in the last three decades, the church has played a big role. During the early thirties when the hysteria of National Socialism was just beginning to spread,

the importance of the church was widely recognized. It was recognized by Hitler, who as soon as he took control tried to assert his authority over it. With the support of sympathetic Protestant clergyman, he set up a German Christian church in an attempt to attract and thereby control the bulk of the Protestant church. This failed miserably. Such Protestant leaders as Martin Niemoller led a counter movement in opposition to the Nazis. The Catholic Church was not acquiescent at this time either. After 1937, when a group of German bishops convinced Pope Pius XI to speak out against Nazism, many Catholic priests began to preach from the pulpit against the regime. But the church men were not immune to the disciplines of the time. Many were arrested. By American figures 400 Protestant and 800 Catholic priests died in the single

concentration camp of Dachau. After the war the division of Germany into east and west had vast repercussions for the church. What is now East Germany was a stronghold of the Protestant Church. 85 percent of the 15 million inhabitants were Protestant. The Reformation was born there. Martin Luther worked there. Because of the division, West Germany is split about 50/50 between Catholics and Protestants. In West German politics the Christian Democratic Union Party attracts the overwhelming majority of the Catholic votes and the CDU has been in power since the formation of the Federal Republic in 1948. This raises the question of whether the division of faiths has contributed indirectly to the division of the country. During the first decade of postwar Germany the CDU would have faced almost certain political defeat had the country been

reunified. The great Protestant majority of East Germany would certainly have voted for the oppositional Social Democrats. As such, knowledge dampened the desires of CTU leaders for reunification. The two churches today hold a unique position in West Germany. Their existence is guaranteed in the Basic Law. So too is a certain annual income, some 25 million dollars apiece. 96 percent of the population is in one or the other church. Thus by any definition the influence of the German church is great and the question of the division of church and state is a very pertinent one. It's a division that is not overly discernable. The Catholic Church has always done its best to ensure the continuance of the Christian Democratic Party in power. German local and national elections are always held on Sunday. Campaigning on Election Sunday is illegal but in the past it hasn't been

uncommon for Catholic priests to use the pulpit on election day to advise their congregations to vote Christian today. The implication has always been clear enough. Vote for the party with Christian in its name, the CDU. In recent years this clerical advice has been toned down to vote your conscience today. It seems that the impact of the church on the country's political life is now diminishing. In last June's important elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, as a population and industrial center certainly this country's most important state, and a state highly Catholic in makeup, the Social Democrats eked out a narrow and unexpected victory. Many of the area's Catholic Laborers apparently forsook the Catholic CDU for the more progressive economic policies of the Social Democrats. But despite this gradually diminishing political influence it is no time to

write off the impact of the church on German life. An example of this can be found in the country's educational system. At the elementary school level, Germany operates under a law allowing for Catholic, Protestant, or other world philosophy parochial confessional denominational schools in a single town as well as a parallel non-confessional school if the people want it. Merely the petition of 40 parents attesting that their children will go to such a school is necessary. Thus it is possible in a town with only 150 pupils eligible for the first nine grades of elementary school to have three schools: one Catholic, one Protestant, and one non-confessional. It is not only possible, it's quite normal and each school might have as few as six or eight pupils in each of its nine grades. This system has been under fire in several parts of the country in recent years.

Misunderstandings are compounded by the autonomy of the eleven German Laender, or states. The highly respected minister of cultural and thus educational affairs for North Rhine-Westphalia, Paul Mikat, here explains through an English-speaking spokesman this situation. [Paul Mikat, through translator] The situation is different in the different states of the country. There is a historic reason for this. Some states have almost exclusively confessional schools. In others, a mixture of confessional and non-confessional schools is more of the norm. The controversy basically centers on whether the system should become the national standard. It isn't an easy question to answer. Actually the Federal Republic has a concordat(?) with the

Pope which regulates this. Any change in the educational set up would require either an amendment or a new concordat. Oh yeah. This for example is why the state of Lower Saxony recently signed a new concordat with the Pope. Our State, North Rhine-Westphalia, is just now preparing to undertake a similar move. [Crocker Snow] The countrywide trend favors an increase in the so-called Gemeinschaft, or non-confessional school. The Protestant church is taking this in stride but the Catholic Church is not. Its position is that a Catholic child can receive the best education only at a Catholic school. Those in favor of the gemeinschaft school say just the opposite,

that the best education is only possible where students of various faiths are mixed. At any rate the issue can be an emotional one as is shown by the reaction of a priest from the Rhineland quoted in the national news magazine Der Spiegel: [quote, translated] "It's a terrible treason when a Catholic supports the so-called non-confessional school. It's like Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss." [Crocker Snow] Officially the Catholic Church has shown more restraint than this but nevertheless its stand has been unbending. The word has gone out in statements from various German bishops and in less official ways as well, such as a small illustrated pamphlet entitled The Right Way, in which an argument is presented against the very human tendency of parents to send their children to the closest school, whether Catholic or not. [cartoon, translated] "Because of the dangers of the highway, a short route to a nearby school is of importance to parents.

But what good is a shorter route if it doesn't lead to the right goal? Certainly teachers at non-confessional schools may be excellent pedagogues, but maybe they're apathetic about God. Maybe they don't think much of Catholic instruction. Maybe they have no contact themselves with the church. Maybe they laugh at our veneration of the Virgin Mary. Many maybes can be added. Should your child's education be based on so many question marks? A shorter route to school is a welcome thing. But maybe this route is a detour to God." [Crocker Snow] The controversy over parochial or non-parochial schools has a certain curious parallel to the American experience. The educational arguments in both countries revolve around the question of how to achieve the best education for the greatest number. Cases of children traveling miles to one school because they are not eligible for the one next door arise in both countries. But where this occurred because of race in America, in

Germany it occurred and sometimes still does because of religion. One of a number of communities where the fight has caught fire is the city of Juelich some 20 miles west of Cologne. The city of 18,000 has three elementary schools, two Catholic and one Protestant. It also has the country's first nuclear research center, employing some 28,000 people. This center has meant a great infusion of bright, young, highly educated scientists and physicists who have been a vital new influence on the town's otherwise traditional attitudes. For the last two years a group of the townsfolk, spearheaded largely by some of these scientists, have sought either to transform the Protestant school or to establish a new non-confessional gemeinschaft school. The fight has been a painful one. First they formed an organization, The Friends of the Gemeinschaft School, and tried to collect the 40 signatures

necessary to form the new school. In fact they rounded up 57 temporarily but the votes started disappearing abruptly when memos, documents, and position papers from the various town lobbyists besieged the people. Suddenly people began to withdraw their votes for the non-confessional school. The end result was that when the votes were finally counted what had been 57 votes was reduced to 39, one short of the necessary number for the new school. A member of the organization favoring the new school, Wolf Zugschwert, a young physicist who once studied at Purdue, explains the types of pressures which resulted in the reversal. [Wolf Zugschwert] A lot of things happened during the time when the first parents gave their votes for Gemeinschaftschule and then drove it back. So for instance it happened that Catholic priests

visited some of the parents and talked to them over a long time and talked to them about the support those big families is given. But the Catholic Church does a lot of things good to those families and now they vote for non-parochial school, and at the end those parents drove their votes back. The officials of the town visited people just to get the the name under a slip saying "I drive my vote back" and "I don't want to support the Gemeinschaftschule anymore." And I think this is an incorrect influence taken by the community against the Gemeinschaftschule. And this is also the case with my friends and so we decided to go on and fight hard for our school. [Crocker Snow] I see. Is there any evidence that from the, either the Protestant or the Catholic church pulpit that there was some sort of direct or

indirect attempt to influence the people? [Wolf Zugschwert] Well, the official standpoint of the Catholic Church in Germany is that the parochial school, the Catholic school, is the best way to teach Catholic children. And this standpoint was given in some official letters from bishops of the Catholic Church, from the pulpit to the community, and furthermore, some of the priests gave some points of view they, the way they see the school problems in Juelich, they were talking about "the devil is within Juelich" and things like that. [Crocker Snow] Some people of Juelich however see more than simply the influence of the church involved. The chairman of a parent organization for the present Protestant school, nevertheless

still a friend of the desired new school, geologist Richard Neumann for example. [Richard Neumann] It is not the influence of the Catholic Church and not the influence of the Catholic Church-influenced community Stadt Juelich, but it's another thing. There are a few families in Juelich, very conservative, born here in Juelich, which have attended this evangelic school and this is a position of the friends of the Gemeinschaftschule. So real a position [?], not the town, the community of Juelich and not the church, especially the Catholic Church. Conservative people cannot see the advantages of Gemeinschaftschule, they are influenced by old-fashioned meanings. By sometimes

perhaps the churches, but only sometimes. I couldn't believe that it is so hard here in Juelich, in the Rhineland, as we sometimes say the Black Rhineland, in this Rhineland to install a Gemeinschaftschule. I couldn't believe that it is so hard but it is very hard. [Crocker Snow] Hard as it has been, the battle for a non-confessional school in the town of Juelich is not yet ended. Because of the various manipulations of the initial vote, the friends of the gemeinschaft school took their case to court. They were overruled in the lowest court. But just as they prepared to raise the stakes and go one court higher, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia began to sit up and take notice. An agreement was arrived at. The non-confessional school was okayed and readied to open in two months time this December. About 20 percent of the town's 950 elementary school pupils were enrolled for the

still-fictitious school. The friends of the gemeinschaft school of course have taken this as a sign of the basic attractiveness of the non-confessional school, all politics and pressures aside. Chairman Carl Alfred Stradel. [Carl Alfred Stradel] We are, if you tell it in, in numbers, a minority, but we don't think to be really a minority because you see if you begin to work in a way politically or in a democratic way you will find other people who will begin to work with you. And we are on the way up. We can't say we have more than half of Juelich under our control. This would be nonsense. But we think in some years there will be one

big system of Gemeinschaftschule, maybe one little confessional school in Juelich. We don't only believe it, we think we can say we know it. [Crocker Snow] Despite such optimism the gemeinschaft school still remains fictitious. A small group of Protestant town elders are now legally contesting its formation fearing that the birth of the non-confessional school will necessarily mean the end of their cherished Protestant school. Curiously however the Protestant church, unlike the Catholic Church, is not backing this movement in opposition to the new school. One of the town's two Protestant clergymen, Father Guenther Buenker, explains his position. [Father Guenther Buenker, beginning in German, a translator takes over] We two protestant clergymen here in Juelich definitely favor the

non-confessional, non-parochial school for two reasons. First a theoretical one. We are in agreement with the 1958 synod of the Protestant church in Berlin. Quote, "a proper education can only be in a spirit of freedom and truth. Thus the synod declares that schools and teachers should in no way be subject to Christian guardians. The responsibility of the teachers in things moral and scientific in education and school life in Germany is complete. They should not be tutored in world philosophies of any kind," end quote. The church is prepared for free and independent schooling. Its only responsibility in serving youth is to prepare them properly for modern life. The clergy has taken a general position in the school problem, one which is of particular significance for our situation here in Juelich. They appeal to

all parents of Protestant pupils to encourage and support the institution of non-confessional schools. I believe that especially for all children here in Juelich this is the best thing. It will enable a better education than is possible under the present system of confessional schools existing in the area. [German continues] [Crocker Snow] I asked the Protestant minister if he would continue to support the non-confessional gemeinschaft school even if it meant the end of the Protestant school. His answer: [Father Guenther Buenker, through a translator] I would welcome it, because it's senseless that two relatively small schools stand side by side. Above all I would welcome it because it would be a great educational improvement in the situation of the current Protestant Confessional school.

[Crocker Snow] The situation in Juelich has the same ingredients, if intensified, as that in hundreds of towns throughout the country. Young progressive families, in this case attracted by the Nuclear Research Center, at odds with older conservative families. The tide appears to be running in favor of youth. Throughout the country the nondenominational gemeinschaft schools are on the increase. But the Catholic Church remains steadfast. A recent official message from Bishop Hengsbach of Essen to his flock put the matter bluntly. [Bishop Hengsbach, translated] "Your children must become diligent people. Your children must become good people. Therefore your children must become true believers. For this your children need the best education and the place for this within the realm of the schools is still even today, the Catholic school." [Crocker Snow] Although the issue in Juelich and elsewhere revolves around the school question, it has an added significance, as Juelich physicist Zugschwer points out.

[Zugschwer] Well this is a very big problem in Germany because this is the problem of the separation of church and state and my opinion is that with the structure of the German Federal Republic the church has a big influence, or the churches have a big influence on official states and so it's naturally that for instance in the laws concerning the schools, Christian ideology is a very strong part of these laws. So I don't, I don't wonder about the influences of churches on communities. There's no direct influence but they are influenced by their education which is maintained by the churches and the state because they are not completely separated in

Germany and they have not been for any time. [Crocker Snow] What you're suggesting then that this is a vicious cycle that will continue. [Zugschwer] Well I I hope it will diminish sometime. But I don't have any hope for the near future in this way. So I really don't see any way but just fighting for your freedom and fighting for the freedom of other people in education and in school things. I mean all people are talking in Germany about schools for Catholics and schools for Protestants but nobody is talking, neither private nor in the law about schools for Jews. These are separate schools, you may found them, but the Jews are scattered around in the country and there are in no place enough Jews to found their own schools. So I see the only way to be correct to everybody is to found Gemeinschaftschulen, which are the non-parochial, non-confession, confessional schools. [Crocker Snow] The school question aside for the moment,

there is little doubt that the church plays a very great role in this country. Far greater for example than in America. This is not easy for certain segments of the population of democratic West Germany to digest. Does the church have too much power? Churchmen themselves are not adverse to discussing this point, such as the Protestant minister of Juelich, Father Bundher. [Father Bundher, through a translator] The influence of the Catholic Church in West Germany is far greater than that of the Protestant Church. In fact our church often merely follows in the wake of the Catholic Church, as is shown by the example of the school dispute. From the very beginning the Protestant Church has taken no interest in confessional schools as such. Its stand is merely a reaction to the institution of Catholic schools. [Bundher continues in German]

[Translator picks up again] However I think the amount of influence is not nearly as important as the means with which it is applied. If it can be used properly by taking a public position on things, as every individual and institutions has a right to on social questions, there's no harm in it. I think that the basic influence of the Catholic Church on political decisions is not something which the Protestant Church finds favorable. [Crocker Snow] It is this very influence of not always the Catholic Church, but sometimes too the Protestant one, that is being challenged and questioned. The fact that the church finds itself on the defensive now in the school question suggests that there may be other particular areas of German life where the influence of the

church is open to question. Through an English spokesman, Cultural Minister for North Rhine-Westphalia Paul Mikat answers this question. [Paul Mikat, through a translator] There are certainly a number of such areas, for example in civil law, in social welfare, and charity work, in the question of free hospitals. All of these are issues where the relationships between church and state are being tested and discussed. But it isn't as if there is any real conflict between church and state. It is merely the fact that the church today plays a decisive role and performs a number of tasks which the state would have trouble assuming for itself. Professor Mikat says it is this assumption that is being questioned. For

example as regards nurses and social welfare new laws in the different states of the Federal Republic, so far at least, haven't been synchronized. That's what they should be. Now we are making attempts at taking a more uniform approach in the future. Except for the school question the relations between church and state, the climate so to speak, is probably better today than ever before. The fact that the school question remains unresolved is due to the variety of historical entanglements. Professor Mikat points out that today one could hardly speak of a church state or a state church in Germany. It is simply

that the church has established itself as a strong factor and a power in this society just as in most other countries of the free world. And, this, so says Professor Mikat, is the correct position of the church today. [Crocker Snow] The words of North Rhine-Westphalia minister of Cultural Affairs Paul Mikat about the role of the church in German life. The implication that the German churches, the Catholic and the Protestant, are just one of a number of important factors in German society and that they have an appropriate place similar to their place in other Western societies is something privately questioned by many Germans today. Throughout history, the church in Germany has been something special. It still fulfills this role today. This is Crocker Snow, speaking from the studios of Radio

Deutsche Welle, Cologne, West Germany.