Former Benedict XVI Attacks Secularised German Church

Official texts of the German Church are written by people "for whom faith is only job-related".

Benedict XVI says this in an interview with the anti-Catholic German Herder Korrespondenz which will be published soon. He adds: "As long as only the office, but not the heart and the spirit, speak in official church texts, so long will the exodus from the world of faith continue." Benedict expects "from those who speak for the Church a real personal testimony of faith".

He also sees a problem in the church's diaconia in Germany: "In Church institutions - hospitals, schools, Caritas - many people are involved in decisive positions who do not share the inner mission of the Church and thus often obscure the witness of this institution."

In this context, he refers to “de-world-ification” (Entweltlichung), which he mentioned in his Freiburg speech at the end of his 2011 visit to Germany - but without following up words with action. In 2011 he said: "In order to fulfil its true mission, the Church must always make the effort to detach itself from the worldliness of the world."

Now he adds: "The word de-world-ification indicates the negative part of the movement I am concerned with, namely, stepping out of the discourse and the constraints of a time into the freedom of faith".

He admits that the positive part of this movement - which is about "separating believers from unbelievers" - was "not sufficiently expressed."

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