CDU: scandal at worship – the party is difficult to

The nerves are bare at the CDU. This got reporters (including the star) To feel the conservatives before your party congress in Berlin on Monday: You were asked to refrain from saying the reporting in words, sound and image. The incident also shows the tension between the party with the C in the name and the two large churches.

On Monday morning the CDU lead and around 200 delegates met in the Evangelical Grunewaldkirche in the district of the same name. They had come to celebrate service together before the start of the party congress.

But this time the ceremony had a delicate note: Because the greeting was held by the Plenic Kirche in Germany (EKD), prelate Anne Gidion, the sermon from her Catholic counterpart, Prelate Karl Jüsten. Both had published a statement by the two large churches last week, in which they warned Merz against building a tightening migration policy on the votes of the AfD in a vote in the Bundestag.

At the Union, the statement was partially taken into anger. CDU members assumed the churches on social networks a “left-green” drift, some were openly threatened with resignation.

At the CDU party center, there was apparently a further public measure and therefore said media representatives that the service was not public. “The procedure was clarified in advance with the community and was then implemented,” said a spokesman. The host community had the star But in advance that reporting is of course possible.

On site, a official of the CDU then made a new attempt: In a harsh tone, he ordered the reporter of “Deutschlandfunk” and the reporter of the starto refrain any sound recordings of the service and image recordings. This is only permitted to the media at the party headquarters.

The excitement was superfluous. Because both the EKD representative Gidion and Jüsten from the Catholic Church tried for a conciliatory tone. It is a “good custom to celebrate worship before the party parliament,” said Gidion as a greeting: “Especially in the election campaign when it comes high, the nerves are tense”.

She recalled the apostle Paul: This often experienced resistance and struggle with his mission to spread Christianity, what is right and who the opponents are. Such a dispute does not mean alienation.

Gidion sentenced the violence that CDU politicians and employees have been exposed to in the past few days. Among other things, the party headquarters in Berlin had to be evacuated because there were massive threats. Party offices were damaged in other places, politicians received death threats as a result of the migration dispute.

In his sermon, Karl Jüsten called for Christian values ​​and “for the truth”. He was based on a passage in the Lukas Gospel (Lukas 10, Verse 1-11), in which Jesus disciples sent out the country on mission. They would have found themselves in a similar situation as campaigners of today: they don’t know what to expect. For the latter, Jüsten also had a consolation ready: Jesus does not put his disciples under pressure to succeed. He recommends that you simply shake off the dust when rejected and continue.

Jüsten also condemned violence in the recent discussion. “We had to have the bitter experience that election campaigns can be dangerous,” he said. “That is why we judge churches in a sharp manner when party offices are occupied and those working there are frightened and terrified when politicians are threatened with murder on the network when the political opponent is reduced and degraded.”

The confrontation between the churches and the CDU highlights a long -lasting process of alienation. For a long time, the connection with faith and church was not questioned under conservatives, which Christian-social social always emphasizes as one of the three roots of Christian democracy-alongside the liberal and the conservative element.

However, criticism grew in recent years, especially towards the Evangelical Church, which was accused of being too strong for the left-green milieu. The CDU’s domestic historian, Andreas Rödder, even suggested thinking about the “C” in the party name in a report on the processing of the errors in the 2021 Bundestag election. A request that was indignantly rejected from the party.

The statement of the churches last week also outraged many in the CDU because it was understood as an unbreakable interference in the election campaign. “The time of the publication of the statement was extremely unfavorable, since in the middle of the hot phase of an election campaign,” said Thomas Rachel, CDU parliamentarian and chairman of the Evangelical Working Group of the CDU and CSU star. The real task of the church is to “promote conversation in society and cohesion in controversial debate facilities, even in controversial debate facilities,” said Rachel. But he is also convinced: “The relationship between the CDU/CSU and the churches is so intense that it can withstand controversial situations.”

The churches agree in the rejection of the AfD. In the past, they have made this clear in statements. The German Bishops’ Conference published an explanation on the topic entitled “Völkischer Nationalism and Christianity are incompatible last February”. It emphasizes that the AfD cannot be selected for Christians.

The service before the party congress is likely to have contributed to smoothing the waves between the CDU and the churches again. In the end, Prelate Jüsten explicitly turned to party leader Friedrich Merz. He trusts that he complies with his promise. What was meant was the multiple statement by the party leader, in which he categorically excluded cooperation with the AfD. “Then they also have us at their side,” said Jüsten. Then he thanked the CDU to stand up against racism, anti -Semitism and xenophobia.

Friedrich Merz was also conciliatory. Later at the party congress, he expressly thanked both Gidion and Jüsten for the design of worship: “It was a good start to the day.”