If a pastor is desperate in the face of Church scandals in the work, this is not an isolated case. Thomas Frings has remained, in spite of a crisis of a priest. And it urges for new forms of pastoral care.
Pastor Thomas Frings 2016 in front of the Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche in Münster
The abuse scandal rocked the Christian Church. Debates about celibacy and the greater involvement of lay people employed in Germany, many Catholic women and Catholics. The Church is in transition. It is understandable that many a pastor in this scenario is his work in question.
The priest, Thomas Frings is one of those who doubt. He gave up his work as a pastor. “I was always either the last or second-to-last in a Church, I could always turn off the light. The Church continued to exist, but the parish stopped,” he says of the DW.
At some point he no longer wanted to be the last priest, not a priest. “And I invest, of course, as a priest, as a priest always a lot of commitment in the Form of a Church. I didn’t want to at some point. I don’t want to be the whole life long always last or second to last.” Frings had not fallen in love with a woman or a man, and against the celibacy violated. No, he wanted to remain a priest, desperate, but to the structure, with priests as individual parishes fighters to maintain in the style of past times.
Of, Amen, The End?
For Catholics, a big Name is Frings. The priest is a great-nephew of the Archbishop of Cologne, cardinal Joseph Frings (1887-1978), one of the most important German bishops of the 20th century. Century. Since 2009, he headed the Holy cross Church in Münster. In the spring of 2016, he withdrew from the community. He was by the Bishop of Munster, without financial remuneration, leave of absence and spent a year in a small monastery in the Netherlands.
At least, as the number remains stable: the Catholic German bishops
His decision made in the municipality of Trouble, and in Germany caused a stir. “Amen, The End? So I can’t be a pastor” was the title of a book in which he described his motives. After 32 years as a priest.
Thomas Frings is an important aspect of the Church crisis in Germany. Namely, for the doubts of those who are quite devout and happy priests. And on the matters currently. The bishops have been talking for years, eager of structural reforms, large municipalities, or the so-called pastoral associations. But many clergy see themselves under too much pressure.
Traditionally, Catholic bishops worldwide celebrate on the Morning of the Holy Thursday fair, together with the priests of your diocese. But it will always be less. By the end of 2017, in Germany there were 13.560 Catholic priests, many of them are old and retired. The are so little as never.
Church think otherwise
A trend reversal is not in sight. On The Contrary. In 2017, 74 men were ordained a priest, in all the German dioceses, with more than 10,000 parishes. In the past year, the number dropped to around 60 ordained priests. For comparison: in 1995, 186 men had been ordained a priest.
“The Church, as it is with us, too attached to the priest’s function,” says Frings. And if the Church is to host the number of municipalities according to the number of priests, “skin this cat from behind. Meanwhile, we have many Baptized and a few priests. We need to Church to learn to think differently, of the Baptized and of the Ordained.”
Cardinal Josef Frings (1887-1978), here (re.) in addition to the first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, was Archbishop of Cologne
Exhaustion, Disposal
The 59-year-old Frings is not an isolated case, you only have to look on the Internet portal of the Church newspaper of the diocese of Münster. A Text bears the title “anger, frustration and exhaustion among the pastors in the diocese of Münster”. A contribution equal to including reports of a tried-and-tested priest who asks the Bishop to Disposal and, at 53, a time-out is aiming for. Something like this is nowadays not unusual in the Catholic Church in Germany.
Thomas Frings has left the diocese of Münster. He speaks openly of how a few Catholic priests about his Faith and his doubts. “God does not work. That’s why I believe in him”, is the title of his new book (2019). It is a Faith beyond denominational boundaries.
Broadcast and search
Since a few weeks, Frings works as a Priest in Cologne. He is a priest in the new Form is in the Cathedral city – “broadcast space of Cologne-city centre”. A merger with 38,000 Catholics, and 26 churches, with many social facilities and new experiments of spiritual offerings. “It is clear that the territorial principle is not valid as well, but it is a search,” says Frings. But here will consider in a great Team together, how the Church could look like in the future. Frings wants to be with the other pastoral staff, in the centre of Cologne, priests, laity, to religious, to proclaim the gospel and with the people, “not only with Catholics but also with other seeking people. We don’t know yet whether that will be successful. We’re looking for.”
Break in the shadow of the Cathedral. Thomas Frings is now working in the Cologne Südstadt
Actually, that sounds like a riser, according to Venture. Frings tried a visual comparison to illustrate his state of mind: “We are looking for an irrigation system for a specific area. The difficulty is that We do that in a Situation of the Church in which the groundwater level is due to the scandal that we are witnessing, once again, abruptly subsided.” Of “severe conditions” he speaks. It fits to the Situation of the Church in Germany in 2019.