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Articles > Status
Ecclesiae Oct./05: Jesus “Über Alles”: Has
Germany finally found redemption from its past?
Status Ecclesiae
October, 2005
Jesus “Über Alles”:
Has Germany finally found redemption
from its past?
- by John Mallon, Contributing Editor, Inside the Vatican
"We are all well aware of the evil that emerged
from our homeland during the Twentieth Century, and we acknowledge
it with shame and suffering. During these days, thanks be
to God, it has become quite evident that there was and is
another Germany, a land of singular human, cultural and spiritual
resources. I hope and pray that these resources, thanks, not
least, to the events of recent days, may once more spread
throughout the world! Now young people from all over the world
can return home enriched by their contacts and their experiences
of dialogue and fellowship in the different regions of our
homeland. I am certain that their stay, marked by their youthful
enthusiasm, will remain as a pleasant memory with the people
who have offered them such generous hospitality, and that
it will also be a sign of hope for Germany. Indeed one can
say that during these days Germany has been the centre of
the Catholic world."
—Pope Benedict XVI,
August 21, 2005, World
Youth Day Farewell Ceremony, Köln/Bonn
International Airport
A friend told me that when it became clear
in the conclave that Cardinal Ratzinger was the next Pope,
Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne wept. He is reported to
have said that this election finally meant the end of the
Second World War. A priest who was present at Pope Benedict
XVI’s visit to the synagogue in Cologne during World
Youth Day reported on EWTN that he was sitting next to an
elderly Jewish woman, a Holocaust survivor, who was weeping.
He asked if she was all right and she said, “Yes. This
means for me that the Second World War is finally over.”
In my limited world travels I have visited Germany perhaps
more than any other country. I love to visit Germany, and
during my visits there I have always experienced two distinct
sensations. As for the first, I simply gloried in the way
Catholicism permeated the culture.
You could feel it, Catholicism was in the very soil and the
air you breathed. As an American, this was very strong to
me, as the United States is a predominantly Protestant country
with a tradition of separation of Church and state. But Germany,
like most of Europe, was formed in the cradle of Catholicism,
and it is beautiful.
In any store you could find red grablichts, or grave
candles with St. Therese of Lisieux’s picture on them
to place on the graves of loved ones, and each grave had a
small vessel or indent in the rock with a lid for Holy Water
and a little brush for sprinkling (and they were not empty).
Each farmer’s field had a crucifix in one corner with
the dates on it to bless the field.
I loved how each town and village had a very beautiful church
in the center of it. The Autobahn had small chapels (Autobahnkapelle)
along the roadside in case you wanted to stop for a visit
on the road. Public buildings had crucifixes on the walls.
In Catholic southern Germany, at least, they celebrate Catholic
customs unknown or forgotten elsewhere, like my favorite,
the blessing of wine (Johanniswein) at the end of
Mass on Johannestag, December 27, the Feast of St. John. Epiphany
is not moved to the nearest Sunday and forgotten, but is a
real feast with ceremonies where chalk is blessed to inscribe
a blessing over the entrances to the home, and where children
dressed as the Magi (Sternsingen) go door to door
to sing and collect money for the poor.
And I will never forget the huge stainless steel beer brewing
vat at the Abbey at Weltenburg on the Danube with a gigantic
crest reading, “Ad Jesum per Mariam” on the side
of it. What a country!
The other sensation I felt in Germany was not so joyous.
I felt a heaviness, a gloom in the air, like a pall, as if
this was a country under a cloud of sadness, a sense of shame.
Yes, the shadow of the Holocaust hangs in the air and on the
faces of many Germans.
My last trip to Germany was much too long ago in 2000. I
attended a three-week seminar in the beautiful ancient Catholic
university town of Eichstätt, led by Dr. John Haas of
the International Institute of Culture (http://www.iiculture.
org). (The same trip that took me to the monastic brewery
in Weltenburg.)
I was attending the Eichstätt Altstadtfest (old town
festival) with fabulous food and beer served by girls who
looked like they just stepped off a St. Pauli Girl bottle.
In the midst of the celebration I met Oskar, 18, who opened
up to me at the end of the festival. He said, “I’m
proud to be a Bavarian but ashamed of being German.”
I asked why. He said, “Because of things my country
did, the things people in my family did.” I sensed he
was near tears. I told him he wasn’t responsible for
that, but if he felt so strongly perhaps he could dedicate
his young life to making “never again” a reality,
with God’s help, by joining the worldwide pro-life movement.
It is very poignant that such a young man, born 40 years
after the fact, should carry this burden. Could it not be
a time for a healing of memories? Redemption? We must never
forget the Holocaust, but the wound of the Second World War
must be healed for the world and Germany to go on. Much has
been said about the German Pope making his first foreign visit
to Germany, by the design of Providence, an arrangement Benedict
himself said he wouldn’t have dared ask of God.
But God delights in giving that for which we wouldn’t
dare ask. Furthermore, the German Pope’s first visit
abroad — home — was also to the youth of his country,
and the youth of the world.
Could it be anything other than God’s Providence that
closed the 20th century and opened the 21st with two Popes
who were formed under the two most oppressive ideologies of
the 20th Century, Nazism and Communism? The horrors of the
Second World War dragged on for those in the Eastern Bloc
under Communism and John Paul II played a key role in shutting
Communism down, with a reunited Germany one of the first signs
and first fruits of that collapse.
Germany has endured the shame and guilt of two world wars,
the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust, being split in two
with one half under Communist oppression, and decades of suspicion,
bad jokes and ridicule.
Now we begin a new century — a new millennium —
with a German Pope on his first pastoral visit, significantly,
to the world’s youth — our future — in Germany.
I hope Oskar was there.
John Mallon is a Contributing Editor to Inside the Vatican
magazine. He also has regular columns on the websites Catholic.Org
and TheFactIs.Org.
An archive of Mr. Mallon's work also appears here: http://www.petersvoice.com/mallon/index.html.
You can reach Mr. Mallon at
johnmallon@insidethevatican.com.
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