A candidate for rector of the Old Catholic parish in Frankfurt...just one

It genuinely saddens me that the Frankfurt parish, which is in a search process for a new rector, has only had one priest apply (see story in Germany on alt-katholisch.de). The deadline has now passed, and the election is therefore more or less a formality (unless of course the parish decides they don't want him, but that's not terribly likely).

Naturally I wish the candidate, Armin Luhmer, currently in Blumberg, blessings and much success with the Frankfurt parish, so I hope I'm not unduly causing offense by complaining about the lack of candidates. That isn't the issue at all, but rather, I'm concerned that this may be a sign of things to come – just one (or none) candidates for a rector position.

At the last synod, there was some discussion at the fringes where concern was shown about the likelihood of a shortage of priests in the near future, but little formal debate and few if any proposals. The thing is, "native" Old Catholic rectors, i.e. those ordained Old Catholic and who became a rector as such, are in the minority, as I'm informed. The bulk of Old Catholic rectors in Germany are those who were Roman Catholic and who changed jurisdictions at some point. There is a seminary, which is part of the University of Bonn and which is integrated into that university's Roman Catholic and Protestant programs, and there is a small number of students there (five or six, I believe). But there is a large wave of priests who will be retiring, opening up all sorts of vacancies that we simply cannot fill, at least not by full-time clergy, and the seminary won't produce enough replacements – compounded by the fact that Roman Catholic priests in Germany are increasingly hard to find anyway, so that supply is also dwindling.

There is one possible stopgap solution, which is non-stipendiary (i.e. volunteer) clergy. The Old Catholics do in fact have a theology distance learning course that qualifies people to become ordained as deacon or priest, but only on a volunteer basis, since under German law, an officially state-sanctioned church must require their rector to have a university-level theology degree and to pass the state exams. We do have a fair number of such volunteer priests and deacons, who could preside at services. But there are some major drawbacks to this.

First, in many people's minds, "priest" is synonymous with "rector", meaning that if there is a priest available, the unspoken expectation is that the priest will run the parish, which is a full-time job at least. Volunteer priests simply would be unable to invest that kind of time.

Second, without a strong and clear leadership in place, the parish government could quickly fall apart as the parish lacks direction. Again, there could be the unstated expectation that any volunteer priest would step into this role, which he or she will just plain not be able to do, neither legally nor practically. Meanwhile the sad truth is that parish vestries, which are also made up of volunteers, are often hard to motivate to invest enough time to govern and manage the parish, and again that requires leadership – and the rector is the logical person to do it. Without a strong rector, the vestry can quickly lose direction or motivation.

Third, having a priest available can make it too easy to just sit back and not bother getting a rector. A kind of "what, me worry" sets in, and people become too comfortable with the band-aid solution, rather than trying to get back to the original healthier state before. It wouldn't take long for the supply of stipendiary priests for rector positions to dwindle under such circumstances.

Thus while this "solution" would solve problems short-term, in the long run it would weaken the church further. Somehow, we need to motivate more young people to study theology and to become rectors. The problem is that there seems to be a cultural reluctance to encourage this at all, for fear of offending or stepping on toes. But I think it is better to openly state the problem and to ask people to step up and help out, either by choosing to enter discernment or to pray for those who do and include such prayers in Eucharist services, not just to ask God's help, but to remind people that the issue still exists.

Sad to say, I have often thought I would like to try to enter the seminary, but at my age it is unlikely I could expect to be placed as a rector. By the time I would graduate I'd be pushing 50. But surely there are others contemplating the idea who are better positioned than I, and who could use a few extra nudges from their fellow Christians to try to follow that path.

We will, with God's help. Kyrie eleison...

The blessing of bells for our new church

After struggling for years after its founding in 1955 and drifting from church to church as guests, our Old Catholic parish in Hannover finally fulfilled the dream of having our own church, which was consecrated by Bishop Matthias Ring in September. The diocese came together to help finance the construction, which all told cost around €1 million, which all came from the parish itself, the diocese, the Bonn parish, and numerous donations from individuals.

However, the church is still lacking some things that were planned, in particular bells. If you look at pictures of the church, you can see the bell tower on one side of the roof, between the church and parish hall, but it is as of now still empty.

As a sign of the warm ecumenical relations we have with the other parishes in the area, the next-door EKD Lutheran Parish of St. James (Jakobikirche) donated one of their bells for us to install, which as it happens is g´´. We then ordered a second bell, which is e´´ and thus goes well with the smaller, older bell, and it was cast in a small ceremony. The bell will then come to join its older sister, and both will be consecrated Bishop Matthias in the name of our patron, Maria Angélique, on November 18. I'm happy to say that it was entirely financed by donations, to the tune of €12,000 -- something which I never dreamed would be possible just five years ago. But it is a further sign of how our parish is really flowering in recent years, by the grace of God and the hard work of our members, in spite of the general decline of churches in Germany and Europe as a whole.

The bells will be installed in early December this year and will be heard for the first time, fittingly enough, during the Christmas midnight mass, where we will no doubt sing "Ding! Dong! merrily on high" or something similar. (Hey, I always loved the Gloria in that hymn...one of my favorite carols.)

Ordination of deacons in Koblenz, and the future of the north

Hat tip to Walter Jungbauer for the link to the photos.
Update Yet more pictures are available from Heike Kiefel. Many thanks!

On 3 October 2011, day before yesterday, three deacons were ordained by Bishop Matthias Ring in Koblenz. (I had hoped to go myself, but because of my day job and a critical deadline Tuesday, I decided against it.) One of them, Jörn Clemens, will be our full-time deacon in Hannover, which will be very welcome for our rector, Oliver Kaiser, who was under immense strain and pressure during the whole project of building the church.

Stefan Neuhaus-Kiefel, a priest and vicar in our diocese, took lovely photos which you can see on his photo album page. Additionally, Heike Kiefel also posted pictures from the service. Many thanks to both!

Not only was the planning of the church and managing its construction a Herculean task, but the position of rector of the Hannover-Lower Saxony parish was already taxing enough. Our parish has by far the largest territory of any in the diocese, essentially the entire state of Lower Saxony, and also by far the most members, around 1600 scattered around the state, with clusters in Hannover, Osnabrück, Braunschweig and East Frisia. By way of comparison, the average parish in our diocese has around 300-400 members and usually is only a few Landkreise (roughly the German equivalent to a county in the US) at most. The parishes in Nordstrand (an island in the North Sea close to Denmark) and Berlin also have similar problems, but are smaller in membership -- though it has to be said that Nordstrand's rector has to drive even farther, since his parish is responsible for mentoring the Hamburg parish, which has no rector of its own, and the small number of Old Catholics in Bremen.

Thus the situation in the northern part of Germany is particularly problematic for anyone to manage -- just plain too much area for one person to cover, in both cases of Hannover and Nordstrand. Until recently, the parishes in the north (Hannover, Nordstrand, Hamburg) were not even in their own deanery, but rather were directly under the bishop, with the vicar general (roughly the Old Catholic equivalent to an Anglican archdeacon) acting as dean.

The good news is that this is finally changing. Some months ago, right after he was ordained and took office, Bishop Matthias initiated a project that had been proposed by the rectors and vestries in the north. This project envisions a dramatic reconstruction of the parishes and their pastoral care. First and foremost, these parishes are now in the Deanery North (Dekanat Nord), and our rector was promptly elected dean. Second, the cluster in Osnabrück will be split off and made into its own parish, although the pastoral care will still be in the hands of the Hannover rector. Third, the so-called Speckgürtel (literally "bacon belt") of Lower Saxon counties adjoining Hamburg will be split from our parish and attached to Hamburg's, and eventually Hamburg will have its own full-time priest, thus relieving Nordstrand of the considerable strain of caring for Hamburg and Bremen.

Another bit of good news that is coincidental, but further helps this project, is that we have a new priest (albeit non-stipendiary) who lives in Osnabrück and who serves as a part-time priest there, saving our rector the effort of driving to Osnabrück every Sunday evening to conduct the services there (a good two-hour trip each way, roughly 160 km).

And now that we have a full-time transitional deacon, who will be ordained as a priest and become our vicar, the load on all the clergy in the north ought to dramatically lessen. Which is good, because frankly the load on the priests in Hannover and Nordstrand was downright inhuman. So I'm particularly happy that Bishop Matthias supported this project so well, and am also happy for our priest, who can now spend much-needed and much-deserved time for himself and his family.

So where to from here?

I'm hopeful that this new plan will also have a positive effect on mission work. "Mission" is a bit of a dirty word 'round these parts, but let's face it, membership in all churches here is in free-fall. It is not at all unusual to hear parts of Germany being described as "post-Christian". Many people have turned their backs to the church -- or rather all churches -- not least because of pedophilia scandals and maladroit handling of them. The deeper reason, though, is because the churches have singularly failed to stay relevant to people's daily lives and to actively reach out and spread the Gospel, rather than just sit and wait for people to walk in. The contrast with the US is striking. There, it is still common to attend church every Sunday; that is almost unheard of here, and saying that you do generally raises eyebrows.

In the US, the building of a new church would attract some mild attention, but not much, since it just isn't that unusual. In fact it seems like Americans are constantly building and re-building churches. But here, the fact that a parish is actually building a new church, in a climate where dozens of churches are being closed down and shuttered, was something of a sensation.

We got a lot of free press for it, and indeed attendance at the church's consecration was immense -- in the ballpark of 300 people. Our attendance has also noticeably gone up. Whereas our average Sunday attendance was around 17 or 18 people each Sunday, since we began using the new church at Easter Vigil in 2010, my rough estimate is that the average is now around 25 or even 30. In fact, what amuses me a little is that whenever I think our group is rather small, I count the people attending -- and invariably it's the old average, and rarely below it.

So we have lots of opportunities, and I think the hand and glory of God is clearly recognizable in all of this. We now have a great chance to stem the tide of the collapse of the church in Germany, maybe even to turn the tide, at least in our area. And we have the chance to revitalize ourselves after the strain of building our church, to reconnect with who we are and to carry the Gospel into our neighborhood. And that is all worth celebrating indeed.

Glory be to God on high, and on Earth, peace, goodwill towards men.