Church
First this: "I'd call it war subvention."
Last week the German Bishops' Conference made a confession of guilt - 75 years after the end of the war. Its predecessors had been entangled in the national zeitgeist. Peter Bürger, editor of sermons from the Nazi era, says: "The Church leadership supported the war ideology".
The German Curia Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, together with other conservative clergy and intellectuals, is a signatory of a "Call for the Church and for the World", which questions the contagiousness of Covid-19. They see a conspiracy of secret forces, which aimed at the "creation of a world government". There is no evidence for the theses in the document. Müller was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican until 2017.
The appeal was signed by twelve cardinals, bishops and auxiliary bishops as well as several dozen international journalists, doctors, lawyers and organizations - among them the former Vatican diplomat Carlo Maria Vigano, who was reprimanded by the Vatican, and the auxiliary bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg. First on the list was also Cardinal Robert Sarah, acting prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship in the Vatican. Since this morning his name has disappeared.
"Unjustified alarmism"
Detail of the list of signatories until 08.05.2020
In the document, the signatories complain that "under the pretext of the Covid 19 epidemic, in many cases inalienable rights of citizens have been violated and their fundamental freedoms have been disproportionately and unjustifiably restricted, including the right to religious freedom". Public health should not become "an alibi for violating the rights of millions of people around the world".
There is also talk of unjustified "alarmism on the part of the media" and of "interference by foreign powers". In the absence of more detailed information or evidence, the signatories warn Catholics against, in view of the Corona crisis, "being treated with vaccines that use material from aborted foetuses".
"Fight against an invisible enemy"
The document strongly emphasizes the full autonomy of the Church from state authorities in matters of religious practice. "This autonomy and freedom of the Church is a fundamental right given to her by the Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore, the state has no right to "interfere with the sovereignty of the Church for any reason whatsoever" - for example, by prohibiting or restricting public worship and pastoral care: "God's rights and those of his faithful are the supreme law of the Church.
The undersigned call for a "fight against an invisible enemy": "We will not allow centuries of Christian civilization to be wiped out under the pretext of a virus to justify a hateful, technocratic tyranny."