Local court Rosenheim - After sex in church: woman accepts penalty order
After having sex in a church in Upper Bavaria, a woman has accepted the penalty order against her. The trial scheduled for the beginning of February 2024 will therefore not take place, as the Rosenheim district court announced. The "Süddeutsche Zeitung" had previously reported.
"The defendant has now withdrawn her appeal against the penalty order. The penalty order has therefore become legally binding and the woman has been sentenced as stipulated in the penalty order," the court announced. The amount of the sentence was not disclosed because summary penalty order proceedings are generally not public.
The man who was also involved in the incident in the Catholic church in Schechen has to answer to the Traunstein District Court because he is also charged with other serious criminal offenses.
The Rosenheim-born man, who according to the court did not comment on the numerous accusations against him at the start of the trial, is accused, among other things, of disturbing the practice of religion. According to the indictment, he committed "insulting mischief" in a "place dedicated to the worship of a religious community". He is also charged with assault, deprivation of liberty, threats and fraud.
The altar in the church will probably be blessed again after the act. According to the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, such a rite involves covering the altar and re-blessing it with incense and holy water. "Such a desecration is to be remedied by a penitential rite in accordance with the liturgical books, particularly with regard to the religious feelings of the faithful," said the diocese spokesperson.
It is very rare that an altar has to be blessed again after a so-called desecration, as a survey by the German Press Agency among the Catholic dioceses in Bavaria revealed. In the diocese of Augsburg, this has happened four times in recent years, according to a spokesperson. None of the other dioceses reported any known cases.
The penitential rite performed by the diocesan bishop involves sprinkling the altar, the faithful and the church walls with holy water - as an external sign of purification, the Augsburg diocese said.
In the diocese of Augsburg, for example, this was the case in Vöhringen and Bellenberg in the Neu-Ulm deanery in 2017. There, the church rooms, including the altar and statues, were extensively smeared - including with anti-Christian slogans. Another case reportedly took place in Gersthofen in 2018. Consecrated wafers were stolen and scattered.
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- The incident of criminality in a Catholic church in Bavaria led to a penalty order against a woman, which she has now accepted, avoiding a trial scheduled for 2024 in the local court of Rosenheim, as reported by SZ.
- The man involved in the same incident in Traunstein faces charges for other serious criminal offenses in a separate trial at the Traunstein District Court.
- The church in Schechen, where the incident occurred, will probably undergo a blessing ritual after the act, as per the Penitential Rite guidelines of the Catholic Church in Germany.
- The Catholic Church in Germany, specifically in Bavaria, rarely requires such a blessing ritual following desecration incidents, as revealed in a survey by the German Press Agency.
- The penalty order against the woman, although not public due to summary proceedings, has legally binding consequences, resulting in a sentence as stipulated in the order.
- The woman's acceptance of the penalty order and the man's ongoing trial raise questions about the intersection of criminality, religion, and cultural norms in contemporary German society.
Source: www.stern.de
