Church - War and peace theme of the Christmas services
Appeals for peace and calls to overcome violence have dominated this year's Christmas sermons. "Violence and war cannot create lasting peace," said Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx in the speech manuscript for his Christmas sermon on Christmas Eve in Munich's Liebfrauendom, which was distributed in advance.
Despite the necessary right to self-defense, it must also be clear that peace can only be found by overcoming violence, said the Archbishop of Munich and Freising. This in turn requires a willingness to find a just balance, a just peace, a new, perhaps even reconciled coexistence. This applies everywhere - "more weapons will not bring us closer to peace", said Marx.
Marx went on to say that many doubted whether those responsible in politics were in a position to solve the major challenges in the world - war and peace, climate change, migration movements, polarization in societies. However, he warned against following overly simple answers or apportioning blame - even if the temptation is great in such a situation.
Protestant Bishop Christian Kopp focused on the situation in Israel and Gaza on Christmas Day. "Peace cannot be taken for granted. The whole world has had to painfully experience this over the last two years. We knew it, but now it has come so close to us again," said Kopp on Monday in his sermon at St. Matthew's Church in Munich, according to the speech transcript.
"The suffering of the people in Israel cries out to heaven. The suffering of the people in Gaza - we cry out to God," Kopp continued. The world in the land of Jesus has come apart at the seams this year. The world in the Holy Land has long been out of joint. "We need sensible regulations for coexistence. Both sides will probably have to learn to live together in two states."
Bishop Franz Jung of Würzburg also urged people to live in peace in view of the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. At Christmas, "former mortal enemies live peacefully together without fearing for their lives", according to Jung's manuscript for his sermon on Christmas Day in Würzburg's St. Kilian's Cathedral. We must "take this possibility seriously in our lives. There is still a lot of room for improvement". Too often people live in categories of competition and enmity and are dominated by envy and jealousy.
In Augsburg Cathedral, Bishop Bertram Meier referred to St. Francis. According to Meier, the saint began where Jesus began: With the poor, the sick and the weak. "Francis follows in the footsteps of Jesus. In doing so, he is blazing the trail for us," said Meier in his sermon.
The Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Bamberg, Herwig Gössl, recalled not only the victims of violence, war and terror, but also those affected by sexualized violence. These people "remain silent because they repress what has happened, out of shame and despair", said Gössl. With his silence, God stands by those who are silenced.
Press page ELKB
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Source: www.stern.de
