By Mario Kaiser, Ansbert Kneip and Alexander Smoltczyk
The church has very little following in eastern Germany. But even in the German parliament the pope's supporters are few and far between. He can only really count on two members from small constituencies to vote in line with Catholic dogma. Unlike in Italy and in Poland, no German political parties follow the Vatican line in their decision-making process.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder never mentions God and believes that religion is a private matter which is not important to politics and should never be brought into an election campaign. When his cabinet was sworn in, five of the ministers opted for the version which didn't include the Christian phrase "so help me God."
The German parliament has always generally agreed that religion should be kept at home and out of the workplace. The rather sober federal republic prefers to use special "commissions on ethics" rather than call on members to out their belief systems. That's why the debate over pre-implantation genetic diagnosis in 2002 was less heated than it could have been.
In today's world, the reality is that most religions are put into perspective by other religions, neutralized by the state and demystified by science. That is the legacy of the Enlightenment.
But that may be changing. Even in the German parliament, there are signs of a shift.
Change is in the air
The taboo on religion is being whittled away by the success of George W. Bush's last election campaign, which concentrated on values, and of course by Rome's religious upswing. Even Angela Merkel, the opposition candidate for German elections, joined the mass pilgrimage to St. Peter's Square after the death of John Paul II. She saw how hundreds of thousands of pope followers waited in line for 11, 12 or 13 hours to say goodbye to the pope. And it appears that she returned from Rome rather taken with Catholicism.
"She talked about the pope's burial at every party leadership meeting," says Philipp Missfelder, the leader of the Young Conservatives. "She was completely electrified by the experience." As the daughter of an East German vicar Merkel has always been in a position to interpret biblical references to her advantage. But Merkel's party colleagues don't harbor any illusions. Although they say that the CDU leader has Christian beliefs, one steering committee member admits that "she hasn't really got any serious connection to religion."
But now it does actually seem feasible to run an election campaign on values, rather than just on facts and figures. "There is change in the air," says Missfelder, himself a Catholic from North Rhine-Westphalia. He cites Christian salons in Berlin which are proving to be hugely popular as proof. And more and more members of parliament have started coming to the non-denominational "prayer breakfast."
At it, he insists Green Party members can often be seen standing next to conservatives who are next to Social Democrats. According to Green Party chair Katrin Göring-Eckardt, "Believing in God means knowing that HE is all powerful and that his ways are often unfathomable, but that at the same time I have personal responsibility for my own actions."
The Catholic "theo-cons" make up the "Cardinal Höffner Group" and celebrated Ratzinger's election as an "enormous chance for our country."
The members of this circle are trying to figure out if faith can used in politics. They don't believe that the separation of church and state should be lifted, but they do think it should be loosened slightly in certain political arenas. They don't, for instance, believe that German federal laws should be approved by the Vatican. But they do ask why personal belief systems can't play a role when it comes to sending troops into war, family policy, divorce or even homosexuality.
In future debates, the divisions between the parties may become less clear. "On the question of stem cell research, we have more in common with the Greens than with the liberal FDP party," says Missfelder.
He also says that the theo-cons still don't have a figurehead. "But people are coming together." Bush has shown how to win an election campaign on values and not just statistics. "You don't win people over by talking about pension reform," he says. "They want clear family-centered beliefs. People applaud when I openly stand by my Catholic faith at meetings."
But are believers any different to non-believers?
But what do the many "Germans" who don't have faith believe in? What value systems are close to their hearts and what ideals do they want to follow? And are these value systems any different from religious concepts? Or is it just not important any more who believes in God and who doesn't?
According to an Infratest poll commissioned by SPIEGEL, 72 percent of believers think it is "particularly important" to have children, compared to 46 percent of non-believers. Additionally, 83 percent of the religious believe that "having a good relationship" is very important. In the case of non-believers, this figure is nine percent lower. Key words such as "home" and "having a cozy environment" appear to be much more important to believers than non-believers: 71 percent of religious people view coziness as important, compared to 47 percent of non-religious people.
All kinds of words and phrases, from "responsibility to the next generation" and "honesty" to "environmental awareness," have a much higher resonance with people of faith than with those who have no faith. In other words, someone who believes in God really does have a different set of values compared to someone who doesn't believe in God.
Non-believers are on average more modern, put more stock in technological advancement and are more emancipated. More non-believers (81 percent) than believers (69 percent) think that a good relationship should take into account a woman's desire for a career. Non-believers also find self-fulfillment more important and agree more often with the statement "I want to enjoy my life." And for them marriage is no longer sacrosanct.
Those who don't believe in God are often more skeptical than Christians in other areas as well. Atheists generally have less faith in the state, in the police force and in the social support system -- all organizations that facilitate living together.
But things change when you ask atheists for phrases which in the widest sense of the word stand for the world of work and commerce. If they believe in anything, it is in themselves, the unions, the power of banks, as well as in the big discount supermarket Aldi. They don't need religious symbols and community, or at least they don't need a faith to achieve them. Today, the need for the sort of spiritual celebration religion often gives can be met without ever entering a church. People sing more ardently at a football game than at a religious mass, and anyone who buys a Volkswagen and picks it up themselves in the company's home town of Wolfsburg, is handed the key with all the significance of a biblical act of creation.
Faith in cash
According to the Berlin-based media expert Norbert Bolz, every society needs a "value system which gives answers, something traditionally known as religion." In today's society it may be capitalism and material consumption which provides people with answers and satisfaction -- even if only on this side of the grave.
Even at the beginning of the last century, the cultural philosopher Walter Benjamin refers to the manufacture of bank notes as creating holy images and writes about "capitalism as religion." And it certainly is true that various gods were depicted on early bank notes in an attempt to garner blessings and trust: Fortuna with a horn of plenty can be found on a 50 guild note of the South German Badische Bank from 1871, on a South African five pound note as well as on a 100,000 crown note from the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Faith in a currency can have almost religious characteristics. People expect the currency to heal all their woes, such as was the case in 1990 when the citizens of communist East Germany received the West German Deutschmark. And belief in a currency can also help create a national identity, as was the case with the German currency after the Second World War.
This was a time when many Germans believed in the power of brand names, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Boss, Apple or Rolex, while others set their store by cultural Gods and literary popes. German intellectuals followed the example set by Woody Allen, when he said that culture was his Catholicism.
Christianity gets cultured and culture goes Christian
But recently, even in these circles, it has become more common to own up to a faith. Culture is flirting with the church. There is a new sort of curiosity in all things ancient. The Kammerspiele Theater in Munich attracted lots of visitors with its series of productions dealing with religion, titled "Blessed is he Who Believes."
The German TV comedian and chat-show host Harald Schmidt manages to bring a Ratzinger quote into almost every show. And not as a source of amusement. "I stand by the church," he says. "I have managed to get along with it well for 2,000 years."
The young writer Florian Illies, author of the cult novel Generation Golf, advises the church to try and stop sucking up to people under forty and to stick to its roots. "The Church has a unique selling point: the power of faith. But this power is only clear when it is expressed confidently and bravely -- and when it doesn't constantly hope for acceptance by today's materialistic society." Cardinal Meisner couldn't have put it better himself.
A key moment in the rapprochement between spirituality and society happened on January 19, 2004 when Jürgen Habermas, one of Germany's greatest current intellects, met with the leading dogma theologian, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Munich Catholic Academy. It was a peaceful, even harmonious, dialogue between the heirs of the Frankfurt School on the one side and the holy Inquisition on the other. Twenty years ago such a meeting would have been impossible. Ten years ago, it would have excited little interest.
Habermas praised the significance of religion as a support for "a modernization which is going off the rails" and as one of the main pillars holding up democracy. "The theory that a religious structure with transcendental references is the only thing which can help a contrite modernism out of the dead-end it currently finds itself, is becoming popular again," he explained. He said that it is in the interests of the constitutional state to deal compassionately with all the cultural sources which can be used to feed our citizens' awareness of norms and solidarity."
If people don't want to listen to Jutta Limbach, the former head of the German constitutional court, or the chancellor, or to Habermas, then the church should have a go. "When you know who exactly created a moral, it doesn't have the same unconditional, transcendental meaning," writes the philosopher Rüdiger Safranski. He goes on to say "there is therefore a yearning for moral transcendence because man himself doesn't trust himself to make his way on his own: What I have made up myself can't be as valuable." Hence the will of God.
During this thought-provoking evening with Habermas, Ratzinger did his bit by speaking of the need for "the divine light of reason, which must be seen as a sort of checking mechanism, through which religion must clean and tidy itself."
Pick 'n mix religions
Many of those without religion however don't believe in God, but rather in the power of Tibetan singing bowls, Bach flowers and Osho Active Meditations. Next to the dance school, on Ebertplatz in Cologne, not far from Father Manfred's World Youth Day office, is the holy chapel, "The Cross." A notice is pinned to the door, saying that "holy mass in the Roman Catholic rite of his holiness Pope Pius V" is on offer. This appears to be a filling a gap in the Cologne religious market.
The Buddhist Center has rented the basement of a house a few doors down. Someone carries in boxes from a local vineyard. A photo of two men is pinned to the wall. One of them wears reddish monk's robes. The other is more of the hang-gliding pensioner type. Beneath the picture, a sign reads: "The 17. Karmapa and Ole Nydahl look at a map of our centers in Europe."
The 17. Karmapa is one of the two reincarnations of the head of the Buddhist Kagyu order, Ole Nydahl is Denmark's successful guru and Angelika Eckhardt is "socially and ethically right on," as she puts it.
Angelika Eckhardt was once a practicing Catholic near Lake Constance. She did pilgrimages to Taize and studied economics. Now, at the age of 50, she is a massage therapist. When she hears that 1,000 confessionals are being built for World Youth Day, she is very happy about her decision to leave the church: "I can't stand the way you are supposed to make yourself feel bad, castigate yourself and ask for forgiveness..." For Eckhardt, Buddhism is a way of being spiritual without having to believe. "We have families and sex and go to the cinema. Everything is great. There are no sins. The question is always: What do you take out of it yourself?"
In the center there are no burning incense sticks, statues, sacrificial bowls or prayer bells. In fact, it looks like a market researcher's dream: good-looking people, mid- to late-thirties. A law student, Kurt, an Austrian woman in tight turquoise-colored jeans. No confessional.
Klaus, a 47-year-old care assistant for the elderly, says things about how you should "stop letting others make decisions for you" and that he finds it all very satisfying. He says that his mother is Protestant and his father a humanist and retired court judge. "There is no external truth, no God. There are gods, but what good does that do me? The truth lies in me."
This is how religion should be: sensual and individual. Some quarter of a million people in Germany define themselves as Buddhist. On top of that there are 5,000 followers of Osho, otherwise known as Bhagwan, 5,000 Sikhs as well as countless smaller groups such as the "twelve tribes." In Germany, 3.2 million people are Muslim, 950,000 identify themselves as Hindu and 190,000 are Jewish.
But there is no religion which is as attractive to converts as Buddhism. There are thought to be 300 various branches and schools. In Berlin apprenticeships have just begun being taught at some schools. The "Diamond Way of Buddhism" is more than anything else a way of life.
Achieve eternal happiness ... and all without rules
The demand for it is unlimited. There are some 120 centers. The light version of the religion, which is originally a highly complex faith, even appeals to atheists. Everyone makes their own way on the Buddha's journey to nirvana, the place of eternal happiness. For new converts Buddhism is easy to learn, works well as a consolation, can be used in many different ways and is discrete in its application. There are no world leaders, no pope. It fascinates people, especially those who believe in one thing only: themselves.
Buddhism is a belief replacement for successful people. A religion which helps you experience yourself. It's more of an attitude than a belief system and seems to have absolutely no rules. There is even something quite extravagant about it.
Even traditional churches have been influenced in part by this spirituality. Maybe in the hope that even the wrong track can eventually lead back to the faith.
The programs of the some churches already sound like Californian New Age hand-outs. For example "Patanjali Yoga Sutra" is on offer in the Catholic educational center in Ludwigsburg. Sacred dancing and "deep stomach breathing" ("please bring socks"), "Fast - vomit - rediscover yourself" and for Lent "healing days with dance and meditation" and "introductory course in the Feldenkreis Method," as well as "eight brocade exercises" with Professor Jiao Guorui.
Thirty-eight percent of Germans now say that when a person dies, he is not judged by his maker, but comes back to live another life on earth -- they believe in the Buddhist idea of reincarnation.
The most Catholic place in Germany
The house in Marktl am Inn where Joseph Ratzinger was born. The small Bavarian town has become a Catholic hotspot.
Until recently the only thing special about this place was that it stood at the intersection between two Bavarian hiking trails. Today it is full of religious tourists. Cyclists no longer bypass the village and on weekends the town center is closed off to traffic and a provisional bus parking lot has been set up. People come to see the church where Ratzinger was baptized -- even though it was completely rebuilt in the sixties and only one wing is left over from Ratzinger's time. They also come to see the house in which he was born. Preferably from inside, which is why the owner has taken down the bell and is now selling the building.
It was the shopkeepers who first spotted what was happening: One baker sells "original Vatican bread" and another competes with "papal hats," which are engraved, sugared bread rolls. In the café over the road, for 2.20 euros you can get Benedict Tarts, made of mascarpone cream with a shot of amaretto. "B. XVI." is written in cocoa powder on every piece. Or there is "Ratzinger grilled sausage with blossom petals," pilgrim's sausage, Ratzinger coffee, Ratzinger T-shirts and in the village pub, original papal beer.
A sponsored sign with the logo of a local bank in the corner hangs outside the church with the words "a warm welcome to the church where his holiness Father Benedict XVI was baptized." "It would have cost us €1,000 euros," says Father Josef Kaiser. "The parish just doesn't have that much money."
But should religion be so commercialized? Father Josef Kaiser has heard this criticism before. "You have to be commercial," he says. "We would have been mad not to have taken advantage of it."
The whole Ratzinger craze has at least had some good side effects. "There has never been so much praying in Marktl as there is now," says Kaiser. He could hold three masses a day and they would all be full -- but with strangers. The priest has not really noticed that villagers have become more Catholic in the last few weeks.
Losing your religion
The Papal Hill in Cologne where the pope will say mass.
In this respect, Marktl is not doing any better than the rest of Germany. In 1992 there were still 19,266 Catholic priests. In 2004, this number had shrunk to 326. Becoming a priest is no longer a particularly attractive option. In the whole of Germany, 210 trainee priests were accepted into seminary last year.
It's a bit like the religion in Marktl am Inn. The pope attracts people, but no-one wants to be a priest anymore. Of the 2,700 inhabitants of the town, 2,200 are Catholic. About a quarter of them attend mass on Sunday. At least that is more than the seven percent of Christians who go to church in the large cities. But Father Kaiser has noticed how belief has even dwindled here.
Every Saturday before the evening mass, confession is heard in Marktl. "But no ones comes anymore," complains Kaiser. He is happy when he hears confession four times a year. For example, before a wedding.
"This is the beginning of a new stage of life," is what he tells the couple in discussions before the wedding. "Would you not perhaps want to confess?" The way in which people believe has changed, even in conservative Bavaria. "The old simple piousness doesn't exist anymore," says the priest. "People say, no, not today. And they don't have a bad conscience anymore."
In Germany, the national traditional church has changed to an optional church. Anyone who still belongs has made an active decision to do so. The same goes for anyone who doesn't.
Every 75 seconds, a Christian leaves the church. In 2003, 180,000 Protestants left the church. Only 60,000 joined.
The Catholic Church, is hardly in better shape: in March the German bishops' conference published a sobering set of figures under the title "the Catholic Church in Germany -- Statistical Data 2003." According to the report, the number of Catholics has decreased every year since 1974. The latest figures for 2003 show that around 65,000 more Catholics were buried as were baptized. Far more people leave the church than enter it.
This meant in 2003 there was a "decision to join negative," as they put it in the report, of 117,000. Fewer Catholics were baptized in 2003 than at any time since 1960. There were exactly 205,904 Catholic baptisms in 2003. That's 3.5 percent lower than the previous years and 31 percent lower than in 1990. In other words, Catholics are dying out.
Saved by youth
Father Josef Kaiser stands in his parish church next to the font where Ratzinger was baptized.
The Church's thousand-year-old treasure trove of symbols and pictures is being delved into. Flowers in the shape of stars are on every (wheelchair-accessible) curve on the papal hill, the area is lit by candles (all checked for safety by fire officers) and a transparent roof (resistant to wind speed six) stretches out, looking a bit like a spaceship, under the sky from which HE speaks.
Benedict XVI will hold a Saturday evening vigil here as well as hosting the next morning's final mass. By then, he will have already visited the synagogue in Cologne and taken part in a conference with the Muslim community, Chancellor Schröder and opposition leader Merkel. He will not have kissed the concrete floor of the Cologne airport.
Benedict XVI will look down from the papal hill, with the large depot of Real in his sights, and presumably preach against consumerism, "relativism" and every worldly point of view which throws a doubt on truth.
And below, there will probably be some 800,000 young people, cheering and impressed by the pope, by the Lord and by themselves.
Then he'll be off. Back to Rome. The last World Youth Day visitor will hardly have left the grounds before the signs in Cologne will be swapped. The election campaign, dealing with pension reform, health insurance reform and tax rebates will then kick off. The name Benedict XVI is unlikely to crop up much.
The Germans have irrevocably moved into a post-religious world. They would like to believe. They suspect that it might help and therefore they respect anyone who is able to believe. But they themselves, for the most part, can't do it anymore. They read Peter Hahne, because Ratzinger is too hard for them. They still say "the pope is right, that's how it should be." But if a politician starts seriously talking about God, they roll their eyes and change the channel.
The pilgrimage paths on Our Lady's field will be deconstructed in an environmentally sound fashion. The components are biodegradable. Only the 3,000 chalices made by ThyssenKrupp pose a slight problem. They have been built to last an eternity and cannot be recycled. And very soon there will no use for them in this country. Only the papal hill will remain. It will be a reminder of an unreal event. Something which is almost impossible to believe.
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