Sorry to hear this news:
Bishop Margot Kässmann, the popular head of Germany’s Lutheran church, resigned yesterday afternoon after being stopped for drunk driving on Saturday night.
The 51-year-old divorced mother of four said she had “damaged” her office and had let down the 25 million German Protestants she represented.
“I would not have enjoyed the same freedom to address the ethical and political challenges of our time as I have done,” she said at a press conference.
“An adviser told me to stick to what my heart advised and my heart tells me I cannot remain in office with the necessary authority.”
Bishop Kässmann was only in office for 5 months, but I thought she was doing a terrific job, breathing new life into the moribund Protestant Church in Germany. Of course, she was hated on the right. She's a woman, after all. Worse, she's divorced. And she dared to mix it up Baron von und zu Guttenberg on Germany's mission in Afghanistan. But guess what? The New Testament is pretty clear about the evils of war and "just war theory", as Bishop Kässmann pointed out, is not in any sense grounded in Scripture. She has the courage of her convictions and has been excoriated by the German media for this. The commenters on the site of the neo-fascist Junge Freiheit are jubilant at the news of Kässmann's resignation:
Sie sollte viele viele Kinder adoptieren, um ihrer gottgegebenen Rolle endlich gerecht zu werden.. (Kässmann should adopt many, many children in order to fulfill her god-given roll Note: she has four daughters. )
Käßmann hat Deutschland Schaden zugefügt. (Kässmann has damaged Germany)
Was war denn an Käßmann christlich? Ihre Menschverachtung, die sich in ihren Positionen zur Abtreibung ... ausdrückt? (What was "Christian" about Kässman? Her contempt for humanity, as evidence in her position on abortion?)
Margot Kässmann was a huge advocate for ecumenism, but she also didn't hesitate to criticize the Catholic Church for relegating women to second-class status, for the terrible sex abuse scandals involving children and the criminal cover-up by the church, and for the harmful doctrine of priestly celibacy. I have to agree with Der Spiegelfechter that it is the height of hypocrisy that Bishop Kässmann felt compelled to step down for DUI, while Pope Benedict XVI feels no such compulsion to resign the papacy, even though the crimes of the Vatican in covering up thousands of child sex abuse cases are many time worse.
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