A sad episode has just highlighted the increasingly evident loss of faith among German ecclesiastical dignitaries. Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the Bishops’ Conference, supported the German abortion law in order to defend a candidate for the Constitutional Court who was rejected, in particular because of her radical support for abortion.
A lawyer, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, from the SDP (Social Democratic Party) known for her support for abortion, was a candidate for the Constitutional Court, but she was attacked by clergy, the Federal Association for Assisted Living, and several judges or former judges of the Constitutional Court, and her candidacy was ultimately annulled.
It must be said that Ms. Brosius-Gersdorf supports positions that are, to say the least, divisive. She supports a ban on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, accused of being “far-right,” which received more than 20% of the vote in the last elections. She supported mandatory vaccination during the pandemic.
As for abortion, she would like women to be able to have an abortion after the legally required 22 weeks of pregnancy, without being convicted. She stated: “In my opinion, there are good reasons why the guarantee of human dignity only applies from birth,” and rejects the Federal Constitutional Court’s case law, which allows it from conception.
She even wrote in an academic publication in 2024 that “the assumption that human dignity exists where there is human life is a biological and naturalistic error.” Finally, she argued that human dignity and the protection of life are “legally distinct concepts.”
The announcement of her candidacy sparked a strong reaction from bishops such as Msgr. Rudolf Voderholzer, Bishop of Regensburg, Msgr. Stefan Oster, Bishop of Passau, and, initially, Msgr. Herwig Gössl, Archbishop of Bamberg. The latter, however, later retracted his statement, claiming to have been “misinformed” after speaking with the jurist herself.
Bishop Georg Bätzing, Bishop of the Diocese of Limburg, President of the German Bishops’ Conference, and initiator of the German Synodal Path, recently defended Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf. In an interview with Augsburger Allgemeine, he deplored the “harm” caused to the candidate by the controversy and refused to join the criticism of other prelates.
But he went further, defending the abortion law — which decriminalizes it under certain conditions — calling it an “intelligent balance” between the rights of the mother and the protection of unborn life. He also criticized the AfD, accusing it of exploiting the debate for ethno-nationalist interests. “I don’t want to give the AfD a platform or contribute to division,” he declared.
Bishop Bätzing insisted that Brosius-Gersdorf’s appointment as a constitutional judge was “a personal matter that must be resolved politically” and described the resulting confrontation as a cultural war. “We don’t need this cultural war. Too many people are profiting from it,” he added.
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