Benedict urges Germans: ethics before power

Pope Benedict XVI addressed Germany’s parliament in the historic Reichstag building yesterday, warning that politicians must not sacrifice ethics for power and evoking the Nazi excesses of his homeland as a lesson in history.

Amid scattered protests outside and a boycott by some MPs, Benedict began his first official state visit to Germany in a bid to stem the tide of Catholics leaving the church – 181,000 in the past year – while acknowledging the damage caused by the world-wide clerical sex abuse scandal.

The pope’s two previous visits home since his 2005 election were to the mostly Catholic regions of the Rhineland and his native Bavaria. This trip takes him to the mostly Protestant and atheist eastern part of Germany.

“We Germans know from our own experience” what happens when power is corrupted, Benedict said to the parliament, describing Nazis as a “highly organised band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss”.

However, he said, even under the Nazi dictatorship resistance movements stuck to their beliefs at a great risk, “thereby doing a great service to justice and to humanity as a whole”.

He also urged all Germans not to ignore religion.

“Even today, there is ultimately nothing else we could wish for but a listening heart – the capacity to discern between good and evil, and thus to establish true law, to serve justice and peace,” he said.

Benedict also voiced strong support for Germany’s powerful ecological movement, calling it “a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside”.

The Bavarian-born pontiff was met on a red carpet at Berlin’s Tegel airport by Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff at the start of his four-day visit. He greeted members of the German Catholic Church, and accepted a bouquet from children waiting with small yellow-and-white Vatican flags.

Some 20 protesters stood outside the airport, holding banners with slogans reading: “Against anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia” and “My body, my choice”.

The Vatican’s views on contraception, the role of women, homosexuality and its handling of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Germany last year are seen by many as outdated.

About 100 MPs from opposition parties boycotted the pope’s appearance, claiming it violated the church-state separation. But Benedict looked out on a mostly full house as guests occupied the empty seats and finished his speech to a standing ovation.

Police estimated only “several thousand” protesters showed up at the capital’s Potsdamer Platz, far fewer than organisers had predicted.

“Today is a good day to be visible,” Maria Pflugradt, a 22-year-old student from Cottbus said. “Not only because he is against homosexuals, but also because the church has made far too many mistakes in the last centuries.”

In parliament, Speaker Norbert Lammert welcomed the pope, noting that the last time there was a pontiff of German origin Germany did not exist as a state.

“Germany is a country that over centuries was strongly marked by religion and religious wars,” Mr Lammert said. “A country whose Christian traditions of belief also influence the constitution we have today.”

But flagging Christian influence in Europe was one of Benedict’s key themes.

Over the next days, the pope has meetings with leaders of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities, three masses, an ecumenical service with Lutheran church members and other meetings, and possibly meetings with victims abused by priests.

He held an open open-air service last night in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, built by the Nazis for the 1936 games.

Today, Benedict will travel to the eastern city of Erfurt to meet Protestant leaders in the monastery that once housed the 16th century reformer Martin Luther, whose teachings led to Europe’s split between Catholics and Protestants.