DOMRADIO.DE: It is discussed whether the Prussian Concordat would be broken if priestly training were to be transferred to the Cologne University. What does the Prussian Concordat say?
Prof. Thomas Sternberg (Former CDU member of parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia and former President of the Central Committee of German Catholics): This Prussian Concordat of 1929 stipulates where and how the training of theologians in Prussia is to be regulated. This means that this concordat between the Vatican and the Prussian state stipulates that theological training must take place in certain dioceses at state faculties.
Certain dioceses are permitted to have their own seminaries, but under certain conditions. These are above all Paderborn, Trier, Fulda, Limburg, Hildesheim and Osnabrück. They are entitled, it says, to have a seminar for the scientific training of the clergy. The others have to teach their clergy at the state faculties, for example in Münster and Bonn and Breslau.
DOMRADIO.DE: What interest did Prussia have in prescribing education in theological faculties?
Sternberg: If you want to understand what Prussia wanted back then and what the intention was, then you have to be clear today about how the discussion about imam training is going. The imams also say: We want imam training to take place in state faculties. And you have to be clear: Catholics in Prussia were always viewed a little wrongly. If not their ultramontane (lit. “beyond the mountains”; political Catholicism loyal to Rome in the 19th and early 20th centuries, editor’s note.) would spread ideas in these seminars and spread lack of nationalism.
People preferred to have clear supervision at state faculties. But otherwise it is of course also very good if the theologians are taught in an environment in which the other disciplines are also present and interdisciplinary is something that goes without saying.
DOMRADIO.DE: You follow the current discussion about the Cologne University of Catholic Theology. How do you assess the plans of the Cologne cardinal, who wants to strengthen Catholic theology with this institution, so that theology can discuss on an equal footing with society?
Sternberg: Of course, theology happens at eye level at the excellent Bonn faculty. This is a great faculty with a great history. Of course you are at eye level with society. At first it was a very sensible thing for the cardinal to say: I would like to keep the Steyler Hochschule, which was an existing university, so that the predominantly Asian students can take their exams there and continue their studies. That was a reasonable thought. The Steylers could not continue the university and then the archbishop said: Then the archdiocese will take over the Steyler university.
But then it suddenly became something completely different. Then it suddenly became this university of papal law, basically used as a foil to found something completely new in Cologne.
A concordat (Latin for agreement) is an international legal agreement between the Holy See as the supreme authority of the Catholic Church and a state. In Germany, in addition to the Reich Concordat of 1933, there are state church agreements with individual countries. The Bavarian Concordat of 1924 was the model for the agreements with Prussia (1929) and Baden (1932).
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DOMRADIO.DE: Where is the problem in your eyes?
Sternberg: The Cologne University of Applied Sciences is simply the most superfluous thing that could be founded at a university in recent years. Because in Germany we are discussing too many theological locations, not too few. We will probably not be able to keep all the faculties in Germany in the future, simply because of the number of students.
But in the Archdiocese of Cologne, of all places, where there is a very good and traditional theological faculty in Bonn, to found something that nobody really needs, I cannot fathom how it can be done.
DOMRADIO.DE: In your opinion, should the Archdiocese of Cologne allow future priests to be trained at the new university?
Sternberg: According to the concordat, it is clearly not allowed to do so. The Archdiocese of Cologne must train its – and strangely enough, the concordat speaks of clergymen, not of priests, that means there would also be the question of whether pastoral officers would not be included, in Bonn. That means that the concordat absolutely does not allow doing that in Cologne. Now there are different legal opinions. As early as 1971, the Bonn canon lawyer Flasch said that the North Rhine-Westphalian constitution was above the concordat and that it was therefore possible for the Archbishop of Cologne to set up his own university. Then there is now a study by PRof. Mückl, who comes to a similar conclusion.
But it is not correct, because all constitutional law experts who have examined this matter clearly state that the Concordat Law of 1929 even predates the North Rhine-Westphalian state constitution. This means that the continued validity of this 1929 concordat is clear. But then the training of clergymen, whatever is meant by clergymen, or of clerics, is prescribed in Bonn.
DOMRADIO.DE: Is it wise for the church to put the existing concordat to the test, so at least to bring it up for discussion?
Sternberg: In my opinion not at all. There’s no reason for it. This concordat was dealt with intensively several times, for example when the diocese of Essen was founded. The question was: where will this new diocese of Essen train its previous candidates when they still existed? I wish there were more candidates for the priesthood again, also from Essen. But then Bochum was founded. These are not things that have legally rested, but are constantly being discussed and worked on. It would be utterly foolish to question the Concordat.
The interview was conducted by Julia Reck.
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