In Bavaria, government buildings will display a cross over their entrance

April 24, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Munich, Germany, Apr 24, 2018 / 04:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The government of Bavaria has decided to instruct all state administrative buildings in the German state to display a cross in their public entrances by June 1.

The move intends to “express the historical and cultural character of Bavaria” and present “a visible commitment to the core values of the legal and social order in Bavaria and Germany”, the office of Markus Söder, Bavaria’s premier, announced April 24.

The Bavarian Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann, hailed the decision as a “clear signal for Christian tradition”. Söder was quick to put his cabinet’s decree into action, personally hanging up a cross on the wall of the State Chancellery, and tweeting that this constitutes a commitment to Bavarian identity and Christian values.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”de” dir=”ltr”>Klares Bekenntnis zu unserer bayerischen Identität und christlichen Werten. Haben heute im Kabinett beschlossen, dass in jeder staatlichen Behörde ab dem 1. Juni ein Kreuz hängen soll. Habe direkt nach der Sitzung ein Kreuz im Eingangsbereich der Staatskanzlei aufgehängt. <a href=”https://t.co/o99M0dV4Uy”>pic.twitter.com/o99M0dV4Uy</a></p>&mdash; Markus Söder (@Markus_Soeder) <a href=”https://twitter.com/Markus_Soeder/status/988768341820170240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Municipal and regional district buildings are not compelled, but encouraged to do likewise. Classrooms and courtrooms in traditionally Catholic Bavaria are already required to display a cross.

As some observers were quick to point out, the decision to display the crosses in the entranceways and not the actual government office rooms may be aimed at avoiding the controversy the display of the Christian symbol in classrooms and courtrooms has caused in the past.

Opposition party members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Greens criticised the move as an election campaign tactic. Meanwhile, the elected representative of the famous village of Oberammergau, whilst denouncing any political instrumentalization of the cross, also welcomed the potential for his electorate’s artisanal woodcarvers.

Bavarian voters will go the polls Oct 14 to elect a new government – and will likely return the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) government. The conservative CSU is the Bavarian sister party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union of Germany. It has dominated Bavarian politics – and provided the State Premier – since 1957.

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

Caritas Rome will continue receiving Trevi Fountain coins, mayor clarifies

January 14, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Rome, Italy, Jan 14, 2019 / 01:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After several weeks of confusion, the mayor of Rome has clarified that coins scooped from the famous Trevi Fountain will not be used to pay for city council maintenance projects, but instead will continue to go to Caritas, a Catholic charity that helps Rome’s poor and homeless.

“Caritas and all the thousands of people it helps can rest assured,” Mayor Virginia Raggi told L’Osservatore Romano Jan. 14.

“I personally guarantee that this administration will never take away its contribution. On the issue of the coins, I confirm that they will continue to go to the charity. No one ever considered taking them away.”

Caritas Rome has been the beneficiary of the coins since 2001. Visitors to Rome toss about €1.5 million ($1.7 million) worth of coins into the Trevi Fountain each year, which represents about 15 percent of Caritas’ charitable budget. The funds are mainly used for housing for the homeless, soup kitchens, and parish-based services for struggling families.  

Rome’s City Council approved a proposal at the end of Dec. 2018 to use the funds gathered from the fountain for “maintenance of cultural sites and social welfare projects” starting April 1, the Telegraph reports.

An article denouncing the city council’s decision appeared in Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, on Jan. 12. Raggi now says the purpose of the December plan was merely to get an accurate count of the money in the fountains.

Raggi said the city’s utility company, ACEA, will be responsible for cleaning, sorting, and counting the coins under the new plan, a job previously done by Caritas volunteers.

In addition, Raggi announced that coins collected from other fountains in the city would also be given to the charity, to the tune of an extra €200,000.

Under the previous arrangement, ACEA periodically emptied the fountain and presented the coins to Caritas officials in the presence of the police. Caritas volunteers then dried, cleaned, separated by currency, counted and deposited the coins in the bank. Caritas provided a quarterly report to the city of how the funds were used, according to Avvenire.

The city council first proposed using the Trevi Fountain funds for its own purposes in Dec. 2017, but the plan was delayed for a year.

In 2016 the city of Rome had an estimated €14 billion in public debt, and the city council is facing mounting pressure to fix dangerous roads and pavements in the city.

 

[…]

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*