Peace, justice, climate justice, the war in the Ukraine and its global impact and the ongoing crisis in the German Catholic Church were some of the themes Catholic laity, bishops and politicians and activists discussed during the five-day 102nd Ger-man Katholikentag.
The biannual festival and meeting for German-speaking Catholic laity took place for the first time in four years May 25-29 in Stuttgart. Participants heard from political and church leaders.
Speaking May 27, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is directed against “the values and convictions that unite us as a society.” Putin, he said, “must not be allowed to get away with his cynical, inhuman war.”
Scholz, who had just returned from a three-day trip to Senegal, Niger and South Africa, blamed the Russian president for an impending food crisis that is expected to hit the global south the hardest.
Scholz thanked the churches for their aid to Ukraine and for receiving refugees in Germany. He admitted that the war raises questions that are both political and ethical and that need to be discussed.
“At the heart of the matter is the question of whether violence can be fought with violence,” said the chancellor, who as a young man was a conscientious objector to compulsory military service.
About 200 demonstrators were chanting “Arm Ukraine now” in front of the hall where Scholz was speaking. On placards, they criticized that the arms deliveries were not arriving fast enough.
Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, the diocese hosting the event, said he was in favor of arms deliveries to Ukraine.
“I observe that some things are delayed there, and it is, however, urgently necessary that much that is necessary for self-defense continues to be delivered. That’s a commitment to peace when you resist the aggressor,” he told the audience.

The president of the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi Germany, Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz, said in an interview with KNA, the German Catholic news agency, that he believed a reorientation and new reflection of Christian peace ethics is necessary. Situations like Russia’s current war of aggression against Ukraine are not usually foreseen in most of the peace ethics theories, books and debates, he said.
Also May 27, a rally for peace among participants found many Ukrainians joining in. A local radio station spoke to one of the participants, Father Roman Wruszczak, a parish priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. “We suffer with Ukraine, we cry every day. Personally, I do too. There are days when I find it difficult to celebrate the liturgy,” he said during the interview.