The clashes between right- wing demonstrators and antifascist protesters in the eastern German city of Chemnitz in Saxony, where a German with Cuban roots was stabbed to death by an Iraqi and a Syrian on 27 August, have been sharply condemned by church leaders in Germany.

The Catholic Church would always “clearly reject” racism and “migrant bashing,” Father Karl Jüsten, head of the “Katholisches Büro” in Berlin, the German bishops’ conference’s liaison office with the German government, underlined in an interview with ‘domradio.de.’

“It really is terribly depressing to see that many people have obviously rejected the democratic consensus and no longer allow the constitutional state to do its work,” Jursten said. “This time, the police were very quick to act but for a certain group of people that was not enough. It is simply not acceptable that such a group should think they are above the law, should take the law into their own hands and even to declare how the state should behave. I am not accusing all those who joined in the rioting of being Nazis. In Berlin, we have similar problems with left-wing protesters. As a church we must ask ourselves how we can reach those who have rejected the democratic consensus.”