“Often the demand outstrips the supply”: that’s how Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German Episcopal Conference, summed up the situation of spiritual exercises in Germany. Speaking at Bingen on the Rhine, on 18 September, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Addes, community of work of the German diocesan secretariats for spiritual exercises, Lehmann reported the figures for 2002 relating to participation in the programmes offered by the German Church: over 1500 Catholic structures for spiritual exercises were used by over 250,000 participants. What’s more, emphasized Lehmann, the participants “are no longer limited to those from ecclesiastical or Catholic environments”: indeed, they comprise “ever more people… who are on the fringes of ecclesiastical life, who have a critical attitude to the faith or who have already left the Church”.
