Treasure to be rediscovered

“The contribution, even financial, given by the Catholic and Evangelical Churches to the cultural life of Germany is enormous, but unrecognised”. To place the importance of the Churches in this field at the centre of public attention, Herder-Korrespondenz, in its December edition, presented a study on the commitment of the Church (in particular that of the Catholic Church) to culture. We present a brief summary of the article by Irene Vogt. COMMITMENT IGNORED. A new interest in religious questions and in the Christian tradition, which is recognized as one of the most decisive, if not the most decisive, elements of the cultural identity of Europe, is spreading among exponents of the world of art and culture. But, while the commitment of the Catholic and Evangelical Churches in the social field is highly appreciated, that in the cultural field is not properly recognized. The annual financial contribution of the Churches to culture is of the order of 4.4 billion euros, outstripping that of the municipalities (3.5 billion €) and the Länder (3.4 billion €). The Churches may thus be considered among the “among the main protagonists of Germany in the field of culture”. MATTHIAS THEODOR VOGT (author of a study of the cultural work of the Churches, commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference -DBK-) says this contribution continues to be undervalued even in the statistics. “The Churches are a largely ignored power in the field of cultural policy”, underlines also OLAF ZIMMERMANN , Director of the German Cultural Council, in the autumn edition of the journal “Politics and Culture”. And Cardinal KARL LEHMANN , President of the DBK, in September, after the plenary assembly in Fulda, pointed out at a press conference how much “this contribution is to the benefit of the population as a whole”. THE CHURCH FOR CULTURE. The activities promoted by the Church especially take place in fixed institutions, such as Catholic academies, where art and culture assume a leading role. In addition “there exist spiritual fathers also for artists; ‘Ash Wednesday for artists’ is celebrated in many dioceses; there are diocesan commissions for art, Catholic associations of art, and, not least, 43 diocesan museums with over a million visitors per year”. It’s not easy to delimit the cultural field while taking into account other fields of the Church’s involvement such as liturgy, Catholic educational institutes and mass media. New churches are seldom built in Germany today, but the financial cost for the reconstruction and re-adaptation of older churches, where mass will perhaps be celebrated for the last time within the next ten years, is not indifferent. Each year the Church invests over 400 million euros in the upkeep of its monuments that are visited by some 90 million persons. One aspect, however, to which priority should be given in the Church’s cultural commitment in Germany is that of sacred music. “To the 1,600 or more full-time organists and choirmasters we should add some 17,000 freelance or voluntary musicians, whose task, apart from the musical accompaniment of mass, also comprises the organization of concerts”. There are 18,860 Catholic choirs and orchestras with almost 425,000 non-professional musicians. Also not to be underestimated are parish libraries (40% of all German public libraries depend on the Catholic Church) and the Church’s involvement in the cinema, well institutionalised with the “Katholisches Filmwerk” at Frankfurt, participation in some production companies and the film review “Filmdienst”. INVESTMENTS OF THE CHURCH. “One of the main questions for the Bishops’ Conference in this field is the relation between high culture and popular culture, and the ratio between full-time employees and volunteers; the bishops have underlined the impossibility of realizing the one without the support of the other. So full-time employees are needed to endow volunteers with the necessary requisites. Only in this way is it possible to offer mass culture rooted in the church and contained in cost”. HEINRICH MUSSINGHOFF , Bishop of Aachen and chairman of the Commission for Science and Culture of the DBK, has stressed how important diversified cultural work and dialogue with art are for the fundamental mission of the Church. “For the bishops the promotion of Catholic cultural work is not ‘a subsidy, but an investment’. Cultural commitment is seen by the bishops as an indispensable part of the Church’s missionary endeavour precisely because it is to the benefit of everyone”. Society, political world and State – also in view of current financial difficulties – are beginning to understand the cultural involvement of the Churches as a treasure to be rediscovered. The time has now come for people to become conscious, also within the Church, of the value of the Church’s commitment in this field and the need properly to bring it to the attention of the outside world.