The president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, and the President of the Central Council of Jews, Paul Spiegel, met in Mainz on 25 February. Both had expressed concern about the “reinforcement of extremist right-wing and anti-semitic tendencies in German society and in other European countries”. Lehmann and Spiegel declared “their relief about the fact that the parties of the extreme right had enjoyed no success in the recent elections to the regional parliament of Schleswig-Holstein. Nonetheless, – says a joint communiqué issued by the Central Council of Jews and the secretariat of the German Bishops’ Conference “great vigilance is necessary. In all the strata of the population we need to promote the position according to which the choice of candidates and parties of the extreme right is not a legitimate expression of protest against the real or presumed political structures”. Lehmann and Spiegel agreed on the need to “extend co-operation between Jewish community and Catholic Church in Germany”, perhaps with the establishment of a “work group with the objective of steering an intensive dialogue that would cover “social, ethical and religious questions relating to both sides”. On the Jewish side, a request was made not to compare abortion with the Holocaust, while Spiegel himself expressed “his understanding for the importance that the Catholic Church attaches to the protection of the unborn child in the womb”.
