Cardinal Woelki is New Archbishop of Cologne -- “ A Bad Decision"

(Cologne) Pope Francis has appointed a new Archbishop for Cologne, which is, next to Milan, one of the most important and influential diocese of the world, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. Woelki has been, since 2011, Archbishop of Berlin. Previously, he was from the Auxiliary Bishop of Cologne from 2003.  A decision about Cologne has been eagerly awaited In Germany, but also in interested and informed parts of the world Church. The Spanish Church and Catholic historian Francisco de la Cigoña is unenthusiastic.

"A bad decision in Germany. Now the important see, vacant since the acceptation of the resignation of Archbishop Joachim Cardinal Meisner of Cologne Archdiocese.  Pope Francis has appointed the Archbishop of Berlin, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki  for the See of Cologne.  He is 57 years old and suspicious in doctrine. He is the fifth youngest cardinal of the Church and now holds  a archdiocese outside of  Catholic tradition like Berlin, where Catholics represent a small minority. He changes from 400,000 Catholics, or about ten percent of the residents of the German capital, to two million Catholics, or 40 percent of the inhabitants of Cologne. This is not an appointment that makes the bells ring. It is rather worrying. "

Woelki Disappointed in Berlin by Colorless and Getting By

De la Cigoñas comments relate to the fact that great hopes were placed in the pupil of Cardinal Meisner, as archbishop of Berlin and cardinal. But Woelki disappointed and proved to be a quite colorless, quickly adaptive to the mainstream  prince of the Church.  Woelki doesn’t even come close to the stature of Meisner.  In the spring of 2012, less than a year after being appointed Archbishop of Berlin and shortly after his appointment as Cardinal, the Cologne Cardinal noticed an unpleasant  "openness” towards aberrosexuals in  Catholic  Mannheim. Subsequent "corrections" that were not real, were not able to correct the confusion. Will the Cardinal present an edgier Catholic profile as  the successor  in Cologne of Cardinal Meisner?

Cardinal Woelki was born in 1956 in Cologne. His parents were expelled at the end of the war from Ermland, the Catholic part of East Prussia. He was ordained a priest in 1985 for the Archdiocese of Cologne, where Woelki worked in parish ministry as a military chaplain and as Church President of the Kolping Society. In 1990 he became secretary to Cardinal Meisner. From 1997 to 2003 he served as director of the Woelki Theological Collegium Albertinum in Bonn and completed his doctoral studies. In 2000 he received his doctorate at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross of Opus Dei in Rome.  In 2003 he received  episcopal consecration as titular bishop of Scampa (today the city of Elbasan in Albania), Pope John Paul II then had appointed him on the proposal and request of Cardinal Meisner, to be auxiliary bishop of Cologne. The Cardinal is a member of the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education and a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Pope Francis appointed him last April, also as member of the Congregation for the Clergy.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: De la Cigoña

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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