Prominent German theologian, critic announces he's no longer Catholic

Published: 2005-12-15

COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) -- Father Eugen Drewermann, a prominent German church critic, psychoanalyst and theologian, announced that he has left the Catholic Church. Father Drewermann, who has been banned from exercising his priestly ministry since 1992, surprised participants in a television talk show Dec. 13 by telling them that he had left the church in June on his 65th birthday. He described the step as a "gift of freedom to myself." He has appeared several times in public since then, including one on the fringes of World Youth Day activities in Cologne in August, but did not mention that he had left the church. "I believed I could build bridges of interpretation in the Catholic Church between the message of Jesus and the needs of people. I suffer still from the fact that the church basically refuses this," he said. Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker of Paderborn said in a statement that he regretted any decision to leave the church but that he respected Father Drewermann's decision.

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