Church criticism within the Cologne carnival | FAZ | EUROtoday

Should the hope that the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar expressed in Rome in 1984 when receiving a Vatican, after Pope Paul VI, be justified? named value within the type of the sentence that hell may very well be empty, would all of the Rose Monday hustle and bustle be over? Does the annual enjoyment of formality extra require the dogmatic certainty that nobody may be certain of their everlasting residence in everlasting life?

In Cologne, such questions are normally seen extra pragmatically. As early as 1964, i.e. throughout the Second Vatican Council, successful music written for Willy Millowitsch interpreted the Catholic nature of the church as a promise of basic forgiveness of sins: “It was always like this, it was always like this. / The Lord God will definitely forgive us, / It was always, always like this.” The title of the music, “We are all little sinners,” served because the motto of the Cologne Rose Monday procession in 1972. With this in thoughts, within the present session on the stage of the Cologne Opera, three angels announce within the conventional carnival piece by the Cologne Men’s Choir: “Et kumme alle, alle, alle en die Himmel!”

The trio of excellent messengers doesn’t method the viewers genderless within the sense of the fancies of anti-body metaphysics, however fairly testifies to their origins from larger spheres by being abundantly endowed with gender traits, in non-binary abundance. Naturally blessed with stately torsos and highly effective voices, the proclaimers of the inclusive love order desired by the very best locations, who not even JD Vance, whether or not he might imagine it or not, would refuse to embrace, are additionally blessed with the love of golden fringe, thick eyeliner and flashing sneakers.

Completing the heavenly choir in reward of the everlasting tradition of welcome is Konrad Adenauer, performed by Jürgen Nimptsch, the previous mayor of Bonn, who additionally wrote the piece to have fun the one hundred and fiftieth birthday of the legendary mayor of Cologne and nearly as legendary chancellor, Adenauer’s secretary Anneliese Poppinga and his second spouse Auguste, often known as Gussie, who had modified faith for the marriage within the 12 months the republic was based in 1919 – what the outdated man, if he have been 107 years youthful, would not ask her once more. The native saint, who is legendary for easy language, produces an enormous chuckle with a easy title joke: “I’d rather be with you in the clouds than with Woelki.”

Since 2022, Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki from the Cologne Carnival Festival Committee has not acquired any invites to the prince proclamation in Gürzenich. In 2023, the pageant committee reprimanded Woelki, the cardinal, for disciplining a priest who had blessed same-sex {couples}. The Archbishop’s viewers for the triumvirate of Prince, Farmer and Virgin final happened in 2020. The archbishop’s press workplace didn’t wish to inform the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” whether or not Woelki was planning to attend carnival conferences throughout the present session. Woelki, a local of Cologne-Mülheim and archbishop of his dwelling diocese since 2014, acquired the Carnival Order of the Mayor of Cologne in Rome in 2012 after his elevation to cardinal.

An area patriotic generic title has change into established for the dialect musical by the singing brothers of the KMGV: “Divertissementchen”. The nice work, the nice particulars of the scores are entertaining: pastiche and collage are the methods of acoustic costuming. The natural pathos components of Bach’s D minor Toccata heralds the banishment of the cardinal, and Mozart’s Coronation Mass gives the template for the thunderstorm in regards to the clerical hypocrisy of the refusal to supply details about abuse.

Even within the authentic, that is catchy, over-accentuated music which you could get into the understanding of, within the carnival environment that’s all the time to be anticipated within the church 12 months: the historical past of salvation as an intertwining of a slim threatening backdrop and the wide-open horizon of saving the world is sort of celebrated. With the parody of this materials, the Bergische Symphoniker and the singer sextet are nearly hellishly critical: “Just shut up the Düvel dren!” The church officers need to hearken to the truth that sins ought to be punished, as an echo of their very own sermon, within the battlefield between the gates of hell and the gates of heaven, just like the final folks.