Cardinal Skips Mass to Avoid Priest Accused of Nazism

by Kilian SC · Published May 22, 2018 · Updated May 22, 2018

St. Kilian’s Cathedral in Wurzburg, Germany. A cardinal’s refusal to celebrate Mass in a nearby city rekindled controversy over a newly ordained priest expelled from a Wurzburg seminary over Nazi sympathies. (CNS photo/Zita Ballinger Fletcher)(Inset: Fr Michael Polster)

Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, cancelled his participation in an upcoming Mass because one of the celebrants is a newly ordained priest with a history of alleged Nazi sympathies.

A spokesman for the diocese of Würzburg confirmed the reason for Cardinal Koch’s cancellation with Germany’s Catholic news agency, KNA.

Fr Michael Polster, 30, was one of two seminarians expelled from a Bavarian seminary in 2013 due to alleged Nazi inclinations, racist remarks, and concentration camp jokes described then by German Church officials as “totally unacceptable and unbearable”.

Fr Polster, ordained by Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke of Eichstatt, was scheduled to give his first blessing in the scenic pilgrimage town of Retzbach, about a 20-minute drive from Würzburg.

An investigation launched by an ecclesiastical committee in 2013 established Fr Polster was one of two Würzburg seminarians who had performed the Hitler salute, made jokes about Nazi atrocities, and asked for a “[racial slur] to clean up” in the cafeteria, according to 2013 news reports by the German bishops’ conference and Suddeutsche Zeitung. The investigation heard testimony from 18 seminarians and ten others.

The scandal dominated German media headlines five years ago, unleashed questions about a possible network of Nazi sympathisers in the Catholic Church, and prompted a strong letter to the seminary rector from the Würzburg vicar-general condemning Nazi rituals as intolerable behaviour for future priests.

In an interview printed in Suddeutsche Zeitung in July 2013, Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg said: “I am exceedingly disturbed by anti-Semitic and racist utterances and tendencies, like the glorification of Nazi symbols and nationalism in our society — above all, when this happens in ecclesiastical places.”

Fr Polster was expelled from the Würzburg seminary after the investigation found him guilty of misconduct. After his dismissal, he sought admittance to a seminary in Eichstatt and was accepted.

He recently described his previous behaviour to local media as bockmist (goat waste). In a March interview with Donaukurier, he denied having had Nazi sympathies at any point in his life.

“I do not have a maladjustment. I made a mistake in that particular situation,” Fr Polster, then a deacon, told the press. “I hope that I have developed myself further so that such a thing never happens again.”

Bishop Hanke said he believes Fr Polster has repented and asked the public to be respectful of him.

“He does not want to be an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi. He has repented of what he was responsible for,” said Bishop Hanke.—By Zita Ballinger Fletcher, CNS