12 people, 12 paths, 1 question
In the parish church of Hinterzarten, one can currently visit an exhibition that asks what "makes a good priest".
Hinterzarten lies in the southern Black Forest, about 25 kilometers from Freiburg. The town is known primarily as a health resort with high-altitude air quality and as the venue for numerous ski jumping competitions; decades ago, the television series "The Black Forest Clinic" also brought it many visitors.
Anyone visiting Hinterzarten today should also visit the churches. The Protestant Church of the Twelve Apostles is a modern church building from the 1960s, whose colorful stained-glass windows depict an impressive variety of biblical and church stories. Nearby is the so-called "Shepherd's Wagon Church," a kind of "mobile church" for services held in different locations, allowing for services to be accessible to people on the move. And in the Catholic Church of Mary in the Tenderness, one finds a fascinating symbiosis of old and new, also dating back to the 1960s, when the old church building, dating from the 15th to 18th centuries, was impressively modernized. A defining feature of this church, too, is the multitude of stained-glass windows, though here they are in abstract forms.
What is currently captivating visitors, however, is an exhibition presented throughout the entire church: "12 People, 12 Paths, 1 Question" is an art project that arose following the debate surrounding nine female theologians from Freiburg who formally applied for admission to the Freiburg seminary in 2025. While they were not accepted, serious discussions and meetings did take place with the responsible rector, the then Auxiliary Bishop Christian Würtz, who will become Bishop of Eichstätt in October 2026. These discussions were facilitated by Supervisor Christian Kaiser, who soon found himself asking, "What criteria must apply when people apply for a place in priestly formation? Should women be excluded as a matter of principle, even if they are clearly called?" He concludes: "As an independent facilitator of these discussions, I have come to the conviction that these are genuine vocations to the priesthood within the Catholic Church. If vocations do exist, then these young women are indeed called."
The exhibition now presents twelve stories of vocations, which, interestingly, are anonymized: six are the stories of women, six of men. Visitors are invited to engage with these stories and form their own opinions. They will not learn which stories are about men and which are about women. However, at the end of the exhibition, they can write their perspective in a book and answer the question, "Regardless of gender: What, in your opinion, makes a good priest?"
This book will also become part of the exhibition. Not all entries strive for objectivity. One obviously disgruntled person felt compelled to write that it made his "toenails curl" at the prospect of gender issues now infiltrating the church, but many other entries are positive and demonstrate an honest engagement with the topic.
The application of the nine female theology students to the Freiburg seminary in spring 2025 briefly attracted considerable attention. The exhibition in Hinterzarten serves as a kind of initial assessment of their findings. A second assessment will follow when the applicants receive the prize of the Austrian church reform movements in Enns in October 2026.
Reproduced with thanks to We Are Church - Austria
Use the link to read the article in German