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Three Benedictine priests retained their town council seats following Sunday’s elections in the southern German state of Bavaria.
Church law states that “clerics are forbidden to assume public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power.”
Among the most famous cases related to the norm is that of Fr. Robert Drinan, SJ, who served as a member of Congress for a full decade, beginning in 1971.
In 1980, Pope St. John Paul II directed that priests withdraw from public office, and Drinan did not stand for reelection to his seat.
Still, in Bavaria, the custom of Benedictine monks standing in local elections dates back more than a century.
The Benedictine priests argue that they are not violating canon law because the local council posts are non-partisan and they have no individual executive power, since decisions are made by collective majority vote. The monks are not allowed to be elected as mayors, they say, as they believe that would cross the threshold from civic participation to the exercise of civil power.
The Apostolic See has seemingly not intervened in the situation.
The custom makes Bavaria something of an outlier in Europe, where it is rare for
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