Souls in emergency situations

The communities of two towns, one in France, the other in Germany, have drawn together in a profoundly Christian response to last week’s air disaster. Their gesture found particular resonance in the days leading up to Holy Week

High in the Alps, the spring sunshine reaches into valleys which, for months, have only known shade. The snows begin to retreat and the first gentians edge through scree and crevice. Then, out of nowhere, there is a momentary scream of jet engines and a great explosion that echoes through the mountains. One hundred and fifty people aboard the Germanwings Airbus die in an instant, their remains “pulverised”, in the words of the first rescuers who reach the spot.

Many of those touched by the crash are Catholic. In the following days, they reach in anguish into a Catholic imagination and its consolations. That they should do so comes especially naturally this week. It is Lent and the drama of the Passion beckons, the desolation of Good Friday, the hours at the tomb and the daring to hope.

In the town of Haltern am See, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Good Friday comes early. Sixteen students and their teachers were due home from an exchange trip with a Spanish school. Fr Thorsten Brüggemann rushed over to the Joseph Koenig High School, as soon as he heard the news, fearing the worst. He knew a number of the students – “Some of them had either been confirmed in our parish, or had served Mass. One boy was with us on the altar boys’ pilgrimage to Rome last year.”

The dead students’ classmates were devastated. First, in their ones and twos, then in great numbers, they made their way to the nearby church of St Sixtus to grieve for their friends. As dusk gathered, the church was full to overflowing. At six o’clock, the bells began a slow, mournful toll, which lasted for a full hour. The congregation could scarcely contain its emotions.

The dean, Fr Martin Ahls, brought the Halterner Kreuz, a cross dating from the fourteenth century, and placed it in front of the high altar. It was an eloquent gesture. The cross is usually displayed only on Good Friday, and for generations pilgrims have come long distances to Haltern in Holy Week to venerate it.
When the first news of the crash came, Jean-Philippe Nault, Bishop of Digne, Riez and Sisteron, the diocese in which it happened, was in Lourdes for a meeting of the French episcopal conference. He left immediately for Seyne-les-Alpes, the nearest village to where the Germanwings Airbus went down. “It seemed very important to be there myself,” he explained.

Soon he and the parish priest, Fr Jean Lumbala, had, like their German counterparts, opened the local parish church to mourners. “Our priority was to express our solidarity and to make ourselves available to the families,” Bishop Nault continued. “But, of course, here in Seyne, and throughout the diocese, Holy Week will take a particular colour this year. Especially during the Chrism Mass, where the whole diocese will come together. With this crash, one is plunged into the paschal mystery.”

Back in Haltern, it was now late evening. The cross in the sanctuary of St Sixtus’ was surrounded by candles and flowers placed there by grieving relatives and friends. Many of the young students were inconsolable and could not bring themselves to leave. Fr Ahls accepted the inevitable and kept the church open through the night.
In the morning, Bishop Dieter Geerlings, an auxiliary in Münster, attended a service at the school. “I read out a prayer I had thought out on my way to Haltern the day before, which went into the question everyone asks in such moments, namely why this had happened and what God’s role was. I think it important to show people that bishops are confronted with the same questions as they are,” he said.

Fifty priests and pastoral assistants, specially trained as counsellors for emergency stress and disaster situations, arrived at the school in the days that followed. They are known as Notfallseelsorger, literally “carers of souls for emergency situations”. The school will remain open in the Easter holidays so that pupils who have already experienced the loss of a sibling can comfort those who need comforting now and tell them of their experiences. Many more pupils – 40 in all – had wanted to go to Spain on the exchange trip, and lots had had to be drawn to determine who should go.

Meanwhile, bereaved families were making their way to the French Alps, where more than a thousand Provencal families had offered to accommodate them in their own homes. Many others offered to translate, or merely to offer a sympathetic ear.

Inside the church in Seyne, small candles have been lit near the condolence books spread out on a platform decorated with flowers. A diplomat from the German embassy in Paris wrote “In deep sorrow” in French and German. “May time help you overcome this ordeal,” a local resident wrote. There are other messages in English and Spanish. “We are the first link in the chain of grieving,” said Seyne’s mayor, Francis Hermitte.

“I found incredible generosity,” Bishop Nault said after his visit to Seyne-les-Alpes. “The entire population was close at this time of sorrow and was very welcoming to the victims’ families. It’s a strange atmosphere but one that exudes peace.” The bishop met the families and prayed with them at the nearest accessible point to the site of the crash.

Afterwards, he explained that he would be preaching on the following day in his diocesan cathedral on a text that he thought particularly appropriate for the moment, the encounter of Jesus with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. “The gospel story tells of a journey that begins in sadness,” he said. “Only at the end do the disciples become aware that Jesus was always with them. Although ours is a difficult path, we are not alone, there is always the Lord with us. He is silent but he is with us.”

Very quickly it becomes clear that this crash was no technical failure, but one intended by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz. His own sad story becomes grist to German-language tabloids; he is tried and convicted in a single news cycle. His parents have travelled to the mountains to mourn but have now to be separated from the other mourners. But despite it all, to hear his story is to understand something of the man, and to make it easier to grieve for him too.

Throughout, there has been immense dignity from the victims’ families. Robert Oliver, a Jehovah’s Witness, whose son died in the crash, told reporters that he did not feel anger towards Lubitz, adding: “I’m really sad for the parents of that young pilot. I can’t imagine what they’re going through right now. We blame what the Bible calls the rule of the world. We are angry with the rule of the world.” His remarks were echoed by Philip Bramley, father of one of the three Britons who died. Lubitz was “ill”; his motivation for bringing down the plane was “irrelevant”.

In a fortnight’s time, Church and State will gather in Cologne Cathedral for an ecumenical service in memory of all the victims, many of whom came from the surrounding region. But this is also a time of searching for German society itself. It prides itself on technical precision and engineering excellence. Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, insists, in the words of its chief executive, that its pilots are “the world’s best”. But it is hard for a culture that lives by technology to accept such a failure, in the tragic young co-pilot’s case, of human relations and human sensitivity to someone battling huge personal demons.

In their cathedrals last Sunday many German bishops evoked the drama of Holy Week as they wrestled with the issue of God’s apparent absence, as the passengers of Flight 9525 plunged to their deaths. Perhaps the answer is best left to Bishop Nault in Provence. “God was there, in the heart of all the people who were on the plane and their families. I am sure of that. But I also feel that this is a time when we should not talk because talking is difficult in these times, and maybe it is not a good thing. It is best to be silent. For today our best role is to be present as friends who pray.”

Additional research by Tom Heneghan and Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.