A s I am writing these lines at the end of November, the county and city of Passau (where I am from) is putting up more refugees than whole countries in Eastern Europe have agreed to accept. Winter is coming, so things must be done safely and well. I am proud of the charity and hospitality I see among the people, especially on the part of the Church. But the sheer number of refugees coming in through Austria—which seems eager to funnel them along as quickly as possible—has started to create problems. The statistics you get from the media and the stories from my sisters who live in Bavaria form a coherent picture: There are limits, and we are getting close to reaching them. It is very dangerous to drive by groups of people walking along the Autobahn after having been dumped there by their handlers. Finding suitable living quarters and accepting refugee children in schools have been ever more challenging.
Moreover, the recent attacks in Paris (and those which have been averted in Brussels, and probably in Hanover) pose new dimensions to the situation, even if some public and political voices keep denying that. Some of these attackers were “homegrown,” but others came into Europe via refugee gateways. Threatening to blow up international soccer matches makes the thing come as close to Germans as it gets, not to mention the potential fallout of such an attack, which would dwarf the number of losses on 9/11. In this new post-attack condition, even religious superiors (in an open letter to the Bavarian premier) and a group of Catholics engaged in politics (writing to the chancellor) are divided about what needs to be done. This is significant as the two groups generally agree on matters of social policy.
