Sr Anna Mirijam Kaschner A spokeswoman for Denmark’s Catholic Church said draft legislation requiring all sermons and homilies to be translated into Danish will fuel ill-feeling and damage religious freedom.
“This law is directed primarily at Muslims – its proponents say they want to prevent parallel societies and things being preached which no one else understands and could be used for radicalization and calls for terror,” said Precious Blood Sister Anna MirijamKaschner, general secretary and spokeswoman of the Nordic bishops’ conference.
“But all church congregations, free church congregations, Jewish congregations, everything we have here in Denmark – 40 different religious communities – will be placed under general suspicion by this law … Something is happening here which is undermining democracy,” she told Cologne-based Dom Radio January 4. The legislation was scheduled to be debated in February in the country’s parliament. Sister Kaschner said the law would require religious communities, including the Catholic Church, to translate and publish every sermon, posing “enormous personal and financial challenges.”