Germany will inaugurate its new Bundestag (the national parliament) on Monday 24 March and the proposal to preside over it from the party that won the elections is Julia Klöckner, a former minister of committed Catholic faith, according to the media in Germany.

Julia Klöckner is the candidate of the next German chancellor, Friedric Merz of the CDU, to occupy the second highest office in the state.

According to the magazine Pro Medienmagazin, which has interviewed the Christian Democrat politician, Klöckner studied theology and education and has been an expert in religious education.

She explains that she “received the faith from the cradle” with her parents. “Faith helps me to accept my limitations”, she said in 2018.

Klöckner has criticised the role of the Roman Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant Church (EKD), the country’s two major religious institutions, for often taking public positions on political issues, when in her opinion they should be focusing on taking better care of their parishioners and asking themselves why membership and attendance at Sunday services has fallen so sharply.

The next president of the German federal parliament also believes that “mixed” religious marriages between Protestants and Catholics should be allowed, and criticises the fact that women have not a chance to be ordained.

In Germany, citizens who are members of one of the two historical churches subsidise their church with part of their taxes.

Islam and the Christian values

But Klöckner is also critical of the progressive voices on the country’s leftist spectrum that often attack Christianity but not Islam. “The Catholic Church, as a conservative entity, has always been criticised by feminist groups, and not without reason. But they find the patriarchal structures of Muslim fundamentalism totally normal: they apply double standards”, she laments.

The conservative politician wants to ban the use of the niqab in Germany, the Islamic headscarf that covers the entire face of some women in Germany.

Asked about a renewed interest in Christian values, the Rhineland-Palatinate member of Parliament said it should not be seen only as a way of responding to the increase in Islamic presence in Germany.

A better debating culture needed

Klöckner was Minister of Agriculture between 2018 and 2021 and tried unsuccessfully to become Prime Minister of her Land-state on two occasions.

The winner of the German election of February, Friedrich Merz, is confident that the Catholic politician will ensure that the “parliament represents democracy with dignity and with an appropriate culture of debate” in her new role.

In recent years, Germany has experienced a sharp increase in polarisation, with the rise of far-right and radical left-wing parties.