FOUR MONTHS ago, Bishop Margot Kässmann made headlines as the first woman to head Germany’s Lutheran church. Now she is back in the headlines and her job is on the line after police stopped her for drink-driving at the weekend.
“I’m very shocked at myself that I made such a terrible mistake,” said Pastor Kässmann, a 51-year-old mother of four.
Police in Hanover stopped the bishop after she ran a red light in her official car on Saturday night. According to press reports, police officers smelled alcohol in the car and asked Pastor Kässmann to perform a breath test.
When this showed positive, she was brought to a police station and asked to give a blood sample, which returned a blood alcohol level of 1.54mg/l of blood.
For a woman of her age and weight, this is equivalent to 1.3 litres of beer, or half a litre of wine. The limit in Germany is 0.8mg/l of blood; anyone over 1.1mg/l is forbidden from driving.
The bishop’s driving licence was retained and she faces a year-long driving ban. Her future is now in the hands of authorities of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), a union of 22 churches, representing 25 million German Protestants.
The bishop is no stranger to publicity. In 2006 she was successfully treated for breast cancer; a year later, she caused a stir by divorcing her husband of 26 years.
In January, she triggered a public discussion with a new year’s homily describing Germany’s military involvement in Afghanistan as immoral and “unjustifiable”.
Within hours of the news becoming public yesterday, old interview quotes had come back to haunt the bishop, such as her condemnation in 2007 of the “lack of awareness and responsibility of drivers . . . in particular where alcohol and drugs are involved”.
The news of their drink-driving bishop prompted a mixed reaction in Hanover yesterday.
“Seeing as she wants to be a role model for all of us, I find it unacceptable,” said Petra Röck.
“At the same time, she is just a person who makes mistakes like everyone else.”