Olivier Ndjimbi-Tshiende, a Congo-born Catholic priest at St Martin’s church in the small suburban town of Zorneding in Munich, Germany, has resigned.
Ndjimbi-Tshiende said he took the decision as a result of numerous written and verbal death threats he received after speaking up for refugees in Germany.
“You cannot imagine what I have experienced here,” he told a Munich newspaper. “The pressure is too great and I am tired.”
He quoted a local resident as telling him: “We’ll get you after early evening Mass.”
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The hate-mail campaign followed a bitter public row about the more than one million refugees who fled to Germany in 2015.
Sylvia Bohrer, who until recently was the local chair of Christian Social Union (CSU), the ruling political party, had described the refugees as “invaders”.
Ndjimbi expressed his outrage at the description. But his criticism merely served to anger other CSU politicians, including Bohrer’s deputy, Josef Haindl, who described the priest as “unser Neger” – which translates as “our nigger” or “our Negro”.
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His resignation was the latest incident in a growing wave of abuse and violence directed against migrants and refugees in Germany.
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