Catholic Awards for Secular Journalism

The conference (DBK), the association of Germany's Catholic bishops, assembles the expert jury. The Catholic Media Association and the Society of Catholic Publicists of Germany, an independent journalists' association, each propose three members. A bishop serves as chair, and the DBK appoints two experts.

According to its statute, the prize is meant to honor journalistic work that promotes an orientation toward Christian values, fosters understanding of people and social contexts, strengthens humanitarian and social responsibility and contributes to the coexistence of different communities, religions and cultures. The nine-member jury reviewed 195 submissions. Prize money totaling €12,500 ($14,300) is being awarded.

Explicitly Catholic content is not a requirement. Nor is an explicitly religious topic a condition of entry or a necessary factor in the jury’s decision. Given the name of the prize, this may come as a surprise. One would expect the Catholic Church to use such a prize to honor particularly successful journalistic communication of Catholic topics, or at least Catholic journalists. Instead, the winning pieces have for years been dominated by migration, social hardship, right-wing extremism, care, violence, disability and political conflicts.

Only one topic is missing from the Catholic Media Prize: Catholicism.

The main prize, endowed with €5,000 ($5,730), was presented in Munich on 15 September to radio journalist Alfred Breuer. His radio feature Ausbeutung mit System – Indische Fahrradkuriere in Deutschland examines the systematic exploitation of Indian bicycle couriers. It describes how young Indians come to Germany to study and, in some cases, fall into debt, precarious employment and dependency.

Two further prizes, each worth €2,500 ($2,870), went to Spiegel journalist Maik Grossekathoefer for Ich bin immer bei Dir, an article about people who make artificial intelligence their relationship partner, and to Gabriele Jenk for Der sinnlose Tod meines Sohnes – Eine Mutter sucht Antworten, a Westdeutscher Rundfunk documentary about a mother's search for answers after the senseless death of her son. The documentary traces the violent death of Philipos Tsanis, who was only 20 years old. In 2024, on his way home from a graduation party, he was fatally injured in a park by a group of young men from migrant backgrounds. The case drew wide attention across Germany. The jury’s special prize went to Simone Gaul and Bastian Berbner for Irma – Das Kind aus Srebrenica, a podcast by the weekly newspaper Die Zeit about the consequences of the Srebrenica massacre in the Bosnian War.

https://twitter.com/dbk_online/status/2087479288706592809

Hardly Any Catholics, But Prize-Winning Forgers

For only a few of the prizewinners can a public profession of the Catholic faith be clearly documented, among them Christiane Lutz and Heribert Prantl. Of this year’s winning works, Gabriele Jenk’s documentary is probably the one most closely tied to broadly Christian questions. The others deal with workers’ rights, artificial intelligence and human relationships, and war and its consequences.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising and chair of the DBK’s Publishing Commission, set out at this year’s ceremony what is expected of journalistic work: where research is careful, listening attentive and storytelling nuanced, journalism can create closeness without giving up critical distance.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx chairs the prize which has drawn controversy over its winners in 2013 and 2017. Photo: Deutsche Bischofskonferenz / Andreas Schebesta

Among the best-known previous winners is, without doubt, former Spiegel reporter Claas Relotius. In 2017 he received the print prize, endowed with €5,000 ($5,730), for his report Königskinder. At the time, the jury praised the text as a portrait of the fate of Syrian refugee children. It depicts Germany as a longed-for destination where, in the children’s imagination, a “benevolent queen” named Angela Merkel reigns.

A year later, Relotius was exposed as a fabricator who had freely invented facts, people, conversations and scenes in numerous reports. In December 2018 he finally admitted that he had falsified Königskinder as well, in key respects. The Bishops’ Conference then revoked his prize and demanded repayment of the €5,000 ($5,730) prize money.

In Germany, the term Relotius-Presse (Relotius press) has since become a common shorthand for fabricated stories.

The fabricator Claas Relotius, who has won numerous awards, was also awarded the Catholic Media Prize. For a fabricated story, of course. Photo: Ursula Düren/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

Catholic Prize Money for a Pro-Choice Alliance

In another case, too, the jury did not necessarily show a sure touch in ensuring that its prizewinners conveyed Christian core values. In 2013, journalist Lara Katharina Fritzsche received the Catholic Media Prize for Das Leben nach dem Tod in Utøya, a text published in the German weekly Die Zeit. The text follows an 18-year-old who survived the attack on the island of Utoya by Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Breivik and is mourning her murdered friend. Fritzsche drew attention less with her piece than with what she did with the prize money.

At the award ceremony, Fritzsche announced that she would donate the €5,000 ($5,730) prize money to the Berlin-based Bündnis für sexuelle Selbstbestimmung (Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination). The pro-choice group campaigns for the legalization of abortion and for prescription-free access to the so-called morning-after pill.

Fritzsche also explicitly linked her decision to criticism of the Church, which had just honored her with an award and prize money. She said publicly that, as a woman, she was annoyed “simply too often” by the Catholic Church.

It later emerged that part of the money was used to cover the costs of a counter-demonstration against Berlin’s March for Life, in which Catholic bishops also take part.

Prize money from an award granted by the Bishops’ Conference thus ended up with an organization that contradicts Catholic teaching on abortion and protests against bishops.

The two cases reveal different problems. Relotius’s prizewinning piece proved to be fabricated, and the Bishops’ Conference revoked the prize and demanded the money back. Fritzsche, by contrast, delivered a resounding slap in the face to her hosts at the ceremony itself, and the Conference’s own website report on the award simply did not mention any of her criticism.

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Other Church Prizes

Germany's Protestant and Catholic churches have considerable income, above all from the mandatory church tax, and both use it to fund numerous prizes and honors.

Besides the Catholic Media Prize, the German Bishops' Conference awards the annual Catholic Children's and Youth Book Prize, endowed with €8,000 ($9,170). It also gives the Catholic Prize Against Xenophobia and Racism, worth up to €12,000 ($13,750) in total, and the Art and Culture Prize of German Catholics, endowed with €25,000 ($28,650).

The Protestant Church and organizations close to it also award several media prizes, such as the Robert Geisendoerfer Prize for radio, television and online formats. Other prizes include the Hanna Jursch Prize for scholarly theological work in which gender perspectives play an essential role, the Paul Gerhardt Prize for new musical settings of hymns and the KiBa Foundation prize for concepts that open church buildings to new uses.

Yet hardly any prize awarded by the major Christian churches explicitly honors Christian journalists or the journalistic dissemination of Christian positions. Cardinal Marx says journalism can create closeness without giving up critical distance. The churches' prizes leave open whom that closeness is meant to serve.