Church sets autobahn speed limit for clergy to save planet

PRIESTS and other officials in Germany’s Protestant church have been banned from speeding down the autobahn to protect the planet.

“We consider it necessary for church functionaries to observe a speed limit of 100kph [62mph] on the autobahn ... to do justice to the church’s mission to care for God’s creation,” the German Evangelical Council (EKD) decreed at its synod. Germany’s autobahns are among the few roads in the world that have no speed limit.

The EKD claimed that the restrictions would “noticeably reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. But the decree has not gone down well with some officials.

“I cannot support this inappropriate resolution,” Sabine Kropf-brandau, a church provost in Hesse, told Germany’s Die Welt newspaper.

“We are supposed to drive even slower than everyone else, but we in the church are no better than the rest of the world,” she said.

Other priests have complained going so slowly will force other drivers into dangerous overtaking manoeuvres.

Germany’s environment office has calculated a limit of 62mph on the autobahn would cut over five million tons of CO2 emissions every year.

While it is not known how much the priesthood contributes to these emissions, the church is latching on to a public debate over whether the freedom to speed is still appropriate against a backdrop of global climate change.