Der Hafenpastor und das graue Kind (2015)

In the middle of Stefan Book’s Sunday sermon, church caretaker Eddi climbs up the church tower and intends to jump from a window into the depths below. Book climbs after him and outwits him, so Eddi abandons his plan. Book then appeals to his conscience a little more, and the two get back to their daily business. The next personal problem Pastor Book has to deal with is 16-year-old Paloma Würl. She is a member of his St. Pauli congregation and is pregnant by her boyfriend, Winni Wu, who is also a minor. She fears she will no longer be able to care for her alcoholic mother if she also has a child to look after. The youth welfare office feels the same way and recommends placing Paloma in a mother-and-child home. But since Pastor Stefan Book is willing to act as her private guardian, the girl can remain in the congregation after the baby is born. He made this decision quite spontaneously, without asking his longtime acquaintance Sabine Sattler, with whom he had actually planned to go on vacation. He needs her in order to present an orderly family life, so first he has to ask her forgiveness. Meanwhile, Paloma is convinced that she would rather give the child up for adoption, sparing it a fate like her own. She happens to talk about this with the pimp Bodo Schüler, who tries to persuade her to give the child to people who would pay for it. Before she can really think it through, Pastor Book manages to find an apartment for Paloma and Winni. As promising as that sounds, it immediately brings problems: the teenagers simply cannot keep the place in order and rely entirely on Pastor Book. To make matters worse, Paloma’s mother now imagines she can obtain custody of her grandchild. The youth welfare office, too, thinks the child should be taken away from Paloma, because the baby’s examinations establish that it is too small for its age. Such babies are called “gray babies” because their mothers have usually smoked and drunk alcohol during pregnancy. Unaffected by all this, Paloma and Winni enjoy their time with their child. Alongside all the congregation’s problems, Pastor Book has worries of his own. For one thing, he is accused of neglecting his duty of supervision, since Paloma’s child was conceived on a youth trip that he organized and accompanied. As a result, he may no longer be considered fit to serve as a pastor and could be dismissed. For another, he has received bad news from the clinic, where he recently had a medical examination. Before he can really think about that, Paloma behaves in a way that is hardly responsible for a mother. She insists on going out again and comes home very drunk. When she is reproached, things come to a head, and Paloma makes a momentous decision. She hands her child over to Bodo Schüler, then changes her mind. But by then the child is gone. Pastor Book’s sister takes charge of the situation and urges her brother to pray. She immediately holds the pimp to account and demands that he hand over the child. But he brushes her off, saying there is nothing he can do now. It is no longer in his hands, because this is a different league and those people don’t mess around. He was only the middleman. But his employee “Kautschuk” says he will get the baby back, and he actually succeeds. After this ordeal, Pastor Book realizes that he has failed and that the youth welfare office is probably a better caregiver for the young mother and her child after all. After he baptizes the child over the weekend, the two are to move to a mother-and-child home. While Pastor Book was officially on vacation so he could look after Paloma, the young curate Anke Bertram took over his duties. When she cared for the frail Rosi and visited her in hospital, she managed to discover that Rosi is church caretaker Eddi’s mother. Overjoyed to meet his biological mother after all these years, Eddi takes her out of the hospital and says he will never let her go again. Pastor Book, however, believes that Rosi can never be Eddi’s mother. The curate merely replies, “Faith can move mountains.”