German bishops demand 'a clear position on pressing issues'
Among the pressing issues identified is equal access for all baptised people to church offices.
In order to restore the Church’s credibility which has been shattered by the clerical sexual abuse scandals “the bishops need to take up a clear position on the pressing issues of our time”, according to the participants in the Germany Synodal Path who on 5 August published, through the bishops’ conference, a 13-page contribution to the 2023 World Synod of Bishops.
Among the pressing issues identified by the bishops and participants are “equal access for all baptised people to church offices; a reassessment of sexual morality; and a non-discriminatory approach to homosexual and queer people”.
The synodal path discussions have attracted keen interest both in the Church, among the general public in Germany, and further afield, including drawing comments from bishops’ conferences elsewhere in the world. The Pope has also made his views clear.
On 29 June 2019 he published a letter “to the pilgrim people of God in Germany” in which he said that “the universal Church lives in and of the particular Churches, just as the particular Churches live and flourish in and from the universal Church. If they find themselves separated from the entire ecclesial body, they weaken, rot and die. Hence the need always to ensure that communion with the whole body of the Church.” The letter was clearly a reminder to anyone who needed reminding that the German Church was not an autonomous entity.
On 21 July this year the Secretariat of State published an unsigned statement saying it was necessary to clarify “that the synodal way in Germany does not have the power to compel bishops and the faithful to adopt new forms of governance and new orientations of doctrine and morals”. The presidents of the German Bishops’ Conference and of the lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) said they were stunned by the intervention, but powerful voices in the Vatican were obviously concerned.
On the return flight from Canada on 29 July Pope Francis was asked about this statement. He confirmed it came from the Secretariat of State but insisted he had said “all he had to say” on the German synodal way in his 2019 letter to German Catholics.
In their 5 August document the synodal way participants revealed that fewer than 10 per cent of the diocesan faithful, most of them from the middle or upper classes of society, took part in the survey for the World Synod of Bishops.
They expressly wished that the four fundamental issues that they have been concentrating on in the past three years, namely power and separation of powers in the Church, priestly ministry today, sexual morality, and the role of women in the Church should be integrated into the 2023 World Synod. These are the issues, they claim, that are of great importance for local churches.
These issues were outlined by the authors of the 2018 abuse study commissioned by the German bishops’ conference which examined the causes of priestly sexual abuse. “Lending fresh credibility to the Church in Germany, and to Her mission in today’s society, is seen as a prerequisite for tackling the reforms needed within the Church relating to these topics. The core aim of the Synodal Path is to address the systemic causes of abuse and its concealment, so that the Gospel can be credibly proclaimed once more in the future,” the 5 August document states. That is, the participants took it for granted that the four identified categories had to be addressed if the abuse issue itself was to be addressed.
The topic of “listening” was extensively discussed, the document said. “Listening to God, to the faithful and to people, as well as to the signs of the times, is seen as the foundation of the synodal process.” Listening involved, among other qualities, a willingness to change. “Listening that does not lead to joint decision-making and concrete action does not go far enough,” the participants emphasised.
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