Rome dashes German plans for bishop-laity equality on Synodal Council
The day before the start of the meeting in Rome, the German Church revealed that 402,694 people left it last year.
Vatican officials told a delegation of German bishops that their “Synodal Path” talks could not introduce equal voting rights for bishop and lay members of a new decision-making body, and that body should not be called the Synodal Council.
“Regarding the status of this body, there is agreement that it is neither above the bishops' conference nor on an equal footing with it,” said a joint communiqué from the two parties after the bishops’ visit on 28 June.
They also discussed the composition of the German delegation to the next round of talks with the curia, scheduled for soon after the second Synod on Synodality session in October. Previous delegations have included only reform-minded bishops.
The Synodal Committee, a transitional body to establish new Church structures for the Synodal Council, will now work closely with Roman dicasteries “at the wish of the Vatican”, the communiqué said.
The official description of the talks as “open” hinted at differences between the parties. Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, the president of the German bishops’ conference, told a Synodal Committee meeting in early June it had received “the go-ahead” from Rome.
The Synodal Path talks, which predate the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality process, emerged as the German Catholic response to a shocking 2018 report on clerical sexual abuse.
Lay members have insisted that only deep reforms can address the clericalism they blame for the scandal – which has led to an exodus of baptised Catholics from the Church – and most bishops have come to share this understanding.
Only a day before Bishop Bätzing’s arrival in Rome, the German Church revealed that 402,694 people left the Church last year. That was fewer than the 2022 peak of 522,821, but still alarmingly high.
“The figures show that the Church is in an all-out crisis,” he said. “The crisis will worsen without reforms. And that is why changes are necessary.”
Four German bishops, including Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, have criticised the Synodal Path talks. At least one of the four may be in the delegation to Rome later this year.
Bishop Bätzing recently said the new Vatican document The Bishop of Rome, which argues a synodal Church could help Christian unity, proved the Germans were on the right track. “If the Pope does not fully exercise the power entitled to him under canon law … why should bishops not be able to do the same?” he asked.
The conservative Catholic Tagespost viewed the Vatican meeting differently. It headlined its report “Final end to the Synodal Council”.
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