Germany: The Synodal Path Plans to Lengthen Its Process

As the press release indicates, it “became clear” during the second synodal assembly held in Frankfurt from September 30 to October 2, 2021 “that the deliberations require more time,” in particular because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

At the last synodal assembly - which ended abruptly - officials had already announced that they wanted to extend the “synodal path.”

In addition to the third assembly, scheduled for February 3-5, 2022, and the fourth, scheduled for September 8-10, 2022, the press release announces an additional synodal assembly, to be held from March 9-11, 2023. This has been confirmed by the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK).

The Presidents of the Synodal Path, composed of Irme Stetter-Karp (ZdK) and Bishop Georg Bätzing, said on this subject:

“We are very confident that, in the spirit of a Synodal Church, we will find common answers to urgent questions and that, moreover, even after the conclusion of the Synodal Path in the Catholic Church in Germany, we will continue to walk together, whatever form this path takes.”

During the last meeting in Frankfurt, the decision of the synod assembly to discuss the abolition of the sacramental priesthood sparked heated controversy. According to many participants, the conception of the sacrament of marriage must also be radically changed.

The president of the German episcopal conference criticized the numerous press articles according to which the synodal assembly wanted to abolish the priesthood. “It was not at all about abolishing the priesthood,” said Bishop Bätzing. It was about the fact that “the position of the sacramental ministry of the priest is called into question by the crisis of abuse and also by the lack of priests.”

The synodal forum wants on the contrary “to strengthen the position of the priestly ministry among the people of God” and thus “to support the priests,” continues the bishop. What has been “misunderstood” by some media is the mission entrusted to the forum to “positively recall the reason for and where the position of the priestly ministry is located among the people of God.”

The Bishop of Limburg even insisted: “No one can say that the German Church is about to abolish the priestly ministry! This is not true.”

Voderholzer: “We are not a permanent parliament”

At the beginning of October, the bishop of Regensburg, Msgr. Rudolf Voderholzer, criticized in an interview that the Synodal Path did not “sufficiently take into account” the teaching of the Church. “We are not a permanent parliament, but a community that lives the faith that becomes effective in love.”

The “Pontifex” media network, run by young Catholics, also reiterated its criticisms of the Synodal Path, already voiced several times in the past. In a press release published in mid-October, they said the following:

“The last session of the Synod Path in Frankfurt again impressively shows that there is no common learning of God and of men. On the contrary, it is increasingly proving to be a manifestation motivated and directed solely by the politics of the Church. For us young Catholics, it has thus definitively lost all credibility.”

The president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, thus declared that the Italian synodal process was not comparable to the German Synodal Path. The Italian cardinal’s remarks follow harsh criticisms by Cardinal Vinko Puljić, Archbishop of Sarajevo, of the “exotic ideas” of the German process, as well as extremely harsh criticisms from American archbishops Samuel Aquila of Denver and Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco.

Australian Cardinal George Pell along with Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini, English Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth and Spanish Bishop José Ignacio Munilla Aguirre of San Sebastián joined representatives of the Church and eminent theologians around the world who expressed their concern about the Synodal Path.