No Ordinations in the Diocese of Limburg in 2023

The number of priestly ordinations in the Church in Germany has remained stabilized at a low level for years. According to recent statistics published by the DBK, 62 men in total were ordained priests in Germany in 2021, including 48 secular priests and 14 religious priests.

In an interview for Die Zeit, Bishop Bätzing said he was troubled: “What worries me is that almost nobody wants to become a priest, because there is no Catholic Church without priests.”

This astonishment and concern seem rather unreal. Because the recruitment of seminarians cannot be assured under the present circumstances in Germany. How can one undertake it in the revolutionary climate imposed by the Synodal Path which has denied several points of the Faith and wants to put into place structures opposed to the divine constitution of the Church?

Furthermore, the formation of seminarians is clearly in contradiction with the promotion of ordained priesthood. Bishop Bätzing appointed Dr. Christof May as rector of the diocesan seminary. What is taught there can be read in the statements of one of the last priests to have been ordained:

“In my attentive interaction with people, I would like to promote the baptismal priestly vocation of the individual... to be a companion of the pilgrim people of God with the strengthening of the voluntary baptismal priesthood...” It is a program of depressing horizontality.

In September 2023, theology professor Thomas Laubach told the newspaper Sonntag: “The first Christians celebrated religious services in private, in homes They ate together, helped each other. They did not need a priest or an ecclesial community for their way of believing. Believers organize themselves.”

Then why would the Church need priests? The desertion of seminaries can be easily explained, and the synodal revolution will only make things worse.