The Pope Asks German Bishops to Find Unanimity regarding "Intercommunion"

On May 3, 2018, the main actors in the quarrel on access to sacramental Communion for Protestant spouses of Catholics – Cardinals Reinhard Marx and Rainer Maria Woelki – met at the Palace of the Holy Office with Archbishop Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

After the meeting, the Holy See Press Office published a statement in Italian and German. The statement explains that “Pope Francis appreciates the ecumenical commitment of the German bishops and asks them to find, in a spirit of ecclesial communion, a result as unanimously as possible.” In other words, he refuses to resolve this disciplinary issue that is oh-so-closely connected to doctrine.

In February 2018, three quarters of the German hierarchy voted in favor of a pastoral handbook that would grant access to Communion for Protestants married to Catholics. But seven bishops, including Cardinal Rainer Woelki, archbishop of Cologne, asked the Holy Father to step in. Hence the May 3 meeting at the Palace of the Holy Office.

The problem of inter-communion and the non-decision of the sovereign pontiff highlight not only the doctrinal question, but also the intentional “decentralization” of the Church and the authority of the episcopal conferences. Ever since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has consistently delegated as much power as possible to the local Churches, at the risk of diluting and weakening the supreme authority in the Church and promoting a form of Synodality.

The rules that currently apply were established by John Paul II in the Motu Proprio Apostolos Suos on May 21, 1998. They stipulate that the doctrinal declarations of the episcopal conference must be unanimously approved in order to have any magisterial authority. If such is not the case, they need recognition by the Holy See. The Holy See’s refusal to grant this recognition for the time being is doubtless a sign of its discomfort, but also of its desire to obtain a consensus. For the “recognitio of the Holy See serves furthermore to guarantee that the doctrinal response will favor communion and not harm it and will rather prepare an eventual intervention of the universal magisterium” (§22). Does this mean that if unanimity is reached, the decision of the German Conference could prepare a universal decision from Rome?

A little over a year ago, on April 18, 2017, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, warned: “Without a common faith, the Church is threatened by confusion and then, progressively, she can slide into dispersion and schism.”

This is precisely the current problem of the crisis of the Church, that maintains a state of latent schism; it is a lack of Faith that affects the liturgy, doctrinal teaching, and the very government of the Church.