Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg has sharply criticised the German synodal procedure for church reform and has founded an alternative internet platform for reform suggestions in order to keep the German Church in line with the World Church.
“We will go along with the synodal path, but have become increasingly convinced that it will not achieve its purpose if it continues on the path it has taken so far. We firmly believe that only a synodal procedure which accompanies and remains in the universal Church is good and target-oriented,” he underlined on the new platform www.synodale-beiträge.de .
He was concerned that at their coming meeting from 30 September – 2 October, the (German) synodal procedure delegates would “take decisions on issues that were integral to the unity, breadth and depth of the Church and that these issues will lead to a dead end. The Church is Christ’s foundation and cannot be changed by majority ratios”, he told KNA. It was not an institution that could be modelled on a democratic social system.
In October 2019, the German bishops decided to adopt a “binding synodal procedure” designed to reduce clerical power and address clerical sexual abuse and the celibacy rule. Together with member of the (lay) Central Committee of German Catholics, the bishops are discussing the following subjects in four forums: “Power, Participation, Checks and Balances”, “The Priestly Lifestyle”, “Sexual Morality” and “Women in Church Service and Offices”. The large majority of German bishops approves of the four forums, but a small minority, including Cardinal Woelki of Cologne and Bishop Voderholzer are critical.
The way the forums were put together and the whole debate culture made appropriate dialogue very difficult, Voderholzer pointed out. There had been criticism, he said, but it had “not been taken into consideration” because the majority was in favour of what was being discussed.
“We are convinced that it is crucial that the synodal procedure should not end in frustration and lead to a schism. It must come to constructive results”, the dean of Bonn, Fr Wolfgang Picken, who is one of the authors of the new internet platform, emphasised.
The first text on the new platform is a contribution to the forum on “Power. Participation, Checks and Balances”. It is by Bishop Florian Wörner (auxiliary Augsburg), theologian Marianne Schlosser and journalist Alina Öhler – who repeat the views they brought up at the forum discussion and deplore that they were “taken no notice of” at the time.
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