On returning from their 14-19 November ad limina visit to Rome, several leading German bishops announced that they would continue discussing issues such as admitting women to Church ministries which had been declared as non-negotiable by the Vatican.
In Germany, women’s role in the Church would be the key issue in future, conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing underlined at the Catholic Forum in Koblenz (“Katholisches Forum Koblenz”) on 25 November.
“It is difficult to imagine a future for the Church in our country unless we smooth the way to admitting women to Church ministries”, he warned.
The German Synodal Path for Church reform was merely taking up the “decade-long reform backlog” and similar demands for Church reform were being discussed worldwide, Bätzing pointed out.
The Vatican had made it quite clear which topics were non-negotiable “but that is not a stop sign for the all-important and necessary German Synodal Path discussions we are having – for example further opening admission to church ministries”, Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, who is also Bishop of the Military in Germany, underlined in a press statement.
“Such an authoritarian stop sign can no longer be prescribed here, as we are a listening Church”, he added.
The “non-negotiable” German Synodal Path’s proposals for church reform were addressed to Rome as requests. “One cannot forbid a request. One can only either grant it or refuse to grant it”.
The discussions between the German bishops and Pope Francis and the heads of Vatican dicasteries had been “tough but fair”, Bishop Felix Genn of Münster underlined in a diocesan press statement on his return from Rome.
In their two-hour meeting with Pope Francis the German bishops had brought up all their urgent questions. Francis’ replies had never been a “clear yes or no”, Genn noted but had rather emphasised the importance of synodality.
The Vatican remained “very reserved” as far as the German Church was concerned which meant that further talks between the German bishops and Rome were called for, he emphasised.
None of the conservative bishops, who are in the minority but have Rome’s support, have spoken out since their return from Rome.
Loading ...
