Czech theologian and Templeton prizewinner Tomáš Halík, has called on countries critical of German Church reform initiatives to overcome their prejudices against Germany, as it is an “important voice” in the World Synod.
In a KNA interview during the Prague assembly, Halík said the issues which the German Synodal Path is discussing with the aim of finding the systemic causes of clerical sexual abuse – namely the exercise of power in the Church, sexual morality, priestly lifestyle and the role of women – should not be tabooed but openly debated.
Two hundred delegates from throughout Europe gathered in the Czech capital last week to reflect on the fruits of synodal work at the national level. Nearly 400 participated online.
It was the European continental assembly for the third phase of the Synod on Synodality, where European bishops were involved together with clerical, religious and lay delegates.
The final report is not yet available but there is likely to be a call for improved formation, more acknowledgement of the impact of the abuse scandals and a celebration in 2025 of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second Vatican Council.
Some felt there was insufficient attention to crises of poverty, migration and environmental degradation.
Halík said that those who were critical of the German Synodal Path initiative because its reform proposals concentrated above all on institutional reforms were prejudiced against the German Church.
The German Synodal Path had “very sharply articulated important questions” that must be taken seriously. The German voice in the syndal process was a “most important voice”, Halík said.
If institutional reforms were to take place, they would require very thorough theological preparation.
Regarding German demands for a new sexual morality, he said it was “high time for [the Church] to develop a new, deep, theological anthropology”, arguing that the Church must take new findings in the natural and human sciences seriously.
“Sexuality, too, changes in the course of history and in cultural contexts,” he said.
The Church had experienced the sexual revolution of the 1960s as a shock and had taken a purely defensive attitude. It must now dialogue with those concerned, including gender studies representatives.
There was no prospect for the image of the Church as a fortress against the modern world. Its task was to proclaim the Gospel message “and that is only possible through inculturation – that is in dialogue with present-day cultures”.
German conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing told KNA that he would be “very glad if the reforms of some local Churches that are not yet relevant in other local Churches were to be allowed at World Church level” and gave recognition of gender diversity as an example.
“That is where, above all in Western Europe, we need to break new ground in order to give all human beings their full place in the Church if they are loyal to one another and lead responsible lives in the faith.”
“Totally different worlds collided in Prague. They are not only moving at different speeds but also have completely different concepts of synodality,” Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz told KNA in Prague.
“The Catholic Church can only remain one Church if it allows [different] regional solutions and ways ahead so that genuine unity in diversity is possible.”