Leo appoints Synodal Way enthusiast to Bavarian diocese

‘I think that a bishop has above all the task of being a servant of unity, that is important to me. That we don’t lose ourselves in winning fights now but that we always look at what actually connects and is central.’

Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop Christian Würtz to the Diocese of Eichstätt in Bavaria on 7 July. He succeeds Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke OSB who retired in June 2025.

Würtz, born in 1971 in Karlsruhe, is the youngest diocesan bishop in Germany. Holding doctorates in state and canon law and theology, he was ordained a priest in 2006.

In 2019 Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Freiburg, where he was also regens of the seminary and a tribunal judge. Würtz is a member of the German Bishops’ Conference’s Pastoral Commission and the Commission for Charitable Issues.

Bishop Heiner Wilmer of Münster, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, commented: “In our plenary I have always experienced you as constructive. With all my heart I ask you to bring this commitment to bear now in the committees of the Standing Council and the General Assembly of the Association of German Dioceses.”

In his letter of resignation last year, Hanke cited “inner exhaustion”, not least due to having to handle a complex financial scandal within the diocese.

Hanke was among the bishops who did not participate in the Synodal Way. While Würtz describes himself as more enthusiastic about reforms, he said this did not constitute a fundamental difference between him and his predecessor.

“I think that a bishop has above all the task of being a servant of unity, that is important to me,” he said. “That we don’t lose ourselves in winning fights now but that we always look at what actually connects and is central.”

The Church needs to always reform itself, Würtz said, describing his task as bishop in an interview with the broadcaster Bayrischer Rundfunk as “to be in conversation with all in order then to see what is the will of God in all that”.

He said there would be further discussions about reforms, including the relaxation of mandatory celibacy.

“You have to weigh it up very carefully … What do we give up when we give up compulsory celibacy, and what do we gain? That will certainly be a question that will occupy us again in the near future,” Würtz said.

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