Pope Francis said in an interview published on Tuesday that he told the leader of Germany’s Catholic bishops that the country already had “a very good evangelical church” and “we don’t need two.”
The pope recalled his remark to Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German bishops’ conference, during a conversation with the editors of Jesuit journals.
The dialogue, which also touched on the war in Ukraine and opposition to Vatican II, was published in La Civiltà Cattolica on June 14 but was conducted on May 19.
The pope was asked what he thought of the German “Synodal Way,” a controversial multi-year gathering of bishops and lay people to discuss four main topics: the way power is exercised in the Church, the priesthood, the role of women and sexual morality.