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A German archdiocese is selecting lay people to help to choose its next archbishop.
The incumbent, Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker, turns 75 next June and has submitted his resignation to Pope Francis.
The Archdiocese of Paderborn says it is drawing lots to choose a 14-member lay group made up of men and women.
Paderborn’s cathedral chapter plays a leading role in selecting archbishops. It submits a list of candidates to the pope, who selects three names. The chapter then selects the archbishop from the pope’s shortlist.
The archdiocese says the new lay group will work with 14 cathedral canons to draw up the initial list. They will also help choose the next archbishop from the three names the pope identifies.
The archdiocese’s new 28-person group developed from a text adopted by the German “synodal way”.
The text, “Involvement of the faithful in the appointment of the diocesan bishop,” says cathedral chapters should work with an elected body.
It also says the elected body representing “the entire people of God in the diocese” should determine the list of suitable candidates the chapter sends the Vatican.
Most chapter members in Paderborn diocese welcomed the document’s recommendations. In June they drew up proposals for involving lay people in electing an archbishop, according to the synodal way’s guidelines.
Paderborn is reportedly the first diocese to draw up a specific proposal to implement the synodal way guidelines.
Becker, a strong synodal way supporter, approves of including lay people’s input into the selection process.
The archdiocese’s website says “after the election … the relevant regional governments are first informed and asked whether there are any reservations of a political nature against the elected person. The pope then appoints the new archbishop”.
The initiative faces several major obstacles however.
The Vatican doesn’t want German dioceses introducing synodal way initiatives before the current global synodal process is concluded in October 2023.
In July the Vatican’s Secretariat of State said “it would not be permissible to initiate new official structures or doctrines” in German dioceses “prior to an agreed understanding at the level of the universal Church”.
As Paderborn archdiocese’s initiative is directly inspired by a synodal way resolution, it seems to fall under this prohibition.
The archdiocese itself has noted two further problems.
Firstly, lay people would be able to help select an archbishop from the final three candidates only if Pope Francis extended pontifical secrecy to the group.
Additionally, the concordat requires the new archbishop be elected by a majority of cathedral chapter members.
Therefore, the initial list of candidates the new 28-person group selects would be valid only if it were explicitly approved by a majority of canons.
But supporters of the change say Pope Francis named three women as members of the Dicastery for Bishops which oversees bishops’ appointments.
Earlier this week, Francis said “women are in charge of carrying out the motherhood of the Church, so to choose bishops it is good that there are women … it is an act of justice that culturally had been set aside”.
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