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Two top Vatican officials expressed concern that German bishops were allowing participants in the Synodal Path to adopt positions in contrast to the faith of the universal church, particularly regarding sexuality and women’s ordination.
The bishops met on 18 November with the heads of Vatican dicasteries to discuss the Synodal Path.
The German bishops’ conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics launched the path in 2019 in response to the clerical abuse scandal.
The meeting, at the end of the bishops’ “ad limina” visits to Rome, was chaired by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state. Formal presentations were made by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.
Ladaria focused his remarks on Pope Francis’ letter to German Catholics in 2019 about the Synodal Path and on how the local church and the universal church flourish together.
“If they find themselves separated from the entire ecclesial body, they weaken, rot and die. Hence the need always to ensure that communion with the whole body of the church is alive and effective,” the pope had written.
Ladaria acknowledged how, because of the abuse crisis, many Catholics “feel deeply betrayed by men and women of the Catholic Church” and “no longer have any trust in us bishops.
“It goes without saying that everything that can be done to prevent further abuse by clerics against minors must be done, but this must not lead to reducing the mystery of the church to a mere institution of power or to a prior consideration of the church as a structurally abusive organisation that must be brought under the control of super controllers as soon as possible.”
Ladaria also objected to the Synodal Path’s treatment of sexuality, which gives the “general impression” that in church teaching on sexuality “there is almost nothing that can be salvaged, that it all must be changed.
“How can one not think of the impact this has on many faithful who listen to the voice of the church and try to follow its indications in their lives,” he asked the bishops.
Both Ladaria and Ouellet expressed concern that the entire Synodal Path process has eclipsed the role of the bishops as successors of the apostles, called to guide the local churches and “authenticate the witness of the other disciples of the Lord”.
Ouellet also praised the seriousness with which the church in Germany was trying to confront the abuse crisis and its attendant crisis of trust, and he lauded the involvement of the laity in the Synodal Path, although he said they seemed to “have played an equal if not preponderant role”.
While saying he knows the bishops do not want to create a schism and are committed to making the preaching of the Gospel more credible in Germany, he said much of the Synodal Path seems to have responded more to “very strong cultural and media pressure” than to the Gospel.
Ouellet also told the bishops he found “surprising” the attitude taken by the Synodal Path “toward the definitive decision of St John Paul II concerning the impossibility for the Catholic Church to proceed with the ordination of women priests”.
Questioning that decision, he said, “reveals a problem of faith with regard to the magisterium and a certain intrusive rationalism” that has more to do with personal opinions rather than faith.
And, he said, along with other questionable positions adopted by the members of the Synodal Path, the position on women’s ordination “undermines the responsibility of the bishops” to guide the church and “appears to be strongly influenced by pressure groups”.
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