German Bishop Heiner Wilmer has claimed that the Catholic Church “utterly gambled away” people’s trust in the institution by the way it has mishandled the clergy sex abuse crisis. “Protecting the institution and the perpetrators was always the most important factor for the Church. (Protecting) the victims, on the other hand, simply did not occur,” Read more
The Church’s relevance in today’s society is diminishing, says Bishop Heiner Wilmer of Hildersheim, Germany. Last year, a record 272,771 Catholics in Germany formally left the Church. While Wilmer is concerned there could be a further drop in church attendance due to the coronavirus crisis, his main concern is the Church’s apparent irrelevance in today’s Read more
Small groups gathering for scripture services could be a better option than public Masses until the pandemic has further subsided, says German bishop Heiner Wilmer. By gathering for scripture services, people will gain new experiences with new and familiar forms of praying together, says Wilmer. “I am convinced that these new and familiar forms of Read more
One of Germany’s new bishops is calling for a “new theology” as an urgent response to revelations of the clerical abuse of power. “We still haven’t fully realised that the crisis of confidence is charging into the Church’s timberwork with unmitigated force,” Bishop Heiner Wilmer says. He has already drawn criticism from the establishment when, Read more