Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising archdiocese is expected to formally open the cause before the end of the year.

According to German media reports, the archdiocese has appointed a postulator for the cause.

Guardini, an Italian-born German theologian, has influenced Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.

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German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a member of the Pope's council of cardinals, spoke at a conference in Dublin, Ireland.

The cardinal later told CNS, "When you see the institutions and the organisation of the Church, there must be a new relationship between laypeople and clerics."

Cardinal Marx said he had told Pope Francis on a several occasions, "We have to de-clericalise the curia and bring in more competent laymen and women and make the Church professional".

In his conference speech, the cardinal said he believes the Christian faith is "the religion of the future".

It is not a religion dealing in "magic" things, he said.

"It is instrument for a better world and that must be shown, and so it is very important that the Church has a positive view of the modern world," he said.

Cardinal Marx said the Church must provide formation to its members to deal with the complex issues in pluralist societies.

But this must be "without forgetting" their faith sources and principles.

In his speech, Cardinal Marx admitted there were episodes in history "when the Christian faith wasn't on the right side".

But he stressed that "in the future we want to be there in the development of a society which is based on values and responsible freedoms" based on the Church's social doctrine and Christian anthropology.

He said that Church teaching could help the economic world "think beyond capitalism" and challenge an outlook which assesses results only in economic terms.

After his speech, Cardinal Marx suggested the Church should not oppose civil unions.

But he said "marriage is another point".

He said that the "history of homosexuals in our society is a very bad history because we have done a lot to marginalise them, and so as Church and as society we have to say, ‘Sorry.'"

On Sunday, Pope Francis was asked about Cardinal Marx's comments about an apology to homosexual people.

The Pope said there are plenty of other groups who probably also deserve a Church apology.

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Crux
• Image: Catholic News UK

The president of the German bishops' conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, said Germany cannot "take in all the world's needy".

The question of how to respond to the migrant crisis, he said, should not solely be a matter of "charity, but also reason".

Germany has been struggling to cope with 1.1 million asylum seekers, who arrived in 2015.

Cardinal Marx also expressed concern at the rise in xenophobia in Germany amid the worst refugee crisis that Europe has known since the Second World War.

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In a report back to the synod, the German-speaking small group presented another way of looking at the issue.

They argue that the Church might be able to use what is called the "internal forum" to allow some civilly remarried persons to take the Eucharist on a private, case-by-case basis after seeking guidance, advice, and then permission from priests or bishops.

German Cardinal Walter Kasper had earlier proposed a "penitential path" for such couples in certain cases.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising said his group considered the internal forum possibility after debating different arguments made by St Thomas Aquinas.

The cardinal said the group had focused on arguments made by Aquinas that call for evaluating different situations to discern how to act in each situation.

"What is the application to the special situation and to the special person in his situation?" Cardinal Marx said they asked.

The cardinal said the proposed German process would involve a person, with guidance from a priest or bishop, looking back at the failure of the first marriage to see if they have made reconciliation with people they might have offended and are taking care of any responsibilities from that union.

"That is not a public process, but that is a spiritual way and then you can find a way if and when it might be possible to make a full reconciliation," said the cardinal.

According to Cardinal Marx, the German-speaking small group was unanimous in making the proposal.

The group includes Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

An Italian-speaking small group at the synod made a similar suggestion to the German one.

The reports of the 13 small groups at the synod were released earlier this week.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Abyssum.org

Speaking at the launch of the German edition of Cardinal Robert Sarah's book "God or Nothing - A Conversation on Faith", Cardinal Gerhard Müller hit out at his national church.

The cardinal accused German church leaders of trying "by hook or by crook" to deconstruct and relativise Catholic teaching on marriage "in order to make it seem that it conforms with society".

This is despite the fact that high numbers of German Catholics are leaving the Church and that its confessionals, seminaries and religious institutions are "empty".

Therefore claims by the German church to a leadership role must be examined critically, Cardinal Müller said.

"We must not deceive people as far as the sacramentality of marriage, its openness for children and the fundamental complementarity of both sexes are concerned," he said.

"Pastoral care has to keep in view the eternal salvation", as opposed to a desire to be popular or accepted in the world, he said.

Cardinal Müller said that the Church should not accept the secularising trend that is most evident in Western Europe, because it is not an "inevitable natural process".

While the trend is strong, he said, energetic evangelisation can counteract it: "With faith you can move mountains."

Speaking a few days after Cardinal Müller's comments, Cardinal Reinhard Marx said German Catholics should not expect their views to be adopted by the world.

Cardinal Marx, who is president of the German Catholic bishops' conference, said that Catholic teaching on marriage was by no means outdated.

The majority of people still hope for a life-long marriage and are open to children.

The Church must encourage this model of marriage and not only consider the possibility that it would fail, he said.

Cardinal Marx said he hopes that the upcoming synod on the family's message would be that lifelong marriage "is possible, but if you fail, we will stand by you".

The synod's purpose is to find common solutions to family problems in the world church, he said.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic World News
• Lifesitenews
• Image: Catholic News Agency

Marx, the President of the German Bishops' conference said he felt physically pained seeing protesters making the gestures and shouting the chants.

In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Marx labelled the emergence of a new xenophobia in Germany as disgraceful.

"Xenophobia and being a Catholic do not belong together", said the Cardinal Archbishop of Munich-Freising.

The Cardinal and Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chairman of the Protestant Church in Germany were lunching together and saw the events unfold on their smartphones when they decided to go to the Munich railway station to meet and greet the migrants arriving from Hungary.

Marx labelled their decision to go to the railway station, "spontaneous".

Most opposition to the migrant influx is coming from the Die Rechte (right party), and the Cardinal has repeatedly spoken out against nationalist violence by Germans opposed to Angela Merkel's open door policy to refugees.

While opposition to migrant influx is happening in pockets across Germany, the xenophobic actions are those of a vocal minority.

Generally, Germans are reaching out to the migrants.

In Munich, stockpiled food was handed out to Syrian arrivals, while in Frankfurt a human chain passed out bags of food, clothing and toiletries, and exhausted arrivals were greeted with balloons and banners saying "a warm welcome" and "we love refugees".

Source:

• Catholic Herald

Cardinal Reinhard Marx told a Munich meeting the synod may not be ready to approve allowing divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

The cardinal said "it will not be simple" to bring this about.

Cardinal Marx has been a supporter of Cardinal Walter Kasper's proposal of a penitential pathway for Catholics in such situations, that could, in some cases, lead to them being able to receive Communion.

The proposal has already received the support of the German bishops' conference, which Cardinal Marx heads.

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In an interview with French Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne, Cardinal Gerhard Müller called the notion "absolutely anti-Catholic".

The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the idea does not respect the catholicity of the Church.

"Episcopal conferences have authority over certain issues, but not a magisterium alongside the Magisterium, without the Pope and without communion with the bishops," Cardinal Müller said.

He also responded to recent remarks by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the president of the German bishops' conference.

Cardinal Marx argued that the German bishops were "not just a subsidiary of Rome" and needed to set their own policies on marriage and the family.

Cardinal Marx said: "Each episcopal conference is responsible for the pastoral care in their culture and has to proclaim the Gospel in its own unique way.

"We cannot wait until a synod states something, as we have to carry out marriage and family ministry here."

In a translation published on the Rorate Caeli blog, Cardinal Müller said "an episcopal conference is not a particular council, even less so an ecumenical council".

"The president of an episcopal conference is nothing more than a technical moderator, and he does not have any particular magisterial authority due to this title."

Cardinal Müller said hearing that an "episcopal conference is not a ‘branch of Rome' gives me the occasion to recall that dioceses are not the branches of the secretariat of a bishops' conference either, nor of the diocese whose bishop presides over the episcopal conference".

"This kind of attitude risks in fact the reawakening of a certain polarisation between the local Churches and the Church universal, out of date since the Vatican I and Vatican II councils.

"The Church is not a sum of national churches, whose presidents would vote to elect their chief on the universal level."

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Rorate Caeli
• National Catholic Register
• Image: Catholic News Agency

In a lengthy interview on Lifesitenews, Cardinal Raymond Burke criticised what he called confusion in the Church.

Cardinal Burke was asked about other prelates who had pointed out good qualities in relationships the Church defines as irregular or immoral.

"If you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin there isn't any good act that you can perform that justifies that situation: the person remains in grave sin," Cardinal Burke said.

People living in what the Church calls gravely sinful situations are called to conversion, he added.

Asked if being "kind" and "generous" and "dedicated" is enough, Cardinal Burke replied: "Of course it's not. It's like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people."

In commentary on the Religion News Service, David Gibson noted that the Church has always taught that sin is sin and some sins are particularly serious.

But comparing cohabitation, homosexual relations and adultery with murder in any context is unusual, and certainly out of step with the pastoral tone that Francis has set in his papacy, Gibson wrote.

During last year's family synod, several prelates spoke about the lives of unmarried or remarried couples as having value that the Church should recognise.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn has repeatedly stressed that the Church should "look at the person and not the sexual orientation".

Similarly, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, a senior adviser to Francis, once said that "one simply cannot say that a faithful homosexual relationship that has held for decades is nothing".

"We just mustn't lump things together and measure everything with the same yardstick, but must differentiate and take a closer look, which doesn't mean that I endorse homosexuality as a whole," he said.

Last year, Pope Francis did not reappoint Cardinal Burke as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura when his term expired.

Instead the cardinal was given a largely ceremonial role with the Order of Malta.

Sources

• Religion News Service
• Lifesitenews
• Lifesitenews
• Image: Time

According to the Catholic News Agency, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes wrote a letter to a German language newspaper objecting to statements by two prelates from his homeland.

In February, German bishops' conference president Cardinal Reinhard Marx said: "We are not a branch of Rome."

"We cannot wait for a synod to tell us how we have to shape pastoral care for marriage and family here," Cardinal Marx said.

Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabruck - a fellow synod delegate with Cardinal Marx - urged that "the reality of men and the world" be a source for theological understanding.

Cardinal Cordes, who is president emeritus of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, stated if Cardinal Marx wanted to put up Germany as an example, he is being fooled by wishful thinking.

Cardinal Cordes, 80, noted that a recent survey shows that only 16 per cent of Catholics in western Germany believe God to be personal.

"The existing German ecclesial apparatus is completely unfit to work against growing secularism," he wrote.

He also slammed Cardinal Marx's comment about not being a branch of Rome as more suited "to the counter of a bar".

"The president argues about the drama of the divorced and remarried.

"This matter reaches far beyond regional particularities of a pragmatic nature, of a given mentality and cultural background."

"This matter is bound to the very centre of theology," Cardinal Cordes wrote.

"In this field not even a cardinal can loosen such a complex Gordian knot in a single sword stroke. He has the sacramental theology of the Council of Trent."

In response to Bishop Bode's comments, Cardinal Cordes stated Vatican II taught would be erroneous to see the "signs of the times" in the life of people simply as a "source of faith".

In contrast, he noted, the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, Dei Verbum, "leaves no doubt that faith in the Catholic Church feeds solely from Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium".

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• The Tablet
• Image: Lifesitenews

Cardinal Reinhard Marx told the French Jesuit journal Etudes that he finds this "concept" to be problematic.

The term "new evangelisation" was referred to by St John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio (33).

Its application is in places where large numbers of baptised Christians have drifted away from living the faith or no longer consider themselves to be members of the Church.

Cardinal Marx said the new evangelisation "could be mistaken for a model for a spiritual reconquest", as if the aim was to regain lost ground.

"It is not, however, about restoring or repeating what existed in the past, but rather, a new start, a new approach, a new situation," he said.

"In many discussions on the new evangelisation, I get the impression a lot of people think that most of Christianity's history is behind us and what lies ahead is an uncertain and distressing future.

"That is not the way to evangelise."

The cardinal said the issue is not about "a simple communication problem".

"This would mean that if we had more people, more financial resources and a stronger mass media presence, we could reach our goal."

But Cardinal Marx said he might well be able to accept the "new evangelisation" concept if it is accompanied by Church renewal.

He said there needs to be "an emphasis on the fact that we, not just Europe but we as a whole, are in a new situation with regards to the faith and we thus need to renew our way of thinking".

"In actual fact this is the process followed by the entire history of the Church," he said.

"We ourselves, as Church need to read the Gospel again and understand it, then live it," he noted.

For this reason, "it is not religious entrepreneurs that we need, but witnesses and testimonies".

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Redemptoris Missio
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

Cardinal Reinhard Marx told a German newspaper the German Church "cannot wait" for synodal statements, as marriage and family ministry has to be undertaken now.

The German bishops therefore want to publish their own pastoral letter on marriage and family after the synod, the article stated.

"We are not just a subsidiary of Rome," Cardinal Marx said.

"Each episcopal conference is responsible for the pastoral care in their culture, and has to proclaim the Gospel in its own unique way.

"We cannot wait until a synod states something, as we have to carry out marriage and family ministry here."

As far as doctrine is concerned, the German episcopate remains in communion with the Church, the cardinal said.

But on individual issues of pastoral care, "the synod cannot prescribe in detail what we have to do in Germany".

Cardinal Marx and the majority of German bishops favour German Cardinal Walter Kasper's proposal to allow some divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion after a period of penance.

Cardinal Marx hopes the synod will result in "a further discussion", and said that it must find a text that "would lead to further progress" towards finding a common theological position on fundamental issues.

But he said theological questions regarding marriage, the family and sexual morality could not be answered during the three weeks of the synod.

Recently, in a book-length interview, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said detaching the Church's Magisterium from pastoral practice amounted to a form of heresy.

"The idea of placing the Magisterium in [a] jewellery box and detaching it from pastoral practice, which could evolve at the mercy of circumstances, fashions and passions, is a form of heresy, a dangerous schizophrenic pathology," Cardinal Sarah said.

"So I say solemnly that the African Church will strongly oppose any rebellion against the teaching of Jesus and the Magisterium."

Sources

• National Catholic Register
• The Tablet
• Image: John Thavis

Earlier this month, Cardinal Pell, who is prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, told media the Vatican had US$1.5 billion in assets that had not been previously accounted for.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is president of the Vatican's Council of the Economy, expressed doubts as the wisdom of the revelation.

"Such figures are not very helpful and I personally am always reticent about quoting figures," Cardinal Marx told the German Catholic News Agency.

"Assets figures only make sense if I connect them to the obligations I have," he said.

The secretariat reports to the economic council, which is headed by Cardinal Marx.

The council has overarching responsibility for all the financial activity of the Holy See.

But Cardinal Marx admitted: "Up to now it was not usual and to a certain extent impossible to conduct a real overall budget which was up to international standards."

"That must change," he added.

Progress on reforms aimed at financial transparency at the Vatican was reported to cardinals who met earlier this month.

There was heated debate over proposed statutes for the council and the secretariat.

Some fear that too much power would be given to a "super-dicastery" headed by Cardinal Pell.

According to Vatican Insider, what is proposed contradicts the principal of real separation of oversight and operations as insisted on by the president of the Vatican Bank.

Concerns about the proposed statutes, raised by the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, were dismissed by Cardinal Pell,

He said an alternative set of statutes proposed by this body would have hamstrung reform efforts.

Vatican Insider pointed out that the pontifical council was asked to do this work by Pope Francis.

Before the meeting of cardinals, South African Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier said the pontifical council went beyond its remit.

The Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples has been cited as one large Vatican agency that has been notably resistant to financial reforms.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Vatican Insider
• Catholic News Service
• Crux
• Image: Zimbio

The members of the council are from throughout the world, reflecting the universality of the Church.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising in Germany, is the council's coordinator.

The other cardinal members come from the United States, South Africa, Mexico, Peru, France, Hong Kong and Italy.

The council's lay membership includes experts in financial matters from various parts of the world, including Europe, Canada and Singapore.

The council will determine policies to be implemented by the new Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican, headed by Australian Cardinal George Pell.

This secretariat will have authority over all economic and administrative activities within the Holy See and the Vatican City State.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, described the new council's constitution as "a key step towards the consolidation of the current management structures of the Holy See".

It has the aim of "improving coordination and oversight of economic and administrative matters", Fr Lombardi said.

"The council is understood to be a body having the authority to act, and is not a mere advisory body of the Secretariat of Economy," he added.

The first meeting for the council is scheduled for May, although preparatory work will begin immediately.

Sources:

• Catholic News Agency
• La Stampa
• Vatican Radio
• Image: La Croix

"We are going to see that the issue is completely discussed", Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Reinhard Marx told Germany Spiegal News.

"The Prefect of the Congregation cannot end the discussion", the Cardinal Archbishop of Munch said.

Cardinal Marx said the German bishops are looking for a broad debate on the way that divorced and remarried people are treated by the Catholic Church,

Making the statement, the powerful German cardinal is taking on the head of the Congregation for the doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Muller.

Archbishop Muller recently restated the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage including the exclusion from Holy Communion for those Catholics divorced and remarried.

Marx told Germany's Spiegel News the Bavarian bishops want a broad debate on the way that divorced and remarried people are treated by the Catholic Church.

The Bavarian bishops do not want to accept the status quo, and discussions on this topic should not be narrowed solely to the teaching of the Church, the Cardinal said.

The Cardinal's comments come against the background of a global opinion survey being conducted by the Vatican.

In the survey, the Vatican wants to find out the views of Catholic communities on sensitive issues, such as dealing with divorce and homosexuality.

Asking Catholics to speak out, "Make the voices of the grassroots audible," urged the Cardinal

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Blogspot