Posts Tagged ‘German bishops’

Pope says Church renewal starts in Confession

Tuesday, November 24th, 2015

The beginning of the renewal of the Church begins in Confession, Pope Francis has told Germany’s bishops. Pope Francis spoke to the German bishops in audience on November 20 and offered a blunt assessment of their nation’s church. The Pontiff said he hoped the Jubilee Year of Mercy might revive the sacraments of Confession and Read more

Bishops won’t let synod dictate pastoral practice in Germany

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015

The president of the German bishops’ conference says October’s synod on the family cannot prescribe in detail the pastoral practice for Germany. 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 Read more

Churches share blame for war-mongering before World War I

Friday, August 1st, 2014

Germany’s Catholic bishops have acknowledged that churches share responsibility for “war-mongering” in the build up to the First World War. In a statement, the bishops said the Great War’s dimensions were “shocking”. The conflict from 1914 to 1918 left 16 million dead and 21 million wounded. The centenary of the outbreak of the war was Read more

German bishops continue with communion plan for divorcees. Bishops say CDF head is not the Pope

Saturday, January 4th, 2014

The leader of the German bishops’ conference has defended a plan by the prelates to offer Communion to divorced Catholics, saying he feels “strengthened” by Pope Francis on the matter despite opposition from the Vatican’s highest doctrinal official. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Episcopal Conference, says that in reflecting on the opposition to Read more

Liturgy: Lost in translation

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
bad good intentions

The German bishops are developing guidelines that would allow Catholics who have divorced and remarried to once again share the Eucharist. The head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said the bishops cannot do that because mercy is not a valid principle to use in pastoral care where the sacrament Read more

German bishops eye guidelines for divorced Catholics

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013

Church officials in Germany defended plans by the country’s bishops’ conference to allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, insisting they have the pope’s endorsement. “We already have our own guidelines, and the pope has now clearly signaled that certain things can be decided locally,” said Robert Eberle, spokesman for the archdiocese of Read more

German bishops reveal wealth, lose Catholics

Friday, October 18th, 2013

The high-spending behaviour of the Bishop of Limburg has promoted other German bishops to reveal the value of their private endowments — and encouraged a growing number of Catholics to leave the Church. After being accused of lavish spending, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg has travelled to Rome to meet officials at the Vatican, Read more

German bishops produce new Mass translation

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

The German bishops have tabled a controversial new Mass translation that had been a bone of contention between them and the Vatican under the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the president of the German liturgy commission Ecclesia celebrans (the equivalent of the English Vox Clara), presented the new translation. His Read more

Doctors differ over German bishops and morning-after pill

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

Germany’s Catholic bishops have decided that Catholic hospitals should provide the “morning-after” pill to rape victims “as long as this has a prophylactic and not an abortive effect”. But some Catholic doctors, who say the bishops relied on inaccurate medical information, question the assertion that this pill can function solely as a contraceptive. The bishops Read more