The closed-door meeting between the Swiss cardinal and Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK), took place on Wednesday in Rome, according to a DBK communique.

The encounter between the two prelates was meant to put an end to a controversy that erupted on September 29 when the conservative German weekly Tagespost published an interview with the 72-year-old cardinal.

Read More

The 75 priests and lay Catholics who make up the parish council met just days after the conclusion of an apostolic visitation of the archdiocese.

The Vatican investigation of the largest archdiocese in Germany had been ordered by Pope Francis.

The meeting also followed a demonstration by a group of Catholics who walked from their parish some 30 km to demand that the cardinal resign.

The cause of the tension relates to Cardinal Woelki's refusal to publish an independent report on sex abuse in the archdiocese.

He had previously vowed to make the report public.

The 64-year-old cardinal set up a victims' council and commissioned a law firm to write up the report. But at a meeting with the council in October 2020, he backtracked and said he would not allow the report to be published.

Patrick Bauer, one of the council's members, said it was a "terrible meeting" that left the victims feeling betrayed.

To show his disappointment, he resigned from the victims' council. Soon others followed.

The cardinal then commissioned a second report, which was published last March.

But this has done nothing to ease tensions.

"All the people mentioned in the second report were mentioned in the first," said Bauer, who had access to both files.

"The only difference is that the first report looked at the systemic dimension of the abuse and its cover-up. The second one only looked at individual cases," said another person who also saw both documents.

Many argue that this is the real reason why Woelki decided to publish only the second report.

The ongoing crisis surrounding Cardinal Woelki comes when the Catholic church in Cologne sees members leaving in large numbers.

Discontent is largely fuelled by paedophilia scandals. But, many German Catholics are also demanding radical changes for a more inclusive church.

In Cologne's administrative court is an office where dozens of people come every day to officially leave the Catholic church.

Followers of all faiths in Germany are required to pay a tax to finance the religious institutions they belong to. This is registered by tax authorities.

The demand to leave the Catholic Church is so high, that the deregistration office has increased the number of appointments it offers from 600 to 1800 a month.

In defiance of Vatican doctrine, the blessing of homosexual unions is one of the expressions of a growing reform movement in Germany.

There is also a growing demand for equal rights for women in the church.

In the light of growing discontent within its institutions, the bishops' conference and the central committee of German Catholics are exploring ways to reform the church. In 2019, they launched a vast debate referred to as the 'Synodal Path'. Their conclusions are due in 2022.

The winds of change are blowing through the Catholic church in Germany.

That's why there is a campaign for reform and also for more plurality in the Church. Followers want more openness, and all believers want to stop more people leaving.

Only the future can tell whether these reforms will come to fruition.

Sources

La Croix International

EuroNews

The Church is at a "dead end" and the reputation of its bishops has, possibly, never been lower, his resignation letter says.

The pope gave Marx permission to make his letter of 21 May public.

"It is important to me to share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades," the letter says.

While there are many reasons for the crisis in Germany and the whole world, "this [sex abuse] crisis has also been caused by our own failure, by our own guilt.

"This has become clearer and clearer to me looking at the Catholic Church as a whole, not only today but also in the past decades. My impression is that we are at a ‘dead end' which, and this is my paschal hope, also has the potential of becoming a ‘turning point'.

"Everyone must assume responsibility in whatever way they think right," he wrote.

Marx challenges his fellow bishops to use the opportunity of the Church's mishandling of abuse scandal to save the Church and reform it.

The German synodal path for church reform "will come about more easily if the Church learns its lesson from the [abuse] crisis. It is a matter of renewal and of reforming the Church," he says.

A large number of Germany's 68 bishops - including the bishops' conference head - say they respect Marx's decision.

So far there has been no comment from the Vatican.

However, the head of Germany's lay Catholics, Thomas Sternberg, says he is "shattered" by Marx's resignation.

Marx initiated the German synodal path for church reform with him in December 2019. "Should the Pope accept his resignation, that will leave a huge hole in the German Church", Sternberg says.

Fr Mark Butaye from the Belgian bishops' conference, has written an open letter to the pope begging him not to accept Marx's resignation and to allow him to continue with the German synodal path for church reform.

Butaye says Marx has the "full support" of Czech theologian Fr Tomas Halik and Austrian pastoral theologian Fr Paul Zulehner.

The French bishops' conference president says Marx's letter to the Pope "gives the reason for his decision - but it is his aloneness that impresses me."

Until Pope Francis reached a decision as to Marx's future (as he has to approve his resignation for it to take effect), Marx will remain in office and carry out his usual duties.

Source

• The Tablet
• Religion News Service
• Image: Crux Now