According to the theologian Wunibald Muller, a jolt in the Catholic Church is still not taking place. Among other things, he would have liked the bishops to take active steps toward the abolition of compulsory celibacy.
On Thursday in Wurzburg, he accused the bishops of not having had the courage at their spring plenary assembly to take radical steps that would lead to a turnaround in view of the situation in which the church finds itself. Starting a synodal process, as announced by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, is always good, "but it sounds to me too much like putting things off and ultimately sitting it out.".
The theologian said he would have liked the bishops to address the pope with a petition asking him to take the first steps toward abolishing mandatory celibacy. For in addition to the celibate priest, there should "quite naturally" also be the married priest in the future.
Homosexual priests and women in ordained ministry
In addition, the bishops could have announced that in the future they would also ordain homosexual men as priests, Muller said. On women's ies, they should have committed to steadily increasing the number of women in permanent councils, with the goal of having half the members be women over time.
At the same time, the bishops should have pushed for women to be admitted to ordained ministry, Muller said. His idea would also have been that they call on bishops who have covered up sexualized violence to admit their guilt – and if they are still in office, to resign.
Muller was head of the Recollectio House in Munsterschwarzach from 1991 to 2016. The Recollectio House is an institution of the Abbey of Munsterschwarzach. It aims to give priests, religious and pastoral workers the opportunity to gather physically, psychologically and spiritually to strengthen themselves for pastoral tasks. The house is supported by the dioceses of Fulda, Freiburg, Limburg, Mainz, Munich-Freising, Paderborn, Rottenburg-Stuttgart and Wurzburg.