New start on friday in five places at the same time

New start on friday in five places at the same time

At the beginning of the year, bishops and lay people launched the Synodal Way to the Future of Church Life in Germany with great elan. Then came Corona and changes in the church's big picture.

He had disappeared from the headlines – nevertheless bishops and lay representatives did not leave the synodal path. The reform project is to be continued on Friday with five regional conferences. The new format is due to the pandemic and takes the place of the second synodal assembly originally planned for the first weekend of September in Frankfurt.

50 participants each

A maximum of 50 participants each are to meet in Berlin, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Ludwigshafen and Munich for an exchange of ideas. The agenda includes an interim assessment of the "church experiences in the Corona crisis". But it will certainly not stop there. Finally, there is another "punch in the gut" to digest, as the "Suddeutsche Zeitung" called the Roman parish instruction published in mid-July.

According to the Vatican letter, lay people may participate in the leadership of the congregation, but only priests may actually lead, administer, moderate and coordinate. Efforts to entrust leadership to teams are directly contradicted by the Instruction. Laymen are still forbidden to preach at mass celebrations. In a so far hardly known clarity bishops contradict these guidelines.

Difficult omens

But if the efforts of most bishops to change and adapt to the German reality of Catholic life give rise to canonically motivated lectures – how and why should the four core topics of the Synodal Way continue to be discussed at all?? It seems hard to imagine that at the end of the Synodal Way there will be no far-reaching requests for change on the points of sexual morality, priestly lifestyle, power and the role of women. And then?

The withdrawal of Cologne's auxiliary bishop Dominikus Schwaderlapp from the working group on sexual morality, which was announced at the end of May, has been pushed into the background not least by the letter from Rome. Bishop Franz Jung of Wurzburg expressed the hope "that this example will not set a precedent, even if it is celebrated in certain circles". Schwaderlapp had justified his withdrawal by saying that the line taken by the majority in the forum was aimed at changing the Church's sexual morality.

Preparatory work for the synodal assemblies

Another piece of news from the working group on sexual morality is tragic: the accidental death of the Freiburg moral theologian Eberhard Schockenhoff has left a gap that will be difficult to fill, both in human terms and in terms of content. He was not only set as a mediator and moderator, he had played a significant role as a mastermind.

The four working groups are to do the preliminary work for the synodal assemblies. In addition to representatives of the synodal assemblies, experts on the respective topic participate in the groups. Corona-related, there was little opportunity for personal encounter. Nevertheless, the regional conferences will already discuss the content – specifically the topics of women and sexuality – but of course no decisions will be made.

Disagreement on sexual understanding

Templates for both topics were published in advance. The paper on sexuality, with some controversial votes, shows the breadth of Catholic thinking: while a majority wants sexuality to be understood fundamentally "as a positive force given by God and as part of the personal identity of the human being," another group formulates that only "openness to a transmission of life" gives the sexual act its actual direction of meaning. Same-sex relationships are also valued differently. The question arises whether and how these positions can be reconciled with each other.

The working text on the role of women lists in detail and precisely what already seems possible under the conditions of canon law, but also formulates demands far beyond that. On Wednesday, the Bishop of Regensburg, Rudolf Voderholzer, spoke out in an open letter, accusing the authors of this paper of having violated agreements made in the Forum. For example, parts of the text were published that should have been discussed beforehand. The passages contained a "one-sidedly distorted biblical theology," according to Vorderholzer.

A difficult balancing act

The press spokespersons of the Synodal Way emphasized in response to a question that Vorderholzer's points would have to be "addressed and jointly clarified" in the forum itself. He says clear and transparent procedures at all levels of deliberation are very important to the presidium of the Synodal Way. The factual ies mentioned by the bishop could be "discussed in the regional conferences if they are raised there".

The Synodal Way, launched by the bishops as a result of the abuse scandal and the associated loss of trust, and supported by the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) on an equal footing, is unique at the level of the world church. Expectations are high. It is also clear that quite a few of the female participants expect more than warm words from their church in the end.

Georg Batzing, president of the Bishops' Conference, who was elected six months ago, knows this and expresses his willingness to make changes. At the same time, he has to be careful that the path he takes does not deviate too much from that of the headquarters in Rome. A balancing act for which the term "expectation management" is used. Also responsible for him at the regional conferences are his deputy in the conference, Franz-Josef Bode, Bishops' Conference Secretary Hans Langendorfer, ZdK head Thomas Sternberg and his deputy Karin Kortmann.

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Christina Cherry
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