Hereditary Bishop Heiner Koch © Romano Siciliani (KNA)
Bishops with Pope Francis in the synod hall © Cristian Gennari (KNA)
For Berlin Archbishop Heiner Koch, it is clear that all Catholics must abide by the decisions that Pope Francis will make after the conclusion of the Synod on the Family. German exceptions will not exist.
In an interview with the "Tagespost" (Tuesday), Koch said literally, "When the Holy Father speaks a clear vote, one way or another, I expect the entire Church, including the German Church, to abide by that vote. Point."
Koch also commented on the question of whether he saw room for changes in pastoral practice in Germany if the outcome of the synod did not correspond to the positions represented by the three German bishops (Marx, Bode, Koch). With certainty, the German family bishop said, "neither yesterday, nor today, nor tomorrow we will leave the connection with the Holy Father and the Catholic Church".
Koch expects loyalty to Pope Francis
At the same time, he said, he expects everyone "to live with the loyalty that was shown to John Paul II. and Benedict XVI. now also stands by Francis."He also has "great confidence that the Holy Spirit, also through the Pope, will lead us to a result that will teach us to recognize the truth anew.".
It would also have been "completely too short of the mark to say that we are reducing everything only to the ie of remarried divorcees," Koch continued. He cited marriage preparation, dealing with the elderly and dying in families, and the question of "what it means when so many people with other religions come to us now" as important other topics.
Koch wishes to have many ies in view from the church's perspective
Personally, Koch would like to leave Rome with the message that the church has many people and their different concerns in mind and heeds them. This would include homosexuals, who would wish not to be discriminated against but to be respected and appreciated. Or people who have children who have lost faith in God or separated from the church. Above all, he wanted to bring them the message "that we strengthen them, that we stand by them, that we don't leave them alone with their worries, that it was not an aloof, remote synod.".
Asked about the prere of expectation, Koch stressed that this prere is very much in opposition: there are people who expect "the church to stick clearly to its line, even if this then leads to the church being rejected even more and people turning away from it". Others, however, said "that God is close to us precisely in people in brokenness and we need to listen to them much more". Between the two, he said, was "a whole range" of different perspectives.