Posted on 05/09/2021 7:09:21 AM PDT by ebb tide
The chairman of the German Catholic bishops’ conference has insisted that the country’s Catholics are not “schismatics” seeking to “detach ourselves as the German national Church from Rome.”
Bishop Georg Bätzing told ACI Stampa, CNA’s Italian-language news partner, that the Church in Germany remains close to Rome, despite tensions over same-sex blessings, Communion for Protestants, and the country’s “Synodal Way.”
He said: “It is absolutely clear that there are matters that we can only discuss at the level of the Universal Church. We will contribute from Germany with our reflections.”
“However, I would like to reject the accusation repeatedly used of us being schismatics or of wanting to detach ourselves as the German national Church from Rome. Our bond with Rome and the Holy Father is very tight.”
In the interview published May 6, the 60-year-old bishop of Limburg explained that the German hierarchy launched the “Synodal Way” in response to the clerical abuse crisis.
The multi-year process brings together bishops and lay people to discuss four main topics: the way power is exercised in the Church; sexual morality; the priesthood; and the role of women.
The German bishops initially said that the process would end with a series of “binding” votes -- raising concerns at the Vatican that the resolutions might challenge the Church’s teaching and discipline.
Bätzing pointed out that, in terms of church law, the “Synodal Way” is not technically a synod but rather “a sui generis format.”
He said: “The central question is: how can we talk about God today and come to a deeper faith? Faith can grow and deepen if we free ourselves from fears and mental closures, if we ask the questions and look for ways in which the Church today can be present for people.”
He suggested that Pope Francis encouraged German Catholics to address this question in his 2019 letter to the local Church.
In the letter, the pope warned German Catholics not to succumb to a particular “temptation.”
Our bond with Rome and the Holy Father is very tight.”
In other words, Bergoglio approves of their schism and is not going to shut it down.
Ping
“Our bond with Rome and the Holy Father is very tight.”
That’s probably true but not a good thing.
Bergoglio and he are anti-Biblical heretics.
Schismatics never admit to being schismatics. They always insist on referring to themselves as “reformers” or sanctimoniously present their errors as a pastoral application of (in their eyes) malleable doctrine.
You need a bond with 2000 years of Church teaching and basic Natural Law, as well. Perhaps their argument is that they are not schismatics, just heretics and maybe apostates.
Germans always think they know best, so it’s likely true that they aren’t intending to break away from the Catholic Church but rather to remake the Catholic Church by jettisoning Church teaching on homosexuality, holy orders, etc. The fact is that Bergoglio *is* with them in spirit if not fully on board on paper, so this bishop is right when he claims a strong bond with Pope Francis and the Vatican. It’s a truly bizarre, unprecedented situation.
Ultimately, though, they (and Bergoglio) can’t break away from the Catholic *faith* without provoking a schism. Bergoglio understands this, and apparently is to some extent accepting of it, allegedly saying according to *German* newspaper Der Spiegel in 2016: “I may go in history as the pope who split the Catholic Church.”
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