Four German bishops said Monday that the country’s controversial “synodal way” was not advancing “hand in hand” with the global synodal process.
In a Nov. 4 joint statement, the four diocesan bishops criticized the German synodal way in light of the recently ended synod on synodality in Rome.
Cologne’s Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Eichstätt’s Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke, Passau’s Bishop Stefan Oster, and Regensburg’s Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer contrasted the German initiative’s methods and goals with those of the Rome synod.
Their intervention could further complicate plans for a new “national synodal body,” supported by most of Germany’s diocesan bishops and the influential lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), but viewed with concern in Rome.
The German synodal way brought together the country’s bishops and select lay people to address four main topics — power, the priesthood, women in the Church, and sexuality — at five assemblies in Frankfurt between 2020 and 2023.
Participants produced 150 pages of resolutions calling for women deacons, a re-examination of priestly celibacy, lay preaching at Masses, a greater lay role in selecting bishops, and a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexuality.
The four bishops expressed gratitude for the synod on synodality’s final document, which Pope Francis authorized for publication Oct. 26.
They said the text defined the “essential goal of a synodal Church” as “the sending and forming of missionary disciples who go together to proclaim the Gospel and invite people into friendship with Christ.”
The bishops said that much of the document’s vision of a synodal Church was “already structurally possible in Germany, particularly through the numerous advisory and co-determination bodies that already exist.”
Bishop Oster was the only quartet member who participated in the Rome synod, but all four bishops attended the German synodal way assemblies, where they formed what was perceived as a small conservative minority.
Reflecting on their experiences, they said: “In their view, spiritual discernment, listening to one another in a spirit of trust, and a focus on missionary discipleship were hardly present in Frankfurt.”
“Instead — according to their impressions and those of many others — there was a parliamentary-like process of pure majority-building and not of spiritual discernment, as the final document urges us to do.”
“In this way, a large majority in the hall with a liberal stance on Church policy issues wanted to push through their issues under massive public pressure. In doing so, however, it caused quite a few irritations and wounds among the entire people of God.”
The four bishops challenged synodal way supporters’ claim that the initiative addressed the structural issues underlying Germany’s devastating clerical abuse crisis.
“The Frankfurt assembly’s exclusive identification of four main topics as those that would structurally favor abuse hardly holds up according to current knowledge,” they said.
“Moreover, two of the four topics (celibacy and sexual morality) were not addressed in the synod on synodality’s final document.”
The bishops added that, in their view, “the goals of the German synodal way and the global synodal process do not go hand in hand in terms of content.”
“The four bishops are also willing to embark on the path initiated at the Rome synod with their fellow bishops and with as many other participants from as many Church groups as possible,” their statement said.
Quoting from the synod’s final document, the statement concluded: “[The four bishops] are guided by the question of what forms and structures will help the faithful people of God in Germany ‘to be a people of disciples and missionaries walking together.’”
The four bishops’ assessment of the Rome synod contrasted with that of Bishop Georg Bätzing, the chairman of the German bishops’ conference and head of Germany’s synod on synodality delegation.
Bätzing argued Oct. 27 that the Rome synod’s outcome affirmed “the Church in Germany’s desire to establish long-term synodal advisory structures at the national level.”
He was referring to a synodal way resolution, passed in 2022, calling for the creation of a permanent “synodal council” of bishops and lay people in Germany “by March 2026 at the latest.”
The resolution ordered the establishment of a temporary “synodal committee” — consisting of Germany’s 27 diocesan bishops, 27 ZdK members, and 20 other synodal way participants — to pave the way for the synodal council.
The Vatican vetoed the synodal council as defined in the resolution, on the grounds it would undermine the authority of the bishops’ conference.
The synodal way’s architects pressed ahead with the synodal committee, which held its first meeting in November 2023 and its second in June. It is due to hold a third in December.
The four bishops — Woelki, Hanke, Oster, and Voderholzer — blocked funding of the synodal committee from a common episcopal fund and boycotted its meetings.
In April, they said they would await the Rome synod’s outcome before deciding “how to take steps towards a more synodal Church in harmony with the universal Church.”
Their new statement did not mention the synodal committee but is being interpreted in Germany as a further rejection of the body’s legitimacy. If their boycott of the committee is permanent — which seems likely — the Vatican may question whether its decisions are truly representative of the German hierarchy.
Senior Vatican officials and German bishops have agreed to hold regular talks on the synodal way project.
At their last meeting in June, they discussed the creation of a “national synodal body” in Germany that is “not above or equal to the bishops’ conference.”
They said they would “continue to discuss further topics of an anthropological, ecclesiological, and liturgical nature,” after the synod on synodality concluded.
In September, ZdK representatives held talks with Vatican officials for the first time since the synodal way’s launch in 2019.
Synodal way spokespersons told the German Catholic news agency KNA Nov. 4 that the Church needed to focus on “further developing and expanding synodality in our dioceses and in our country with the help of the experiences of the global synod and our synodal way.”
“To do this is — as agreed — the task of the synodal committee,” they said.
