Münster will become the latest German diocese Friday to experiment with expanding the laity’s role in the selection of a new bishop.
A diocesan council will elect 16 lay people Feb. 7, who will help to identify three candidates to succeed Münster’s Bishop Felix Genn, the website kirche-und-leben.de reported.
Genn, who turns 75 March 6, offered his resignation to Pope Francis on Oct. 18, 2024, during an audience on the sidelines of the synod on synodality in Rome.
Münster is following the dioceses of Paderborn and Osnabrück in seeking to give lay people a clearly defined role in the appointment of new bishops.
The push to increase lay involvement is inspired by Germany’s controversial synodal way, which passed a resolution in 2022 calling for greater inclusion of “the people of God of the diocesan local church in the appointment of bishops.”
The drive received a further boost from the 2023-2024 synod on synodality in Rome. The synod’s final document, endorsed by Pope Francis, said that delegates desired “that the People of God have a greater voice in choosing bishops.”
Opponents of greater lay involvement express fears it would politicize the selection of bishops, potentially creating divisions among local Catholics supporting different candidates.
Church law already allows lay people to participate in a limited way in bishops’ appointments. Canon 377 §3 says that apostolic nuncios — the pope’s ambassadors — can seek the opinions of “laity outstanding in wisdom” on potential candidates.
The synodal way resolution called on cathedral chapters — which play a significant role in selecting German bishops — to work with an elected body representing “the entire people of God in the diocese” to determine a list of suitable candidates that the chapter sends to the Vatican.
But German dioceses have found it challenging to implement the resolution because bishops’ appointments are governed by concordats, or formal agreements, signed by individual German states and the Holy See both before and after the unification of Germany in 1871.
The Diocese of Münster, in northwest Germany, is governed by the Prussian Concordat. Under the concordat, members of the cathedral chapter compile a list of candidates that is submitted to the Vatican via the nuncio. After the Vatican sends back a list of three names, the cathedral chapter’s 16 voting members choose the next Bishop of Münster.
At a diocesan council meeting on Nov. 3, 2023, cathedral chapter members Fr. Antonius Hamers and Fr. Stefan Sühling said they wanted to “strengthen the participation of lay people in the appointment of the Bishop of Münster, as far as the canonical provisions and the so-called Prussian Concordat, which regulates the election, allow it.”
The 16 lay people elected by the diocesan council — described as the diocese’s “highest synodal body” — will meet with the 16 cathedral chapter members to discuss the ideal profile of a new bishop, after which they will talk about specific candidates.
Informed by the discussion, the cathedral chapter will compile its candidate list and send it to the nuncio.
“Although we are not allowed to involve lay people directly in the compilation of the list, we would not introduce the procedure in this form if the opinions of lay people were not important to us,” Hamers and Sühling said.
Experimentation with expanding lay participation in bishops’ appointments currently seems to be limited to the German-speaking Catholic world, where there is an established tradition of local involvement in nominations.
The Swiss Diocese of St. Gallen, for example, is currently seeking a new bishop using a complex process involving cathedral canons and a lay parliament.
The lay parliament made a significant intervention in the process in November, when it voted to expand the candidate pool to succeed Bishop Markus Büchel, who submitted his resignation when he turned 75 on Aug. 9, 2024.
