Munich (dpa / lby) – Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx considers the reform process in the Catholic Church in Germany to be decisive, despite all the setbacks. “It takes openness and courage and the willingness to change,” writes the archbishop of Munich and Freising in his pastoral letter, which he dedicates this year to this reform process, the so-called synodal path.
He “hopes and prays” that this path in Germany “shows prospects for the future through all the turbulence and thus also contributes to the synodal process of the universal church”.
German Catholics have been working on a reform program for years. Progressive bishops and Catholic laypeople and conservatives are largely irreconcilable, and the Vatican has repeatedly made it clear that it opposes this.
Most recently, the ban from Rome hit a particularly central project: after the intervention of some conservative German bishops, the church headquarters in Rome spoke out against a core element of the reforms being sought in Germany. A Synodal Council as a permanent governing body in which clerics and non-clerics decide together is therefore not permitted.
The unity of the church is a “great good,” writes Marx. “But it doesn’t mean unity or uniformity, nor does it mean simply proclaiming certain statements and creeds without dealing with today’s world and people’s questions.”
Despite all the differences, the church must strive “to find common ground on the essential points. But that cannot succeed if we only repeat what was,” wrote Marx. “We have to take a step forward. Synod means going together and not standing still.”
It is about “not revolving around our own survival in a world with such challenging upheavals and crises as a church, but accepting the commission of Jesus here and now to proclaim the kingdom of God and the truth of the gospel, the treasure of faith do,” emphasized Marx. The process of becoming a synodal church is “an important and necessary building block for evangelization in our country”.
