The German Synodal Way is in danger of “breaking its own neck,” according to a theologian close to Pope Francis, if it ignores the concerns voiced by an increasing number of bishops worldwide.
According to CNA Deutsch, a German-language news partner of CNA, Cardinal Walter Kasper also claimed that the organizers were employing a “lazy trick” that effectively constituted a “coup d’etat” and might lead to a mass resignation.
The 89-year-old German cardinal served as the Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart from 1989 to 1999. He is currently the President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
On June 19, he addressed an online study day hosted by the “New Beginning” (Neuer Anfang) initiative, a reform movement that is critical of the Synodal Way.
The Church, Kasper cautioned, was not a material that could be “re-molded and reshaped to suit the situation.”
A “fraternal open letter” to Germany’s bishops was published in April by more than 100 cardinals and bishops from around the world, warning that the process’ call for significant changes to Church doctrine may result in rupture.
The Nordic bishops underlined their anxiety at the German process in an open letter in March, and the president of the Polish Catholic bishops’ conference expressed grave worries in a strongly written letter in February.
Such concerns “will be repeated and reaffirmed and, if we do not heed them, will break the neck of the Synodal Way,” Kasper warned in his speech.
It was “the original sin of the Synodal Way” that it did not base itself on the pope’s letter to the Church in Germany, he said, with its “proposal of being guided by the Gospel and the basic mission of evangelization”.
Instead, the German process, initiated by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, “took its own path with partly different criteria”, Kasper said.
In June 2019, Pope Francis sent a 19-page letter to Catholics in Germany urging them to focus on evangelization in the face of a “growing erosion and deterioration of faith.”
The president of the German bishops’ conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, has repeatedly rejected all concerns, instead expressing disappointment in Pope Francis in May 2022.
In an interview published earlier this month, Pope Francis reiterated that he told the leader of Germany’s Catholic bishops that the country already had “a very good Evangelical Church” and “we don’t need two.”
“The problem arises when the synodal way comes from the intellectual, theological elites, and is much influenced by external pressures,” the pope said.
Bätzing, who serves as president of the Synodal Way, is also a signatory to the “Frankfurt Declaration”. This petition demands German bishops should declare their commitment to implementing resolutions passed by the process, CNA Deutsch reported.
On Sunday, Kasper decried this push for “commitment”, saying it was “a trick and, moreover, a lazy trick.”
“Just imagine a civil servant who allows himself to be appointed, then renounces the exercise of his legal obligations,” the cardinal said. “He would be sure to face proceedings under civil service law. Ultimately, such a self-commitment would be tantamount to a collective resignation of the bishops. Constitutionally, the whole thing could only be called a coup, i.e., an attempted coup d’état.”
Synods cannot be made institutionally permanent, Kasper insisted, thus the Church can never be governed by them. Instead, he asserted that a synod amounted to “an extraordinary interruption” of ordinary proceedings.
The Synodal Way, also known as Synodal Path, identifies itself as a procedure that brings Germany’s bishops and chosen laypeople together to discuss and adopt resolutions regarding how power is exercised in the Church, sexual morality, the priesthood, and women’s roles.
Draft resolutions supporting same-sex marriage blessings, the ordination of women as priests, and revisions to Church teaching on gay behavior have received support from participants.
Cardinal Kasper has voiced his worry about the procedure numerous times.
On Sunday, Kasper used the close-sounding German words Neuerung (“renewal”) and Erneuerung (“innovation”) to say one could “not reinvent the Church,” but rather one should contribute to renewing it in the Holy Spirit: “renewal is not innovation. It does not mean just trying something new and inventing a new Church.”
Instead, Kasper continued, true reform was about “letting the Spirit of God make us new and give us a new heart.”
Analogously, he said, the term “reform” applies to bringing the church back “into shape,” “namely, into the shape that Jesus Christ wanted and that he gave to the Church. Jesus Christ is the foundation, no one can lay another (1 Cor 3:10 f); he is at the same time the capstone that holds everything together (Eph 2:20). He is the standard, the Alpha and Omega of every renewal.”