As “denunciation,” the principal organiser of the Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality, “how many people have criticised the German “Synodal Way” in public.
In an interview with the German journal “Herder Thema,” Cardinal Mario Grech said that he “did not agree with the technique adopted by the critics” of the German procedure.”
The Synod of Bishops’ secretary general went on to say that he didn’t like the fashion: “A debate and correction among brothers is, in my opinion, extremely beneficial.
But why the public rebuke? It is ineffective. It merely causes further division.”
Grech said that he could “not specify the reason for the criticism of the procedure,” according to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
Trying to follow the German event, he said. “However, for me, following what is written is one thing, and following what really occurs is quite another. It takes time.”
The cardinal said, “Perhaps the communication, in general, should have been handled better.
“This would have helped us comprehend what was occurring in Germany better.” But he said that he has “faith in the German Catholic Church and that the bishops are doing the right thing.”
Grech, a Maltese native from Qala, was ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Gozo in 1984 when he was 27 years old.
The contentious pastoral guidelines on Amoris laetitia by the Maltese bishops, which claimed that divorced and remarried Catholics might receive Communion in some circumstances and after “honest discernment,” were co-authored by him and another author.
A synod is not “Synodal Way”
It is incorrect to refer to a synod as the “Synodal Way” or Synodaler Weg in German. Instead, the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics are in charge of carrying out the process that Cardinal Reinhard Marx began (ZdK).
The discussion will centre on four primary issues: how authority is exerted inside the Church; the priesthood; women’s roles; and sexual morality.
In his letter to German Catholics in 2019, Pope Francis warned against divisiveness while writing of the “Synodal Way.”
In June 2022, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German theologian closely associated with Pope Francis, issued a dire warning, stating that the German process runs the danger of “breaking its own neck” if it ignores the concerns voiced by an increasing number of bishops worldwide.
A “fraternal open letter” to Germany’s bishops was published in April by more than 100 cardinals and bishops from across the globe, warning that the process’ call for significant changes to Church doctrine may result in rupture.
The Nordic bishops voiced concern about the German procedure in an open letter published in March. A sharply worded letter from the head of Poland’s Catholic bishops’ organisation in February caused significant anxiety.
Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, the head of the German Bishops’ Conference, has consistently dismissed any worries and expressed displeasure in Pope Francis in May 2022.
The “Synodal Way” allegedly sought to alter the Church’s position on homosexuality by recommending “a deliberate declaration against the existing Catholic catechism,” according to a later organiser of the German process.”
He cited a passage that discussed shifting attitudes about homosexuality as well as masturbation, marriage, sexual passion, and other themes relevant to Catholic theology.
The Vatican restated in its statement from July a section of Pope Francis’ letter from 2019 that forewarned—in German—about some Churches being “isolated from the whole ecclesial body, “adding that “they would weaken, rot, and perish” under such circumstances
The fourth synodal gathering of the “Synodal Way” will take place in Frankfurt from September 8 to 10, according to CNA Deutsch.