In February of 2022, the “Synodal Way” will convene in Frankfurt, Germany. / Synodaler Weg/Max von Lachner
CNA Newsroom, Sep 7, 2022 / 06:31 am (CNA).
One of the founders of the German “Synodal Way” confirmed the intention of forming a permanent “Synodal Council” just prior to the next gathering.
The measure would establish a permanent body to manage the Church in Germany and is on the agenda for Friday, September 9 at the assembly.
Critics have compared the method to the communist Soviets and charged it with rewriting old Protestant structures.
Members of the “Synodal Way” will convene in Frankfurt from September 8 to 10 for the fourth synodal assembly.
CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, stated that a number of documents are slated for a second reading and may therefore be adopted.
The documents include requests for a revision in the Church’s doctrines on sexual morality, particularly regarding homosexuality.
Thomas Sternberg. (Rudolf Gehrig/CNA Deutsch)
Sternberg told a German online portal on Monday that a “Synodal Council” would be “a decisive, important continuation of the introduction of participatory structures, which began with parish councils at the Würzburg Synod (1971–1975) and is now proving to be increasingly urgent at the level of the bishops’ conference.”
The idea, like others stemming from the infamous German event, sometimes known as the “Synodal Path,” has received severe criticism.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a theologian considered close to Pope Francis, stated in June that, given Church history and theology, there could be no “Synodal Council”: “Synods cannot be institutionally made permanent. Church tradition is unfamiliar with synodal church government. As now envisioned, a synodal supreme council has no precedent in the entire history of the constitution. It would be an unheard-of innovation, not a renewal.”
Kasper has previously accused the organizers of the German “Synodal Way” of a coup d’état through the use of a sloppy tactic.
The president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who was bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart from 1989 to 1999, stated that the German process had invited comparisons to communist structures in the Soviet Union: “It was a political scientist, not a theologian, who recently referred to such a Synodal Council as the Supreme Soviet.”
Cardinal continued: “Soviet is an old Russian word that signifies just what we call a Rat in German, a council. Obviously, such a Supreme Soviet within the Church would not be a wise concept. Such a council structure is not a Christian concept, but rather one originating from an entirely different spirit or non-spirit. It would suffocate the freedom of the Spirit, who blows wherever he pleases, and undermine the structure Christ envisioned for the Church.”
In June, a professor of theology from the University of Vienna highlighted additional concerns.
Jan-Heiner Tück, a dogmatist, cautioned that a German “Synodal Council” would shift leadership authority “from sacramentally appointed persons to bodies, a conversion of power that demonstrates a clear affinity with synodal traditions in the German Protestant Church.”
The German process, which is not a synod, has courted controversy from the onset.
Thomas Sternberg and Bishop Georg Batzing during the second Synodal Assembly of the Synodal Way on September 30, 2021, in Frankfurt, Germany. Synodaler Weg/Maximilian von Lachner.
In an interview released one month later, in June, Pope Francis stated that he told Batzing that the country already possessed “a very good Evangelical [Lutheran] Church” and that “we don’t need two.”