The German synodal Sonderweg on its way to a never-ending story

When the Plenary Assembly of the Synodal Path began its work for the first time in the Advent of 2021, there was never any talk of a “first phase”, i.e. the option of an extension, sequel or even permanent establishment of a “synodal” body of any kind for the Catholic Church in Germany.

Now, after the end of the official Synodal Path with its last meeting in March 2023, one speaks openly on the website of the German Bishops’ Conference of a “provisional conclusion”, because “the Synodal Committee will take over the further processing of the topics afterwards.” This follow-up committee, which is again composed of bishops and lay people, but in a different constellation, has been entrusted with a clear task: to continue to discuss the topics and to adopt those papers on which it has not yet been possible to reach agreement. Another explicit task is the conception and installation of a “Synodal Council” for Catholics in Germany. Quite a lot of “synodal” structures and terminology…

Final goal: A pseudo-church parliament

But this would at least answer the question of what the ultimate goal of this whole process under the label “Synodal Path” is supposed to be: to establish a pseudo-church parliament called “Synodal Council” in Germany, which is supposed to limit the power of the bishops in order to pass on to the laity the competences of deciding not only on factual issues, structures, and funds, but also on the content of doctrine. Of course, one does not say so, but it emerges from the seamless transfer of tasks from the first body and the purpose of the Council. So the last phase of the Synodal Path is to be a never-ending synodal story with structure and, above all, with a budget.

Now it has long been apparent that the papers and demands discussed on the Synodal Path have nothing to do with what was originally used as a cover to start it in the first place. From the pretended coming to terms with the abuse crisis, one came within a very short time to all the usual old demands of a left-wing church movement: allow women’s priesthood, disempower bishops, allow homosexuality (even in seminary), give same-sex couples a Church blessing, recognize the LGBT agenda and its theory of gender diversity even in the Church, allow baptisms and sermons even by lay people. There was even a serious discussion about whether priests were still needed in the Catholic Church and, of course, the left-liberal evergreen: abolition of celibacy.

About the abuse of the abuse

It speaks for itself that while four forums were set up on the topics of women, power, priesthood, and sexuality, no forum was set up on the topic of clerical abuse. To the present day, moreover, the associations of abuse victims in Germany complain that they were not given any space or a say there. No wonder, as no one really wanted to hear them. Then one would have had to talk seriously about why the “legalization” of homosexuality under Church law cannot be the solution in an abuse scandal in which, statistically, both in Germany and worldwide, about 80 percent of the perpetrators are clearly homosexuals in the Catholic sphere. Instead of talking about facts, the “Church system” was questioned and the strict sexual morals of the church were even claimed to be the cause of the abuse.

Only after the end of the last meeting of the Synodal Path did Bishop Bode of Osnabrück, who is also a member of the Executive Board of the Synodal Path, resign from his office. He had already been sharply criticized in autumn 2022 by the first official interim report of the University of Osnabrück, which is preparing an expert report on the abuse in his own diocese, but also by associations of victims of sexual abuse. They attested that he had failed in his duty in numerous cases. An immediate resignation back then would have been appropriate, not only morally but also according to canon law.

On the Synodal Path, however, no one demanded his resignation at that time, although it was more than questionable that Bode, as vice-president, was decisively setting the agenda and chairing meetings in the name of “dealing with abuse”, while the interim report attested him severe failures in his function as bishop, especially in dealing with abuse cover-ups. It took an official canonical complaint to the Vatican, submitted by the associations of those affected, before Bode surprisingly announced his resignation after his work on the Synodal Path had been completed. Bode was handled with kid gloves, he finally forced the reforms. The same mob has been mercilessly driving Cardinal Woelki for years because he does not go along with the reform wishes.

Collective criticism of the system rather than individual confession of guilt

The Bode case is symptomatic of the German problem: instead of naming individual guilt, which must also be confessed individually and whose consequences must also be shouldered personally, the blame continues to be attributed to an alleged power system of the bishops and to Catholic sexual morality, which is said to exclude people.

To this day, the German Catholic LGBT lobby group called #Outinchurch, a collection of professing non-heterosexual church workers and priests, is one of the big driving forces of this whole process. You have to understand this to realize why the pressure in Germany is so great and why, of course, no one can be satisfied with the outcome of the Synodal Path and the status quo achieved so far.

For the conservatives, the decisions go too far; for the left-liberals, they go still not far enough.

The German Sonderweg is only strategically on ice

The current situation in the follow-up phase of the Synodal Path is now complicated. On the one hand, things have gone quiet because the work of the successor body “Synodal Committee” is not to start until November 2023, after the World Synod in Rome in October 2023.

This is quite cleverly timed because the universal Church and also the Vatican will not hear until then of any absurd and also concrete demands from Catholic officials in Germany. The German process has been put on ice until November and at the same time the progressive German laity can maintain the illusion that the German demands will be presented intensively at the World Synod and that they will certainly find allies against the encrusted structures in Rome.

With this strategy, both sides are kept under false illusions. One should not be deceived by the tranquility in the Vatican and also in the other parts of the global Church, which have already been concerned. Unfortunately, these are only tactical games, because first of all the structures and the financing have to be clarified. And there is nothing one could use less right now than further heated debates. These will only be resumed after verbal assurances have been given at the World Synod in Rome in October that this Synodal Council would certainly never decide or even implement anything against the doctrine and order of the Church.

Dilemma: The Germans are planning a Council that Rome has banned

On the other hand, there is a great deal of noise behind the German Catholic scenes, and sometimes also in front of the cameras, because essential questions have not been clarified, especially the legal legitimacy of the committee, its working methods and its financing. And the ultimate goal – the establishment of a Synodal Council as a kind of Church parliament – was even explicitly forbidden by Rome in a letter in January 2023. One is stuck in an insoluble trap. If one creates a body that restricts bishops in their office in the slightest, Rome will possibly take a tougher stance. If one does not, the German lay functionaries will escalate, demanding precisely this disempowerment.

On January 16th,  the Vatican had written to say that the Catholic Church in Germany was not authorized to set up a synodal council as a governing body. Several bishops, including the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, had declared that they still wanted to hold on to it. It was also added from Rome that no German bishop would be forced to participate in the work of such a committee to form a council.

The German Nuncio Nikola Eterovic even specified, “That according to a correct interpretation of the content of this letter, not even a diocesan bishop can set up a synodal council at diocesan or parish level.” There can hardly be a clearer rejection of councils in whatever form. The Germans have nevertheless decided on it in the Synodal Path and are now looking for a way to enforce what they want, while pretending to move within the legitimate framework of canon law.

Not a single decision is binding

So the Catholic Church in Germany is currently in a kind of implementation phase, but what may and should be implemented is not certain, despite the resolutions and almost three years of work. This is because the entire Synodal Path has a little problem: even according to its own statutes, not a single resolution is binding.

It literally states in Article 11, paragraph 5:

Decisions of the Synodal Assembly do not of themselves have legal effect. The authority of the Bishops’ Conference and of the individual diocesan bishops to issue legal norms and to exercise their magisterium within the scope of their respective competence remains unaffected by the resolutions.

This is how all the “ambassadors” of the German Special Path, such as Bishop Bätzing and the President of the ZdK (Central Committee of German Catholics) and Vice-President of the Synodal Path, Irme Stetter-Karp, tirelessly argued and affirmed to the universal Church and above all to the Vatican: all the decisions of the Synodal Path are not binding under canon law and do not oblige anyone – not even a bishop – to implement them. Now they no longer want to know anything about this and instead denounce those dioceses that simply take the statutes at their word.

The trick of “self-commitment” of the bishops

Accordingly, at the last annual meeting of the ZdK, the lay representative Stetter-Karp loudly outraged the press in May 2023 about the “absolutist system of power” that must come to an end and about men who “cement” their power. Moreover, she was “furious” about the negative reactions of bishops and curia cardinals regarding the progressive decisions of the German reform dialogue. She stressed that she “insists” that the decisions of the Synodal Path be implemented “in all German dioceses”. In particular, she was not very amused that the decided regular preaching and baptism by women, but also the right of the laity to have a say in the election of bishops, have been cancelled again from Rome within a few weeks.

So the fact remains: no bishop in Germany theoretically has to implement any of this. Everything boils down to what the critics of this construct have said from the beginning: The Synodal Path relies on media and social pressure. Not for nothing did they try to force the bishops to vote on a kind of “self-commitment” to implement it in their diocese. This paper was in fact the almost only one not to be voted on, but was referred to the new Synodal Committee for further discussion, because it became foreseeable at the last meeting of the Synodal Path in March that it would otherwise have been lost in the vote.

Unkeepable promises on all sides

In the implementation phase of the Synodal Path, which has just begun, the whole problem is now becoming apparent: Team Bätzing promised the lay people involved in this process something that could not be implemented in terms of church law, and they knew it. Strictly speaking, all the synod members knew it too, at least those who could read. But they also liked to be blinded by their own enthusiasm and by their own stubbornness. But also by the hope for sensational reforms, which was stirred up by leading bishops of the Bishops’ Conference – and who are now unable to deliver.

And now Bätzing is also reaping the frustration of those functionaries who are asking themselves what they have actually spent two years painstakingly working on their reform wishes for, if it is all not going to be implemented anyway. He had simply promised them too much and is currently caught between the fronts of those who criticize him for going too far and those who criticize him for not going far enough.

“Renunciation of power is only possible as renunciation of office”.

Numerous prominent canon lawyers have spoken out in recent years and denounced the problem that they are operating here with liabilities that simply do not exist.

Most recently, the emeritus canon lawyer Norbert Lüdecke attested to the planned Synodal Committee that it did not even exist under canon law and therefore could not constitute itself as a body, and certainly could not call another council into being. Only clergy could make decisions, lay people could only prepare them, which is why the entire Synodal Path is no more than a recommendation, but never binding.

He is just as sharp in his criticism of the plan that the bishops could follow the path voluntarily in some form. Lüdecke says: “The legend of voluntary self-commitment as a path to reform should finally be put to bed.” For bishops, the “renunciation of power is only a renunciation of office”.

Consequence: Bishops’ right of veto to be abolished

In order to avoid the mistakes of “voluntarism”, the laity now want to strategically reorganise the work in the planned Synodal Committee. Specifically, they want to eliminate the bishops’ current veto power in order to be able to overrule the bishops.

Until now, the Synodal Path required a two-thirds majority among the bishops apart from the simple majority of the plenum for a decision to be valid. In the newly planned body, there will no longer be a blocking minority of the bishops and thus, in reality, the only and last hurdle with which a minority of the bishops could still prevent the worst is removed.

To do this, one must know: In the composition of the Synodal Committee, the bishops are already in a minority anyway, because only the diocesan bishops, but not the auxiliary bishops, are mandatorily appointed, some bishop positions are currently vacant and one may be curious at all which bishops will participate, since they do not have to. Currently, 27 bishops are specifically on the list of participants, so the remaining 47 members of the committee, who were elected from the ranks of the ZdK and by the plenary assembly of the Synodal Path, already have a structural majority from the very first minutes.

Only through a veto right would the bishops have anything at all to decide – and even that is now being nipped in the bud.

Repeating the same trick

At the same time, of course, the paradox of canon law would remain in the planned Synodal Committee: Wonderfully formulated, it says that the “decisions of the Committee shall have the same legal effect as the decisions of the Synodal Path”, see Article 11, paragraph 5 as already mentioned above – namely none at all!

So one repeats the same trick by pretending that nothing is binding under canon law, which one also assures the universal Church and the Vatican, only to then denounce that what has been decided must now be implemented after all.

It is almost absurd from the point of view of Church law that a committee, which itself is not legitimate should create another body, namely the Synodal Council. Can a committee in which not even all of Germany’s bishops will participate, and of which it is even said in Rome that there is no obligation for bishops to join it, conceive anything at all that should nevertheless be binding for the absent bishops and all of Germany’s Catholics afterwards?

Simple, logical questions for those who have even traces of legal or canonical training remain unanswered.

Glimmer of hope: no money, no fun

The signals are pointing to escalation, and this is good news because it finally forces every single German bishop to admit where he stands. There is a unique chance to put an end to this whole spook in Germany, and it is through a very banal thing: the money to finance all these bodies, committees and councils has not yet been decided. Without money, there is no committee and also no council.

The progressives of the Synodal Path have another quite mundane problem: the budget has not even been approved with certainty and a power struggle is raging behind the scenes right now.

In very practical terms, the part of the work of the German dioceses that is financed jointly is organised through a central “Association of German Dioceses (VDD)”. Depending on their assets, all dioceses pay their share into the fund. All diocesan bishops there decide jointly and – this is essential – above all with unanimity on the use of the funds.

The costs of the Synodal Path, which have meanwhile grown to at least 7.5 million, were also financed from this fund. And the spokesperson of the German Bishops’ Conference, when asked by the press after the last Plenary Assembly, had stated that, as before, 2.5 million Euros per year had been earmarked for the further work of the Synodal Committee. Moreover, no one has ever quantified the costs of a possible Synodal Council and its work until the end of time. We are talking about notable sums here, especially since it can also be assumed that numerous other diocesan subsidies would finance further projects and implementation structures on the ground in all dioceses.

The real costs of the “Synodal Path” project are a single story of hiding and concealment in different jurisdictions.

Refusal of money as a means of pressure

The bishops Rainer Maria Woelki, Rudolf Voderholzer, Bertram Meier, Stefan Oster and Gregor Maria Hanke once wrote a letter to Rome asking for clarification, thus provoking the papal reply about the inadmissibility of a synodal council, but also the information about the non-obligation to participate in it.

It was precisely the same bishops again who, in the so-called “Permanent Council” of the Bishops’ Conference, objected to an automatism and questioned the financing of all further synodal phases and councils. Through the instrument of financing, they could now bring down both the Committee and the Council – if they can withstand the increasing pressure within the Church, but also from the public. Just one bishop is enough to block and the budget from the VDD’s treasury cannot be touched because it has to be decided unanimously.

Already, on April 5th, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer had demanded in a letter to the ZdK Presidents and Bishop Georg Bätzing that an additional decision within the Bishops’ Conference was necessary to start the work of the Synodal Committee and that voting on the Synodal Path was no substitute for this. In a first consultation, which took place in the VDD on April 24th, there was apparently no agreement.

Rumors about massive quarrels among the “bishop brothers” had already been circulating for weeks. For example, Cardinals Marx and Woelki are said to have clashed harshly – at the same time, these are also the bishops of the two richest dioceses in Germany, they both pay the most into the VDD’s fund. Bishop Oster kept silent for the time being, saying that he would wait for the next meeting of the “Permanent Council” of the German Bishops’ Conference on the 19th of June.

Bishop Bertram Meier of Augsburg told the press already in May that he simply sees a dilemma in the Synodal Committee:

On the one hand, I share the underlying concern to promote and stabilize synodality as a way of life for the Church in Germany. On the other hand, the committee is to lead to a so-called Synodal Council, against which the Pope and important cardinals from Rome have repeatedly expressed clear reservations. As long as neither the exact objectives nor the concrete competences of the Synodal Committee have been clarified, the state of affairs is not yet ready for me to make a decision. This concerns my participation as well as the co-financing of the committee.

First test passed: No money for Synodal Committee for now

How the tug-of-war among the bishops will ultimately turn out can not be estimated at present, but those who oppose it are absolutely right: Why should they finance a committee with the money of their dioceses, in which they do not want to participate and also do not have to participate, as a papal letter personally attests to them? Why should they finance a committee whose central task is to set up a council whose installation the Pope himself has forbidden?

At the meeting of the bishops on June 19, 2023, four bishops reaffirmed their position that they want to wait for the World Synod before making any further decisions. In fact, the bishops did not even vote on the money because it was clear that it would end badly for the progressives. Participants in the meeting reported confidentially that the “crash” had now taken place. In a statement published by Bishop Oster on June 19th, it says that the bishops Gregor Maria Hanke (Eichstätt), Stefan Oster (Passau), Rudolf Voderholzer (Regensburg) and Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki (Cologne) emphasized that the plan to organize a Synod Committee in Germany right now, which would then set up a Synodal Council, was against the clear direction of the Pope, and therefore they could not go along with this step at the present time. The adopted texts of the Synodal Path should therefore now be brought into discussion with Rome and into the Synodal process of the universal Church. This was also agreed at the Adlimina visit of the bishops in Rome last November, during which, however, a new body was not discussed at any time.

The criticism of the four is also substantially directed against the decisions of the Synodal Path. Their statement goes on to say:

In the Synodal Path decisions were taken which cause unrest among many believers throughout the world: they concern profound questions of doctrine, above all the doctrine of the Church, of man, of the sacraments.

If one were to “go further, the polarity among the believers in our country, among the bishops and in the world church would only be further strengthened”. Some questions were so profound that they could only be clarified by a Council.

Moving forward even without money

The progressive body of the bishops and the laity are now discussing “synodal bypass” strategies for financing, freely following the motto: If these four or five do not go along, the others will have to finance it on their own. Both the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) under the leadership of Bishop Bätzing and the lay representatives of the ZdK immediately took a position accordingly.

In a statement, the DBK undauntedly announced that “the first meeting of the Synodal Committee should take place, as planned, on 10/11 November 2023”. In addition, financial and personnel resources would be necessary at the level of the German Bishops’ Conference to “accompany the further work on the resolutions” and this would also include the monitoring of the Synodal Committee. Plans are already being made until the “sixth Synodal Assembly in 2026, which is to evaluate the results”.

Since this would have to be decided unanimously “and four bishops have declared that they will not agree to further financing of the Synodal Path via the Association of German Dioceses (VDD),” an alternative financing model would have to be explored that would enable the work to continue.

Nobody can stop us!

The ZdK, led by Stetter-Karp, was pleased about the promise of “alternative financing”. The fact that a unanimous agreement on the financing of the Synodal Committee among the bishops would not have been possible would show “that the undivided power of disposal over the church tax in the hands of the bishops has experienced a caesura with today.” It is time, she said, for the people of the Church and the bishops to finally discuss and then decide together on priorities and distributions.” At least what was also one of the unspoken aims of the Synodal Path is openly stated here: to withdraw the power of control over the money from the bishops.

If this scenario of “alternative financing” comes about, it would be a novelty in many respects and possibly even a breach of the dam. Up to now, the bishops have always agreed in the end; one has never acted past the VDD to push something through. Doing it now could also become a new rule and further call into question the principle of unity.

Lack of unity leads to even less legitimacy

Moreover, it is not automatic that, apart from those five bishops mentioned, all others will actually participate in an alternative financing of a committee. Quite a few dioceses are currently on a tough savings course due to falling revenues, so who wants to finance another committee whose purpose cannot be determined in terms of canon law? With every diocese that does not participate, the legitimacy of the newly created bodies also decreases. They would not be able to decide anything that affects everyone, nor would they be able to enforce anything that everyone has to participate in. Within the already existing German special path, numerous side roads and an ever greater distance from the universal Church would develop.

It will be interesting to see whether those five bishops who are (finally) openly showing resistance here will still be convinced in the matter, or remain true to their convictions. In any case, they have won some time, at least until the conclusion of the World Synod. If they buckle, they will bear the guilt of having failed at a historic moment and of having helped to make possible and finance new structures that will cut into their own bishop’s chair, but above all into the doctrine of the Church and the unity of the universal Church.

On the way to a “dirty” schism

However, quite under the radar of the perception in the universal Church and the reporting in the media, the unspirit of the Synodal Path is already spreading quite practically in German dioceses. Even without binding resolutions or even against the directives from Rome, one simply creates facts and implements defiantly what one wants. In Germany, what critics to the Synodal Path, such as the lay initiative “New Beginning”, had predicted in extensive analyses, is taking shape now: a dirty schism is looming for Germany, as in many dioceses they are simply implementing what they want.

Why fight for resolutions, wait for answers from Rome, or even fight for a change in the Catholic Catechism, when in Germany one can simply do it because some bishops not only tolerate it, but even support and push it?

This spring, the blessing of a gay couple took place in the diocese of Aachen with great pomp and media accompaniment, in great confusion with a Church sacrament. The bishop in charge, Helmut Dieser, announced that he would leave the decision of whether a priest wanted to bless a same-sex couple to each priest as a “decision of conscience”. So now the teaching of the Church must be subordinated to the conscience of each priest – or also to the pressure that this priest may receive from the parish and from the press if he refuses.

“Liturgy” for blessing ceremonies for “couples who love each other”.

Only a few weeks ago, a working group consisting of staff from different dioceses published new instructions for a liturgy for blessing celebrations for all couples who wish to do so, who cannot count on the marital sacrament of marriage because of current Church teaching, but whose relationship is nevertheless to be blessed in Germany with a liturgy of their own.

Although the paper makes a verbal effort to find a demarcation between marriage and the sacrament, in fact it has written an instruction manual on how such blessing ceremonies can be carried out throughout Germany.

Explicitly, the focus is on homosexual couples and divorced remarried couples. Plans have already been developed on how to train staff nationwide so that they can then also conduct these celebrations in the dioceses. In fact, one is putting one’s foot in the door to celebrate a kind of “marriage lite”. However, the slogan has already been pronounced by numerous actors on the Synodal Path: the ultimate goal is to have a marriage for all couples.

New offices for “queer pastoral work” everywhere

Who approves working groups that have already prepared the implementation papers parallel to the Synodal Path, although nothing has been decided yet? From which dioceses is it financed that employees of the Church can now do their LGBT lobby work full-time in the name and also on the account of the Church? In almost all dioceses there is a lack of money and for training young people, yet almost everywhere new positions are being created for “queer” pastoral work and the budgets for this are being approved.

Although it was forbidden by Rome, in some dioceses only women are baptizing explicitly and without necessity, because one wants to give them a ministry. What Rome dictates does not matter on the ground. Sometimes those on ground proudly proclaim that they don’t care what Rome says.

Since January 2023, the same Catholic Church in Germany, through a new labor law, no longer even requires its own employees to profess their faith, which somehow shows in their real lifestyle. In fact, it is enough to still be a member of the Church tax community on paper. What the Church, as Germany’s largest employer, no longer wants to demand, however, and what may also no longer be a reason for dismissal, is the question of the personal lifestyle of its own Church employees.

Explicitly meant here are relationship status, sex life and also sexual orientation. The Church’s new labor law thus waives the right of well-paid employees who work on behalf of the Church to live according to the Church’s rules themselves. The Church’s own credibility becomes a farce; in concrete terms, it means that even officially state “married” homosexual Church employees can now lead youth groups, confirmation classes, or Catholic kindergartens and schools.

Church employees are committed to new sexual morality

Already one year ago (while the Synodal Path was still running as a process) a handout with guidelines for sexual education work was published in the diocese of Limburg with the personal blessing of Bishop Georg Bätzing. It commits all diocesan employees to a sexual morality that does without reference to Church doctrine, but instead recommends the blessing of all possible “couples” (sexuality between “woman and woman”, “man and man”, or “between people” who define themselves as neither) as desirable. Are we supposed to be happy that for now that it is limited to only two people per partnership? But by what right are Catholics being committed to an arbitrary new morality here?

The paradoxical situation arises that employees who are faithful to Church doctrine are under pressure to resign, while those who disregard Catholic teaching are henceforth protected by the same labor law.

The Catholic Church in Germany, despite declining church tax revenues, unfortunately still does not have a serious financial problem, as it still receives its funds through the unique German church tax system, even from those who are only baptized on paper but never show up in church on Sundays.

One can only wish that the number of resignations continues to rise so that the money for such Church policies runs out and the Church in Germany has to turn back to its Unique Selling Point: Proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ and salvation. The biggest enemies of Catholic teaching are not standing with banners in front of the parish doors in Germany, they are sitting inside at their desks.

It remains an almost neurotic German nature that everything one does must necessarily be implemented with perfection, even if it is one’s own downfall. In any case, no Church in the world pays its own enemies as generously as the Germans do.