Members of the German synodal committee will decide in November whether to approve statutes establishing a new national synodal body, in a step that could reignite tensions between the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Germany.
Newsdesk (15/05/2025 12:50, Gaudium Press) A statement at the end of the synodal committee’s plenary meeting in Magdeburg said the new body would “make fundamental decisions on pastoral planning and future issues of the Church of supradiocesan importance,” as well as advising “on financial and budgetary matters of the Catholic Church in Germany that are not decided at diocesan level.”
The creation of a new nationwide synodal body was one of the most controversial proposals endorsed by participants in the 2019-2023 synodal way, co-sponsored by the bishops’ conference and the lay Central Committee of German Catholics, known by its German abbreviation, ZdK.
The initiative, launched in the wake of a harrowing abuse crisis, produced 150 pages of resolutions, appealing for women deacons, a re-examination of priestly celibacy, lay preaching at Masses, a bigger lay role in selecting bishops, and a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexuality.
A resolution approved in September 2022 called for the establishment of a permanent “advisory and decision-making body” known as the synodal council, composed of bishops and lay people.
It said the new body would “take fundamental decisions of supradiocesan significance on pastoral planning, future perspectives of the Church, and financial and budgetary matters of the Church that are not decided at diocesan level.”
But in January 2023, the Vatican informed the German bishops that neither they nor synodal way participants had the authority to establish the body.
The Vatican argued that the synodal council would represent “a new governance structure of the Church in Germany which … would place itself above the authority of the German bishops’ conference and would in fact appear to replace it,” undermining episcopal authority as outlined in the documents of Vatican Council II.
But after the synodal way ended in March 2023, a new interim body known as the synodal committee was established with the main task of setting up the synodal council by March 2026.
In February 2024, the Vatican asked the German episcopate to postpone a vote on the statutes of the transitional synodal committee, ahead of talks between German bishops and curial officials in Rome.
The signatories of the Vatican letter included Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the then-prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and now Pope Leo XIV.
German bishops flew to Rome in March 2024 for discussions with senior Vatican officials, building on talks over the synodal way that began during their last ad limina visit in 2022. The Vatican representatives at the meeting included Cardinal Prevost.
At a follow-up meeting in June 2024, also attended by Cardinal Prevost, the German bishops and the Vatican issued a joint statement, saying that a commission created by the German synodal committee would “deal with questions of synodality and the structure of a synod body.”
The statement said the commission would “work in close contact with a similar commission composed of representatives of the competent dicasteries in order to draw up a draft.”
It added that Vatican officials had requested that the name “synodal council” be dropped and other unspecified aspects of the proposed body be changed.
The statement said the new body should be “neither above nor at the same level as the bishops’ conference.”
At last week’s meeting in Magdeburg, there was “a lively debate on the structure” of the new body, according to the press release issued by organizers.
Katholisch.de, the official news website of the Catholic Church in Germany, reported that there was a “fierce” debate over how many ZdK members should sit on the future body.
“Some synod members raised the idea of whether there necessarily needed to be as many ZdK members as bishops, or whether this number could be reduced in favor of other groups. Representatives of the lay body strongly disagreed,” it said.
Critics have questioned to what extent the ZdK accurately represents the wider Catholic community in Germany.
Ultimately, synodal committee members voted that the new body should include all 27 bishops leading German dioceses and an equal number of ZdK members. Further individuals may be elected to the body by the bishops and ZdK representatives.
Following Pope Francis’ April 21 death, the German bishops’ conference publicized a handout for pastoral workers on blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples. Critics claimed that the document, dated April 4, was at variance with the 2023 Vatican declaration Fiducia supplicans.
The handout was approved by a body known as the Joint Conference, which periodically brings together representatives of the bishops’ conference and ZdK.
Meanwhile, on May 3, Bishop Bätzing underlined his commitment to women’s ordination in the Catholic Church.
Speaking at the German Protestant Kirchentag in Hanover, he said: “I wish it and will do everything for it.”
- Raju Hasmukh with files from The Pillar
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