Cardinal Marx: Read his letter to the Pope here

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Cardinal Marx (archive)

Photo: Andreas Arnold / dpa

In a three-page letter, Cardinal Marx offered the Pope to renounce the office of Archbishop of Munich and Freising.

The diocese has published the following text on its website in three languages, according to which it is the cardinal's letter to the Pope, "personal and confidential".

"Holy Father,

there is no doubt that the Church in Germany is going through times of crisis. Of course, there are many reasons for this - also beyond Germany and around the world - which I do not need to explain in detail here. But the crisis is also caused by our own failure, our fault. This is becoming increasingly clear to me when looking at the Catholic Church as a whole, not only today, but also in the past decades. We are - so my impression - at a certain "dead point", which however, this is my Easter hope, can also become a "turning point". The "Easter faith" also applies to us bishops in our pastoral care: Whoever wants to win his life will lose it; whoever loses it will win it!

Since last year I have been thinking more intensively about what this means for me personally and - encouraged by the Easter season - I have come to the decision to ask you to accept my resignation from the office of Archbishop of Munich and Freising. In essence, for me it is about sharing responsibility for the catastrophe of sexual abuse by church officials in the past few decades. For me, the studies and reports of the last ten years consistently show that there have been a lot of personal and administrative errors, but also institutional or “systemic” failures. Recent discussions have shownthat some in the church do not want to acknowledge this element of co-responsibility and thus also complicity of the institution and are therefore opposed to any reform and renewal dialogue in connection with the abuse crisis.

I see it differently. Both must remain in view: mistakes for which we are personally responsible and the institutional failure that calls for changes and reforms in the church. From my point of view, a turning point out of this crisis can only be a "synodal path", a path that really enables the "differentiation of spirits", as you have repeatedly emphasized and emphasized in your letter to the Church in Germany.

I have been a priest for forty-two years and a bishop for almost twenty-five years, of which twenty years have been a full professor of a large diocese. And I feel painfully how much the reputation of the bishops in the ecclesiastical and in the secular perception has sunk, and has possibly reached a low point. In my view, in order to take on responsibility, it is not enough to react only when errors and omissions can be proven from the files, but rather to make it clear that we, as bishops, also stand for the institution of the church as a whole.

It is also not possible to simply connect the grievances largely with the past and the officials of the time and thus "bury" them. In any case, I feel my personal guilt and responsibility also through silence, omissions and too much concentration on the reputation of the institution. It was only after 2002 and then increasingly since 2010 that victims of sexual abuse have been brought into focus more consistently, and this change of perspective has not yet been achieved. Overlook and disregard of the victims has certainly been our greatest fault in the past.

After the MHG study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference, I said in the cathedral in Munich that we had failed.

But who is this "we"?

I belong to that too.

And that then means that I also have to draw personal conclusions from it.

That is becoming more and more clear to me.

I think one way of expressing this willingness to take responsibility is by resigning from office.

So maybe I can set a personal sign for new beginnings, for a new awakening of the church, not only in Germany.

I want to show that the focus is not on the ministry, but on the mission of the gospel.

That too is part of the pastoral care.

I therefore very much ask you to accept this waiver.

I am still happy to be a priest and bishop of this church and will continue to be involved in pastoral care wherever you deem it useful and good.

I would like to devote the next few years of my service to pastoral care and to work for a spiritual renewal of the Church, as you tirelessly urge us to do.

Oboedientia et Pax

and oremus pro invicem

Your obedient

Reinhard Cardinal Marx

Archbishop of Munich and Freising «

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